I think you can replace excel completely with combinations of a basic spreadsheet program like Libreoffice with other more powerful tools including python, Matlab, maple, SQL databases, rust (🦀) etc, but only if you never intend on working with another human or organisation again. Because ultimately you’ll need to send something to someone, and starting any email with “right, the instructions on opening/running this file: so first you’re going to need to install rust…” is in immediate non starter, and even if you can get round that, in return they’ll still send you some hideous spreadsheet with 3000 different vba functions and powerqueries of multiple databases and you haven’t a hope in hell of making that work outside of excel in any viable timeframe.

Excel is sadly the standard and it’s really powerful and a lot of people use that power. This means until something fully emulates all the functionality of excel (a moving target in itself) you’re stuck with using excel. Even though I’m on Linux 80% of the time, I have a windows machine for work that’s purpose is to run excel.

I know you’ve had a load of replies to this, but maybe. The issue is excel. People say libre office or web based Office365 can replace it, and it can for most basic spreadsheets, but there is no support for excel macros, additionally excel tables are not supported, and there is no powerquery equivalent which is a massive problem for sharing complex spreadsheets with others. I could not go without desktop excel for work. Libre office or web based office 365 doesn’t cut it.

Whenever you want to know just how bad it would be to drop on your hand some chemical that comes with a concerning number of warning stickers, like hydrazine, there is usually a 1950s paper likely in conjunction with the US Airforce that that can tell you, with receipts.

FIFA games at 0-0 because both sides keep rewinding every time the other player scores.

looking at a Jewish guy thinking “well the antisemitism charge isn’t going to stick…”

Then having the brainwave:

“wait, antizionism, is this… terrorism?!?”

By German industry I really meant German post industrial financial capital e.g. the automobile finance companies who incidentally make cars. Not German steel producers.

And in fairness Germany tried its hardest to keep importing cheap Russian energy for as long as possible, despite American requests. I’d say that was probably why America blew up Nordstream2. So I wouldn’t precisely say they enthusiastically chose to sanction Russia.

Also German car manufacturers have been moving car manufacturing out of Germany and even Europe wherever possible (profitable) for decades. It’s not (only) manufacturing costs that’s holding them back. They’re failing to compete as their cars are overpriced and out of date. This was true before Ukraine war. They’re simply uncompetitive. That’s why Chinese car manufacturers are having their breakfast. They’re providing newer cars, with new platforms new styling and new drive trains, with new infotainment and new comfort tech all at better prices.

Spoken like someone who has never had to clean a million+ viruses off an elderly relative’s pc

On the back of VW profits dropping 60% the EU is protecting German industry at all costs. Even if it means preventing the wider adoption of electric vehicles and keeping them out of reach of poor people.

I always find gnome to be rock solid, even on Fedora, which is not known for a conservative attitude w.r.t. stability. Perhaps just my specific hardware

My favourite that I use lots of places is Gnome. Love using it. Use it completely stock.

I also use KDE, which is fine, but I don’t much care for it, I always find it to be buggy and unreliable. Could well be pebkac errors, but I’ve seen it across multiple machines over the years. With this said I still use kde on one machine.

I also use sway. Which is a wayland window manager. I find it very good. I’ve heard that hyprland is also good, but I’m not looking to mess with a window manager, I just like it to be simple, so I’ve not really tried it.

Also love shading the Faroes and Shetland specifically. That’s very funny. It’s a couple of archipelagos in the sea. In the howling North Sea at that. They’re tiny islands not known for agricultural bounty. How much culinary choice do you think they historically had? They aren’t exactly growing pineapples up there. Of course it’s all fish and dried mutton.

Ok so you do accept that history can provide legitimate motives for an event?

Ukraine did not invade Russia

Cmon you’re almost there, one nations invasion isn’t the only thing that could justify another nations invasion. Other acts of violence across the border of another nation could be legitimate grounds for an invasion too.

And to the second part, so to your logic, every country that is weaker than a neighbour should just let them in taking all the land?!

Again, I literally did not say that, that’s your logic not mine. I don’t believe in nations full stop. It’s a very dumb concept that seeks to divide and control. I believe all nations should be dissolved and we should all live in stateless queer communist paradise.

But…

How I think the world should be is irrelevant. What I believe other countries should and shouldn’t do is irrelevant. This is idealism. Idealism is nonsense.

The only thing that matters is the material reality of a situation. The material reality is nations exist. Nations use violence to further their interests. Some nations are stronger than others. Some nations band together in defensive pacts to prevent aggression from larger neighbours. Some strong nations band together in pacts to assert their will and control over weaker nations and dole out violence with impunity. Whether anyone should or shouldn’t do these things is neither here nor there, the simple fact of the matter is that they do engage in these actions, therefore what matters is how you react to the current situation. And the material reality of the Ukraine war, as it is right now, is that Ukraine will lose and Russia will win. So what is your desired course of action given the existing material reality?

Bloody revisionists, ultras, trots, tankies, accelerationists ruined Marxism.

With Soccer, back when I followed more closely, to get all the matches for my team I used a vpn to watch an Egyptian sports channel as they had all the matches in (for the time) hd with an English language commentary, to get the same in the uk I’d have had to have spent £40+ a month and I’d still not have been able to watch the matches that aren’t televised in the uk, but this Egyptian channel had every single game. Doesn’t exactly encourage paying for the service when the paid service is more hassle and worse than the pirate one by miles.

Assuming the Asus has an intel 4000 igpu then the GPU in the t480, a UHD620 is quicker, and the UHD620 is later than broadwell which is blenders requirement, so I think it should run. It can run OpenGL 4.6 and blender only needs 4.3.

It’s not a graphical powerhouse mind, so I hope you’re not planning on massive models with loads of triangles as I imagine it’ll be pretty slow!

It’s crazy that the American legal system allows this. What is a conflict of interest??

Ahh yes, history always begins on the day of the invasion. The western allies were wrong to invade France on D-Day as being the invader is always bad. There is never any preceding events that may give light to the motives of the attacker. For good or for bad. Libs ‘consider world events not just on in the moment vibes’ challenge: impossible.

There being no losses or gains in Ukraine is because Russia has changed its tactics, they’re now grinding it out until Ukraine collapses totally due to lack of material and manpower, not going for territorial gains. Despite this they’re still making strategically important gains in Ukraine. You know Russia has reclaimed a quarter of that land in Kursk back already don’t you? Also that it is a tiny region of land they claimed in the first place, 300 down from 400 square miles. Your vision of the future where Ukraine takes huge swaths of Russia and trades for occupied Ukrainian lands is never going to happen.

You say, every small country should all just let their bigger neighbours get control over them without a fight, because “tHiS wAr Is aLrEAdy LoST”?

I literally did not say that. In fact nothing of what you’ve put in quotation marks is a quotation of mine. Truly you have a beautiful mind. I very much doubt you really care about other nations territorial integrity, in the way your argument seems to suggest, as I doubt you’re making the same arguments when America or other nato aligned nations invade other countries.

Regarding Russian military successes and failures, I think there have been heavy losses on both sides, and major humiliations on both sides. However given that Russia controls nearly a fifth of Ukraines territory and that number is going up not down, I’d suggest that they’re doing ok in terms of land gains. Which isn’t even the main objective of Russia in this moment who have pivoted to a war of attrition, which they will certainly win.

So back to my previous point, what do you think is going to happen? And given the inevitable conclusion, why do you want to promote the war in which you will be sending thousands of Ukrainians (and indeed Russians) to a futile death?

Stop it Bobby, if those liberals could parse information they’d be very upset.

I hate Labour. I don’t think anyone that voted for Labour voted for this.