I assume the answer is no, but do you have access to a more powerful desktop? If so, you could potentially work remotely on the desktop to have the benefit of portability with your laptop and more capability with the desktop. That's how I play more demanding games on my laptop.

Since you don't need a powerful GPU, if you have a little cash available, you could potentially get a more powerful refurbished desktop for that purpose for $300-500 (in the US). The low end of that range would get you 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage; the high end would potentially get you 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. If you don't have a monitor, you could potentially plug it into a TV for setup and then just remote into it the rest of the time. (or grab a cheap refurb monitor)

I definitely agree with that.

This week at work, my team reported a major system outage. There was a lengthy conference call to solve the outage and afterwards someone (not from my team) ran a transcript of the call through copilot to generate an executive summary and sent it up to top level leadership.

Copilot misunderstood the relevance of various comments (surprise!) and effectively reported that my team reported the outage almost an hour after we became aware of it. This caused us to get yelled at by senior leadership for failing to report a major issue in a timely manner. We then had to waste time proving that we had escalated the issue appropriately within minutes and listen to the call recording again to figure out where the incorrect reference came from and provide quotes from the transcript to explain why the summary was wrong.

So far there have been some very small use cases where I have found LLMs slightly useful but mostly they cause me more work than they save (by a lot). And yet, I keep hearing more and more from my company that they want "AI" to analyze things for us.

When I moved into my house last year, the garage entry door handles were reversed so the key hole was inside the house and the little bit you twist to lock and unlock the door was in the garage.

I agree with you on both points there. Skyrim NPCs are definitely a weak point and there was some good content in the side quests of the Witcher series.

Depends on what you like. I love Skyrim and hate the Witcher games. The thing that I hate the most about the Witcher games is that using a main character from books locks you into certain parts of the canon that kills my vibe from an RPG perspective. In particular, I don't care about Yennefer even a little bit but any time she shows up in the story, the main character throws away all prior decisions and chases after her. I prefer RPGs that let me imagine who my character is as much as possible.

I would say not all birds sing, mainly just song birds sing. Lots of other birds don't sing either like crows, woodpeckers, jays, pelicans, eagles, hawks, owls, etc.

Note: I'm not any kind of bird expert, so it is possible some of the birds that I listed have a song-like call that I'm unfamiliar with or am forgetting about.

Everywhere I've ever lived in the US you tell the electric and gas company what date you'll be moving in or out. The power and gas are normally already turned on and they just switch billing to whoever the new responsible party is.

In Georgia (USA) you have the illusion of choice in a "deregulated" market. In reality, there is a single gas provider and you get to pick which company provides billing service to you. Each company advertises a rate to "compete" with each other, this rate is added on top of the base rate that the actual gas provider charges and then they charge you a service charge on top of the that ($5-6 per month) that is not advertised.

The base rate is the same no matter who you choose. And the base rate plus admin fee make up most of your bill, so the advertised "competitive" rate is basically meaningless. Also, you have to sign a contract or you pay a variable rate instead of the advertised rate, which is MUCH higher. Also, there are big discounts for "new" customers (lower rate, monthly bill credit, cash back visa, etc.), so after the first contract period your price goes up quite a bit.

So you need to change providers every 6-24 months (depending on contract length) in the month before your contract expires. Otherwise your bill goes up because you either switched to the much higher variable price or lost your new customer discount. Or if you switch early, you pay an early cancellation charge.

Also, if you ever have any issues with your gas lines, you have to call the actual gas company to get assistance. The company that you pay doesn't actually have any technicians or anything and provides no other service than billing you and paying the real gas company their share of the bill.

I'm so glad I don't live in Georgia anymore for lots of reasons, including this.

Yes, this is the answer!

I make this for my wife's birthday most years. I've never made the cheesecake part alone, I always make it with the truffle cake base. It's really good, but if you try it, be sure to start with a very small serving because it is very rich.

https://highaltitudebakes.com/cakes/2012/03/05/stacked-chocolate-truffle-cheesecake/

I would check to see what the process is for requesting workplace accommodations at your company and then see if you can get your doctor to provide the appropriate paperwork saying that you cannot participate in large group activities or that you need to be 100% remote.