u/nonprofittechy

I am a big fan of Bagelsaurus. They're not a NYC style but a unique variation focused on the quality and chew of the inside of the bagel that is really excellent in my opinion (and attested to by winning contests in NYC as well as long lines for many years)

Being brand loyal and traveling often, your strategy makes sense. I travel often for work but on a meager academic budget, so focusing on earning points and status don't make sense for me vs choosing the best rate each time.

I agree using a reseller is a risk. I only use ones I am very familiar with, not the cheapest listing on Google Maps. I wouldn't do it for a small town that wouldn't have an emergency option if something went wrong, or to save less than $200 for my stay. But going to a city that hosts conventions, it's fairly safe bet you can find another room and let that one-time extra expense be subsidized by years of savings.

It also sounds like you are pretty particular about your hotels and details like late check-out. Totally fine but not my reality. Get in, get out, have a place to sleep is my normal need.

It's hard to pass up saving the money though. Have you found a way to book a hotel directly and pay OTA prices?

Got it! Yeah that seems higher than realistic for 2026 energy usage for a basic query

I wrote this interactive explainer that lets you build your own comparison, with citations: https://suffolklitlab.org/how-should-public-interest-attorneys-think-about-the-environmental-costs-of-ai/#ai-energy-explorer

It's from 2025, not 2009 before LLMs existed. And why would it have gone up instead of down? LLMs are trending towards greater efficiency: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/energy-use-of-ai-inference-efficiency-pathways-and-test-time-scaling/

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/measuring-the-environmental-impact-of-ai-inference

It could be more efficient, but it really doesn't waste water compared to other things we do. For example: streaming Spotify for an hour uses about as much water as 1,000 Gemini queries. Overall, water for growing almonds in California alone uses 17x as much as global data centers (all data centers, not use AI). Golf courses use 3 times as much water as all data centers.

I made a small comparison tool recently for trainings that I give to legal aid programs since this question comes up so often.

When you look into it in isolation, numbers can sound huge. In perspective, it comes across as more of a moral panic that distracts from more effective places to reduce water or energy consumption.

Google docs just really sucks at maintaining document structure and advanced formatting, at least across its non native file types.

If you're not using AI because of environmental concerns, you've been influenced by misleading context-free numbers.

AI uses very little water or energy compared to your normal daily tasks (like scrolling reddit). https://suffolklitlab.org/how-should-public-interest-attorneys-think-about-the-environmental-costs-of-ai/#ai-energy-explorer

Spam. If you want someone to give you their time, write out an email yourself.

But even without AI, this sounds like a low effort question that would take a lot of time from a busy researcher to answer.

Because it was the original idea that was hard. The execution is mostly a matter of spending a lot of money and time.

What's your goal here?

Docassemble, my friend! Go royalty and license free. With the new tools we're building at Suffolk, it's easier than it's ever been.

https://assemblyline.suffolklitlab.org/docs/authoring/weaver/weaver_overview

I like to get aged Gouda, hagelslag, drop, banketletters. Stroopwafels you send will probably also be better than US ones.

Because they have to follow HIPAA rules and fax machine, even though not terribly secure, are grandfathered in as HIPAA compliant.

Fax machines are a very easy, practically foolproof way to ensure technical compliance with data handling rules. The computer based solutions are better but each is unique and they all are much more complex than put in paper, enter phone number, press send.

Unincorporated is particular to some states only though, and it's about the government covering an area, not the population density or land use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated_area

This is a familiar term to me from media but not applicable to any of the states that I've lived in; Massachusetts for example, all land is inside a town or city.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/06/americas-tallest-shortest-states/

Will drop a link for a free customGPT replacement, designed for educators: https://suffolklitlab.org/asklit/

Would love to see this get traction as the semester is about to start. I made this to help clinical law professors mostly who kept asking for a simple way to build shareable, quota-manageable tools that custom GPT enabled without requiring students to have their own GPT accounts.

If you want that custom GPT feeling for your students, you might like AskLits, a new project of mine! Very simple, scaffolded Streamlit chat bots:

https://suffolklitlab.org/asklit/

Just empty bags? I've had good luck over the last 18 years with leaving panniers on with a spare tube and a few tools, but as they say past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.

Usually I try to squeeze in 2 weeks of vacation plus a conference or so and then I'm totally overwhelmed trying to get my actual work done in between. But I have grant work and research to do plus new editorial board and review duty to do

Emphasis on "self-learning" systems. No lawyer should use a system that trains on client data, with or without client consent. But it's easy nowadays to find a system that does not.

I would go with Azure blob probably, unless you really need the extra flexibility of SharePoint. It sounds great to use SharePoint but if you won't really use the integrated editor and SharePoint features you're just adding more complexity. It wouldn't be hard to switch to SharePoint later if it turns out to be helpful for you, but it's not obvious that it would be.

Edit: also, the ease of uploading on SharePoint can be a double-edged sword, if people accidentally break things (which they will without appropriate controls).

Rindge very clearly says no trucks too.

People of a certain generation use quotes for emphasis. Equivalent to underlining, bold, etc.