It’s a the right shift assignment operator so x >>= 4 right shifts x by 4 and assigns the result back to x. The code editor is displaying single double wide symbol (ligature) instead of the three character long operator >>=, I discovered today these are in fact well loved by some coders.

That’s neat, so TIL ligature in code do actually have a strong following

LGTM. Though do people really code with ligatures turned on?

Edit: Ok so there are some big advocates of ligatures, I’m going to have to give them a second chance. I’ll try for a week, and either way that Fira Code font looks great.

Maybe it’s that this is a better a metaphor for the destruction of the common cultural heritage of the environment? Not many people can relate to or are inconvenienced by a very expensive private boat sinking.

Thanks for the notes, I found it was surprisingly difficult to emulate the style. The above was already after several rounds of nonsensification and I was thinking I had gone too far but on reflection should have gone further.

Folks, let me tell you, Goldilocks. Goldilocks is a fantastic story. Tremendous story, okay? She walks into the house, right? And there are three bears. Can you believe it? Three big, beautiful bears. She tries the porridge. First one, too hot. Way too hot. Who makes porridge that hot? Disastrous. Then the second one, too cold. Nobody likes cold porridge. It’s just wrong. But the third one, folks, it’s just right. Perfect. Tremendous porridge. The best. But you know, what Goldilocks did, breaking into that house? It’s a crime. But the media doesn’t talk about that. But you have to wonder, are those bears even here legally? We need to know who’s coming into our country. And that’s why we need our great police officers, they’re tremendous. They’re doing an incredible job. But the media, they don’t want to talk about that. They want to focus on negativity. So unfair. We’ve got to support our police, folks. They’re the ones keeping us safe from those rioters, from Antifa. Just terrible people, really. And what about our Second Amendment rights? The right to bear arms, folks. Very important. We have to protect that.

And let me tell you, if those three little piggies had been allowed to arm themselves, maybe they’d still be here today. Imagine that, I mean the first little pig builds his house out of straw. Not good. Devastating. The second pig, sticks. Better, but still not great. If they had proper protection, maybe the wolf wouldn’t have been such a problem. Just think about that. So, the third pig, he’s smart. Genius. He builds his house out of bricks. Solid bricks. Huge house. Tremendous. The wolf comes, and he huffs and puffs. But he can’t blow it down. Can’t do it. Just like the border. We need to build that wall. Keep out the bad guys, the criminals, the drugs. We can’t have them pouring into our country. Just can’t have it. And this pig, he stands up to the wolf. Defeats him. Wow. It’s symbolic, you know? It’s about migrants, so many. The wolf is the story, it’s the threats coming over our border. And we need to be like that third pig, building big strong defenses. Solid defenses. Making sure we’re protected. And the pigs, they all end up in the brick house, safe from the wolf. Wow, like we need to keep our country safe from all the threats out there. Tremendous story. The best. And we’ve got tremendous people.

One great use I have found for ChatGPT and family is helping me divine command line one-liners for standard shell programs. Generating commands for tools like ffmpeg are also reasonably successful and saves a lot of time digging through man files

If the angle of the jet is more then a little off axis the jet may still visible if it is sufficiently powerful and it passes through a scattering medium (interstellar dust?) the wiki page for blazars shows just such an example in the M87 galaxy

It looks like their current generation of systems are electricity in, via resistive heating, then heat out via hot air. Efficient electricity out would appear to be an active research area for them, but it would also seem, that there are still a number of applications where on demand heat at several hundreds of degrees is still very valuable.

There is a sand battery start up in Tampere (Finland) that is heating to 1k Celsius so by the OPs calculations that would still give it a small edge over water but with the added bonus of the intrinsic insulation - very handy in the cold winters. They have a pilot plant that is being developed to support the municipal heating network.

Was not expecting ceephax to pop up on my evening scroll but I’m very much here for it!

The OU has always had strong distance learning teaching, I have a family member who pivoted to a new career thanks largely to getting a degree with the OU. Also completing a degree through a remote program from and provider is a great indicator of your resolve and tenacity and can easily be a great selling point to future jobs etc.

Ah so it looks like “independent ai discoveries” in research might be the new “no cgi/special effects” in films, like just acknowledge all the people who worked day and night to make the end result, it doesn’t detract from the final result if it was a group effort.

I’m thinking OP clearly didn’t read/understand the article or it’s deliberately sensationalising the paper, yet weirdly simultaneously denigrating it as basic science.

Well done!

I was confused for a moment why the purple regions don’t appear in the legend then I realised those are mostly populated by fish

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World — Elif Shafak.

It of course depends on the context and choice of ethics framework. If the decision is personal I like to use the shorthand: If you have the privilege to choose, then choose to build the type of future you want to live in.

Nice! Always been a fan of ink and water colour since discovering Quentin Blake’s illustrations as a kid.

Such a soothing voice too.

Maybe that was a rash decision.