the_beach_lasagna

Kudos to France and Mistral AI for genuinely creating an amazing European alternative to Chat GPT! Le Chat gives some incredibly detailed and intricate responses that I cannot seem to get from Chat GPT. I am genuinely impressed at the outputs that Le Chat produces to miscellaneous questions. I still use Google Gemini because of their Veo-3 video generator, but if it weren’t for that, I would not give a penny to Google for their unscrupulous antics. I just hope it is not unusual that Le Chat is now my most preferred AI LLM. I wished the EU also had its own semiconductor industry as well to bring some competition against the USA and China without being very dependent on both countries.

Kudos to France and Mistral AI for genuinely creating an amazing European alternative to Chat GPT! Le Chat gives some incredibly detailed and intricate responses that I cannot seem to get from Chat GPT. I am genuinely impressed at the outputs that Le Chat produces to miscellaneous questions. I still use Google Gemini because of their Veo-3 video output, but if it weren't for that, I would not give a penny to Google for their unscrupulous antics. I just hope it is not unusual that Le Chat is now my most preferred AI LLM.

Other than Chicago, NYC, Montreal and Mexico City.

I have lived for 3 years in Vancouver (Canada) and while I enjoyed my time in British Columbia, I definitely have to say that life in the big Vancouver is certainly not better than life in Seattle. No matter how much people on Reddit romanticize that city. Firstly, I am born to Indian immigrant parents and right now, there have been some racial tensions brewing in Vancouver ever since the 2023 killing of Sikh militant Hardeep Singh Najjar, racial tensions between Indians and other racial groups in Vancouver have been pretty rife. Teenagers would sometimes yell racial slurs at me just because I look Indian. Secondly, the big Vancouver has seen a very noticable decline in general safety. While public transit in Vancouver is excellent by North American standards, I keep seeing how so many people feel unsafe taking it at night. I've been hearing so many stories about how people don't feeling safe getting around the city after dark. Third is the sheer cognitive dissonance. People there take pride in the PNW, but the city has this complex where they do not want to be associated with the rest of the PNW and this is very well illustrated on the r/Vancouver subreddit. People there will claim to be radical environmentalists while they drive their sedans everywhere and take nice trips to somewhere tropical come winter. Lastly, Vancouver wants to brag about its great urbanism while having the same metro population and a significantly less GDP that Portland, a city that is nowadays widely seen as a backwater.

I know Seattle isn't super safe either, but over the past few years, Seattle is the only city in the Pacific Northwest that has truly recovered from the pandemic. I see a very diverse group of high schoolers in Cal Anderson park playing soccer without any supervision. I see so many groups of teenage girls and young women out by themselves even well after dark. I see normal looking people pack the Seattle Link metro. I would never see this in Portland where so many people are afraid of venturing in Downtown, especially after dark, because of all the crime and homelessness.

I know Seattle is not perfect, and it does have its issues with it's very high cost of living in and near Downtown, homelessness in some areas, and the lack of sunlight from October to May. However when you look at the horrendous winters that Chicago or Toronto endure, or the urban decay that my city Portland or SF, LA and even Vancouver are facing, Seattle is actually in a very good and fortunate position. I visit Seattle about 3 times a year from the Portland area, and the city never fails to make me feel welcomed in an actual respectable big city. I personally used to dislike Seattle when I was younger because of city rivalry, but with everything going on post-pandemic, it's now the only city that makes me delighted to live in the PNW. You Seattleites have no idea how spoiled you are to live in such a beautiful and safe city! Thank you Seattle and Seattleites!