No, I just never feel good after using it

Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the algorithms, but I do notice a difference in how I feel after spending time on the Lemmy or Mastodon vs Instagram or LinkedIn

Excel is definitely not useless! Learning a little Python (especially the pandas package) can go a long way in making data analysis easier though

Now you’re speaking my language!

Every time I’ve asked ChatGPT for help coding, I’ve wound up needing to rewrite it all for myself. LLMs make baffling design decisions (because they are just paraphrasing Stack Overflow, not making actual decisions).

I have found them helpful for turning error messages into more legible explanations of what went wrong, but AI-generated code has not been effective, in my experience

I’m not a power user, so I’m often frustrated by Excel trying to do things I don’t want it to and by its abundance of features that I’ll never use.

And at least at my workplace, a lot of work processes use poorly-designed Excel spreadsheets for critical tasks, because it’s such a simple way to manipulate data.

I also find that when I need to do more complicated data analysis, Excel starts to become limited, and I find Python to be a more powerful and flexible tool.

Sure. For one, the growth imperative means that any business must return a profit as its primary function. If profits are hard to come by, that can lead to things like predatory lending and higher fees for consumers, not to mention investment in environmentally destructive, but profitable, activities. Second, by commodifying human necessities like housing and turning them into investment vehicles, housing is increasingly unaffordable for working people as prices go up. I could go on, if you’d like, but I think those are both fairly compelling arguments.

One thing that I’ve found helpful is from Naomi Klein in her most recent book. To paraphrase - conspiracy theories often get the feelings right, but the facts wrong. For example, we are all being screwed over by banks and hedge funds, but it’s because of the structures of capitalism, not the Jews. But it’s much easier, mentally, to pin the blame on one specific person or group than to grapple with the flaws inherent in the social systems we’ve created.

I hear that, but I think we need to be phasing out coal as fast as possible. Nuclear for base load and renewables plus storage for the rest is our best path forward to decarbonize ASAP

Oh yeah… arc flash. That makes sense

I misread and I’m still wondering. Can you please help me out here?

No please! Electric substations are necessary to transmit power, and we actually need more of them if we’re going to build the amount of renewables we need.

If you’re looking for parts of the electrical system that I feel less positively about, that would include data centers (especially for AI and crypto mining) and coal-fired power plants.

Of course, industrial sabotage is a crime, and with all the high voltage and current going around, it’s a particularly dangerous one at that. Would not recommend

Well, I’ve read a lot of theory, and I’m pretty sure our best bet is posting memes online, crossing our fingers, and hoping for the best. We definitely shouldn’t go outside and talk to people, that’ll never work

I don’t get it. Can you explain?

It’s convention, I think. If I remember correctly, you always put y on the left, because you can also write equations as functions of a variable, x, with the symbology f(x) = mx + b. That way you can integrate and derive the function easily, since m and b are constants, and all your x variables are on one side.

If I were to encounter x = my + b, the first thing I would do, just by nature at this point, would be to convert it to y = (x - b) / m.

It’s been a while since I took math, and I was never the best, so others should feel free to correct me.