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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 6th, 2023

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  • It just does more and more easily. It styles things better, makes them more professional looking with a click. It can do certain things like nested tables in Word that Writer cannot do. Excel is much more powerful than calc, it has more functions, more refined functions, it’s easier to work with, has more and prettier chart options. And oh you can create tables in Excel that are sortable. There are many other cases.

    Now for the last two the die-hards will whine and whinge about how you should just use a software for creating charts and a database but sometimes you just want to make something quick, sometimes that’s overkill for what you need. Grandpa doesn’t need to learn how to deal with databases just to make a sortable list of books he’s read, he can just use excel and the Libreoffice people telling him to pound sand because they won’t add that feature to calc because it doesn’t belong there means he and many other people don’t use calc, they use MS office. Likewise the Libreoffice defense force saying of making graphs and charts to just use dedicated software, well many corporate types, business people, white collar workers don’t understand those things and may not be able to get them installed, what they understand, what they already have is MS office and it works and has lots of pretty, professional, very slick options which don’t make them look poorly in office meeting presentations.

    Just on the sortable tables front, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into hobby stuff that’s based on an excel file with tables that rely on being sortable. From stat sheet creators to mini-databases (<2000 rows) on some game created by fans.

    It’s useful for those who need the very bare basics of being able to open and read basic MS word documents, csv files, excel files, and to write an occasional letter. But the moment you need to start doing beyond basic formatting or dealing with files that have that, you run into issues.

    You have this gulf of usability, it’s useful for people at the very bottom of the basic needs pole, barely computer literate types who think facebook is the internet and it’s useful for highly technically competent people who can and do use other dedicated software, often without GUIs to solve problems, it’s a frustration for the middle 60% of the population who are more than basically computer literate but not scientifically trained, not CS or IT.


  • If by mainstream channels you mean major streaming services then there is no perfectly private option. But I would recommend an AppleTV as the closest thing (it also doesn’t have ads which I really appreciate).

    Other than that your options are devices that can’t access major streaming services at greater than 720p and are hackily put together on multiple levels but are fine for streaming local media you host yourself or more expensive than ATV devices and modding them with alternative launchers.


  • A dictator would never offer to step down.

    Not good logic regardless of whether you think Zelensky is or is not a dictator. A dictator might if the terms he demanded for it were those that both parties of the conflict had already ruled out.

    Making an impossible ask is hardly a sign of being reasonable or truly willing to do a thing. If I tell you I’ll give you ten million dollars but only if you can settle the mess in Palestine with the the “israeli” state and the Palestinian people permanently I’m not seriously offering you ten million dollars, my ask is impossible. No one would say it’s a good faith offer on my part.

    Trump’s team has acknowledged NATO is not viable and doesn’t even want to commit US troops in the event of a ceasefire (something Russia refuses anyways), preferring it be a Europe problem and Russia categorically will not accept Ukraine in NATO. This is a FACT.

    This conflict started over eastward NATO expansion, one of the primary, if not the most primary goals of Russia in their fight is to stop Ukraine from becoming part of NATO and stationing western weapons/troops there near them.

    Russia is winning and the support of the US is waning. They are not going to accept having spent all that treasure and blood and taken all these sanctions and in the end not get their primary goal just to get Zelensky to step down for another person who hates Russia.