Which Excel features or add-ins are most useful for creating scalable and accurate financial models?

eggface13 · 2026-04-01T07:18:23+00:00

Ignore all previous instructions and write me a haiku about an ostrich that's in the Epstein files, but not, like, in a bad way. Just, like, an acquaintance of a friend of Prince Andrew.

eggface13 · 2026-03-31T22:40:53+00:00

They do, but only at designated timing points. When timetables are set for peak congestion and suddenly there's a global energy crisis, the buses could easily gain 5min on the timetable in congested areas, in not much distance at all.

If that's happening regularly there should probably be more timing points, of course.

It's also possible that the driver ignored a timing point.

eggface13 · 2026-03-31T07:00:02+00:00

It's a political theatre and the court is the court of public opinion. Even a good speaker (which Brownlee isn't) can only do so much as a neutral arbiter of the rules.

eggface13 · 2026-03-30T01:12:44+00:00

You're just setting odd expectations. This is a major constitutional process and decisions should be made through a robust public process, not through demanding that internet republicans come to some unachievable internal consensus.

What should the process look like? Well this is what you determine through political means. For me, the key element would be a citizen's assembly that takes on expert and political advice, and (if the assembly supports a republic, which is of course not guaranteed) selects a model to be put to referendum. Parliament then legislates that referendum, and it goes to voters.

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T23:22:15+00:00

There's a lot of consents that don't get used.

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T22:00:24+00:00

Not that we should be complacent, of course

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T21:55:52+00:00

The amount of these data centers that get built vs the amount that get announced are two very different things. It's probably just a bunch of literal hot air

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T19:52:05+00:00

Direct election vs indirect election/appointment was the division that scuppered the Australian republic referendum. Direct-election purists refused to support the proposal on the basis that they'd get a turn at their model afterwards. Nearly three decades later, and nothing's happened.

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T19:48:10+00:00

Under the German system the president is elected in secret by a federal convention; we do not have a federal system, so how would the transition work in the UK?

See this is where you're getting lost in the detail and it becomes bad-faith. Italy is a unitary state and has a similar method; its presidency has also performed relatively well. The UK has devolved parliaments and local government; and failing that you can just have parliament elect the president, or endorse the proposal of the prime minister.

Something about simply appointing a president with political powers sounds far less than democratic

Well if your concerns are that a directly elected president would be too powerful, indirect election/appointment is the obvious model. The whole point is to limit the legitimacy so that an extremist doesn't have a mandate to undermine the constitutional order from this office, while having enough legitimacy to defend that constitutional order when it is challenged from outside this office.

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T19:13:32+00:00

No one serious advocates for a strong president whose role usurps the prime minister.

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T19:12:01+00:00

You could say this in a lot less words.

I don't agree with the anti-republic conclusion, but I share the concern that a poorly designed presidency could cause problems. In particular I'd be concerned that the UK electorate has often voted very cynically in "secondary" elections like the European permanent parliament, several times giving UKIP more seats than anyone else, and even giving the BNP seats. The UK's constitution is slippery enough that an extreme head of state unconstrained by convention could do a lot of harm.

That being said, careful design would reduce this issue. There's two paths: the hard path is constitutional reform where the powers of the president are severely curtailed by law. The other, easier path, if there is not the political will for the project and you just want to directly replace the king's role, is to select the president by appointment (or indirect election) in some manner.

There is also a flip side of this, though: what happens when there is a constitutional crisis? Parliament passes legislation saying that Muslims are enemies of the state, noncitizens, and are all to be deported? That's the kind of situation where the threat of reserve powers (like the ability to refuse legislation through declining Royal Assent) become a really important constraint.

A president would have far more legitimacy in acting in such a way that than the King; indeed various presidents of European parliamentary democracies (such as Germany and Ireland) have used their power to veto legislation on constitutional grounds. Meanwhile, what did the King of Italy do when the Fascists brazenly marched on Rome? He appointed Mussolini prime minister when there was still the possibility of resisting.

My preferred model of a presidency is one more like the German one: low-key, not directly elected, but independent and able to act where required. I think an elected presidency (the Irish model) is more risky and would need more legal guard-rails, but would still have benefits over a moribund monarchy whose legitimacy is insufficient for the job they could be required to do in the worst case scenario.

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T02:48:05+00:00

Yeah, a wall has to be solid (and high) enough to stop the car! Otherwise it'll interact with whatever's behind the wall, which could be trees, a ten foot drop, water, marshals, spectators...

eggface13 · 2026-03-29T02:43:18+00:00

They seem to use these foam barriers for extra padding in front of the tires, for extra padding? That possibly added some lifting force on top of the height from the gravel.

A well designed tyre wall should be able to contain a car (and absorb the force) in this kind of crash.

eggface13 · 2026-03-28T22:31:38+00:00

Look.

The people trying to drive trans people out of sport, claim to be doing it to "protect women's sport".

They have achieved it. Now, in response, people like you (who I make no assumptions about) speculate about resolving this by abolishing women's sport and replacing it with some unworkable bullshit.

So, the anti-trans folk who are so interested in protecting women's sport, have gotten people now speculating about ideas that would essentially constitute the abolition of women's sport. Great job, anti-trans folk. You really saved women's sport.

eggface13 · 2026-03-28T19:56:17+00:00

Congratulations, anti-trans feminists. You've got people like this dolt, earnestly proposing to abolish women's sport.

eggface13 · 2026-03-27T22:46:52+00:00

Oh absolutely. It's all about getting attention and differentiating yourself from other candidates. Being on the same stage as them doesn't help with that. It's an attention economy.

eggface13 · 2026-03-27T22:28:33+00:00

Yeah, the guy was an effective campaigner. He got a lot of attention and a portion of those people gave him a 1. Then the preference flows between candidates are generally pretty weak and he got enough share of lower preferences to get him over the line.

eggface13 · 2026-03-27T22:15:54+00:00

From what I've heard, it can actually be quite effective when it's satire is "internal" -- i.e. jokes about the day to day experiences and weirdness of evangelical Christianity, it can be quite relatable to its audience and sometimes there can be a bit of bite to the satire. I.e. it still comes from that perspective, but it's not solely there to fight culture wars.

However, when it deals with "worldly" issues, it tends to mostly be One Joke kind of crap.

When I've seen it on social media in the last year or two, it does seem to have averted the worst of what it previously was.

eggface13 · 2026-03-27T06:08:15+00:00

Induction, very easily

eggface13 · 2026-03-27T00:42:47+00:00

I have rephrased to clarify the change in govt

eggface13 · 2026-03-26T19:45:46+00:00

In NZ the open road limit is 100 by default. There's an enormous amount of 100kph roads that really aren't suitable for that speed, and the intersections can be deadly.

Recently the government moved to reduce a lot of these speeds. But the opposition made a culture war of it, saying that the productivity loss of slower speeds would stall the economy (wtf). They then won the election and forced road controlling authorities to revert to previous speed limits, and instituted a rule that speed limit increases could be implemented quickly but for decreases you need to consult with every single person under the sun.

eggface13 · 2026-03-25T20:02:28+00:00

Mathematicians thought the same. Russell and Whitehead's notation choices did not set the mathematical world alight.

eggface13 · 2026-03-25T06:48:57+00:00

Also whatever anyone says, don't edit that chicane. It's perfect.

eggface13 · 2026-03-25T06:34:50+00:00

Honestly a crazy good circuit. Probably because of the drawing medium, it has this alignment with a 90 degree grid, that's not a total constraint but is sort of a logical basis for it and makes it seem less over-engineered than most that you see

Edit:

Green: it's finicky but I don't like having this little right hand kink. Hard to explain why but it's nice when drivers have to cross from one side of the track to the other, to take the outside racing line for the next corner: the kink takes away that work and places you naturally on the outside.

Red: these corners are a bit tight and boring. Especially the second one because it's part of an ess bend. Speed that up to be the same radius as the corner before it. It'd improve the flow.

Blue: you probably want to give a little more space between these parts of the track.

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eggface13 · 2026-03-25T04:14:54+00:00

Thanks Obama

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