We have a lovely backup generator on site that turns on anytime an electrical storm is detected within 50km of our DC. That thing is something out of a cruiseship so yeah, I can imagine real huge data centers must be an order of magnitude worse.

You’re right, I’m sorry, I really should educate myself about the US beyond the 40+ years of propaganda I’ve had to endure and the absolutely constant, never ending stream of shit across all media I’m the grateful recipient of, thanks to the Internet™. But honestly, I’m kinda scared I’d actually die if I came to visit.

Meanwhile, my experience with China over the last ten years or so has left me regularly wondering, in the grand scheme of things, what the fucking difference is. You both are absolutely insane, from where I live.

But yes, I was totally cherry picking your message. I don’t disagree with you, to be clear. I’m just amused about your choice of epithet.

I’m being slightly disingenuous by focusing on one expression in the entire message, granted.
But honestly, using “one party state” as an epiteth, like that’s what you want to focus on that’s badwrong about China? that’s amusing to me, reading this from Europe. YMMV.

China is a one-party state

I wish you could realise how hilarious it is to read someone comparing the US and China on their number of political parties…

Well, Israel and Russia are trying to claim some room in that space, but yeah, it’s still probably “most of them”.

That’s a surprisingly kind view of things, but yeah, my dad did mountaineering his whole life and fucked his knees proper, but also likes to enjoy good food, so now in his seventies and with diabetes creeping in, it’s a perfect combo for becoming fat.

I guess it’s a bit easier to mock Steven Seagal because he’s been so fit in his movies throughout most of his career, and now it turns out he was an asshole all along, on top of looking like an asshat even when I loved his movies. But mocking him for being an older human still feels rather cheap.

I just describe it as “bilingual level”, because fluent is often used but can represent a range of levels depending on how demanding you are.

For me, fluent is what I’d describe someone who’s studied well and can live only speaking the target language. They may have a crappy accent, make mistakes but they know they can express their ideas and be understood and generally don’t search for words.

I’d use “native level”, but that can be a bit misleading too.

And so, that’s why we have exams/diploma with levels and such.
If someone tells you they have a C2 level diploma in French, I assure you that their command of French is worthy of respect even for a native French person.

If I tell you I have HSK3/4 even in Chinese, you know I’m nowhere near fluency, despite how well I can fake it with what little I do know! :P

You think the rest of the world doesn’t follow the news when a lunatic is in the run with an actual chance of getting elected?
Turns out we have journalists, in France!

Funniest to me in this kind of debate is having my N+1 manage us from across the country, having two team members in another town, and somehow, my ass being at home 15km from the office makes any difference at all to the daily life of the team? It doesn’t. My actual manager, the dude giving us our marching orders, doesn’t care. Shit, our N+1 doesn’t care either, since he’s almost always remote himself!

Only people I’ve seen actually care seem to be HR, for whatever reason.

I don’t even get how any company with several sites has anything to stand on. Makes no fucking sense.

But that’s something I don’t actually understand, since real estate would fall under the sunk cost fallacy. Ie, if you’ve invested in real estate, the cost is spent already, right? Whether someone comes in that building is irrelevant. The costs spent to maintain, heat, clean, power the buildings, on the other hand… It’s just not really obvious to me. Seems like fewer people would cost cheaper, no?

They don’t remember. On account of their brain injury.

Religion is a private matter. When you start spreading it all over the place, then no, it has no place in school or in our (France) society in general.
I was the victim of this attitude when I was a teen and my family wanted me to follow our religion and yet I still agree with this attitude. My main beef wasn’t with the institution but with how specific teachers decided to deal with me. Ultimately I got over religion, and hopefully some of those kids will, too.