Glad to hear you do have...managers, and that they are good ones. Good managers do exist, and they do delegate.

Oh, and among your 100 people that report to these two managers? My guess is that there are *numerous* leaders within this group, who are responsible for various specific aspects of the way your team does things, or various specific groups of people. These people would have those responsibilities delegated to them by your two "managers." You aren't working *without* managers, just a distributed management structure. That's good and healthy, but it's not the same as "no" managers.

It's like accepting the Excelrrors.

Especially when there are relational databases like FileMaker Pro that will accurately save an actual database, and is so flexible, you can output files you can put into Excel, so the Microsoft crowd can be happy, and your data is safe. You can even make it display something that looks like Excel.

The Excel indoctrination and people trying to make it do stuff it wasn't designed to do has me asking people who make an excel presentation to me if they have their data saved in a real database somewhere.

FileMaker Pro seems to be one of those things that fly under the radar. When I requested it on my new work laptop, My IT guy was struck how cool it was and how simple it is to display your data any way you like, so I gave him a tour of how I use it.

One time one of our junior accountants came down, asking for some assistance with a presentation. She created her entire presentation in Excel. It was problematic. One that would have been perfect in PowerPoint, and she kinda panicked when I she saw my face. "I'm presenting tomorrow morning to the directorate!"

She was a nice kid, and I liked her, so rather than send her away, which most would have done, we did a tap-dance with her excel file to get screen caps when we could, and regular PowerPoint slides when they wouldn't work. So many hours later, we had a decent looking presentation and she aced it the next morning. She was seriously grateful. "Couldn't have done it without you - you saved me!"

Another time an engineer tried to make an instruction manual in PowerPoint. Blew through the budget. There was nothing we could do to help him. My time was flexible compared to most, but I have to put a charge number down on the time screen.

Personally, I believe that if you are happy with Microsoft products, and if it is impossible to use anything other than Microsoft, and are the business savvy smart people you are.

How many other aspects of your business that you would fail do you use? Monocultures and single points of failure aer something I always work hard to avoid. Explain how that is smarter than my silly idea of identifying and eliminating SPF's.

I understand that I am the odd man out, and that many believe that monoculture is a goal, not a liability.

Well, sure, you can usually return a product you don't like, if you don't mind the hassle of packaging it up and shipping it. And many return policies require that the package be unopened, or you incur a restocking fee. And you get pay shipping yourself, a cost that can be as much as the item's value.

And then there are gifts. My son bought me a $90 grill scraper from an influencer, and gave it to me as a birthday gift. Instead of bristles, it had little rings, like chain mail. It was supposed to be much less harsh for your grill, and won't poke you. Just one problem: it also doesn't actually clean the grill. I'm happy my son put some thought into a gift, I don't want to ruin it for him by making him return the brush. The influencer got his money.

But the conversation isn't about the ability to do returns, it's about the trustworthiness of influencers who review products. My contention is that "trustworthy influencer review" is a self-contradicting phrase.

Republicans equate being pro-market with being pro-big-business-agenda. The assumption is that anything that is good for big business is good for the market and therefore good for consumers.

So in the Republican framing, anti-trust, since is interferes with what big business wants to do, is *necessarily* anti-market and bad for consumers, which if you accept their axioms would have to be true, even though what big business wants to do is use its economic scale and political clout to consolidate, evade competition, and lock in consumers.

That isn't economics. It's religion. And when religious dogmas are challenge, you call the people challenging them the devil -- or in current political lingo, "terrorists". A "terrorist" in that sense doesn't have to commit any actual act of terrorism. He just has to be a heathen.

College is for...getting an education. Crazy thought, right?

College is *not* for making friends and finding spouses. Sure, people do that at college, but that's a side effect, not the main goal. If your goal is to get married and find friends, join a club, volunteer at a charity, hang out at a local bar, join a church, whatever kind of place matches your interests. These approaches are *much* cheaper than college, and probably will be more effective in helping you accomplish your search for friends and a spouse.

If you want an education, go to college. That's what it's for.

If your goal is meeting friends and your future spouse, college is *not* the most effective, or certainly the most cost effective, way to do those things.

If you want friends, join a community group, volunteer at a charity, join a church, become a regular at a neighborhood bar, whatever kind of community you find important. All of these are a *whole lot cheaper* than tuition, and probably a lot more effective.

If you want an education, *then* go to college.

Let's stay focused on what college is for. It is *not* primarily a social mixer. Friends and family are side effects.

I don't think you understand how AI spending works. Companies don't just "buy" an AI product. They are all *subscriptions* and many charge you *by the token*. So no, "stop spending" doesn't mean just not spending more. These companies are not discontinuing the subscriptions they have. *That* would be what it means to "stop spending."

Or that.

Apparently, registrations_suck does believe the influencers he watches.

They did - although I have seen some Neo-Nasty stuff that used Fraktur. People make the association of that font with the Nasties.

I used to get their UN "reports" and other propaganda. I got tired of their "Eat bugs for protein" lectures.

Always the same thing.Some version of Stop eating meat, go vegan. Save the world.

The problem isn't that eating meat is killing the planet. Humans just do what humans do, just like tigers and lions do what they do, and cows gonna cow.

The problem is too damn many people trying to have a first world lifestyle while reproducing at a third world rate. And the present path doesn't elevate the third world, but turns the first world into third world.

I believe that humanity should strive to have a first world lifestyle for everyone. Not possible at present population levels. These things usually devolve into people claiming that Malthus was wrong, and will always for wrong. It is only possible for Malthus to always be wrong is the earth has infinite carrying capacity, and infinite resources.

Nature will likely take care of the population/resources issue if humanity does not.

The readability thing. I've used Helvetica just about forever, and find it much more readable than TNR. Different people, different eyes, I suppose.

As I said in another post, have they not considered Fraktur? Seems their style.

And how - I guess the only upside is this administration hasn't moved to Fraktur font.