–Surprised by Ferdinand Fagerlin
Author: Chill
Using the Tool
I wrote a right-click (context menu) search extension with the help of AI in 25-ish hours of work and prompting that would’ve taken me 500+ hours to complete on my own, and for a competent programmer probably would’ve been in the 150 hour range.
Huge returns if you know what you’re doing.
My tool has more features, a better UI, is more extensible and is easier to use than any other similar extension out there. It’s not even close. Mine is just better by every measure that matters. And there’s no way I would’ve bothered to create it without AI.
Battery of Ourselves
Batteries are changing the world and America is missing the revolution because we stupidly thought batteries were all about climate https://t.co/H42I0JlSWx
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@Noahpinion) December 19, 2025
Could we get any stupider? Culture wars give you brain worms.
Only Possible
It really is odd that people get completely halted doing computer stuff if there is one single tiny little step even minutely different than what they were expecting.
Today, for instance, because no matter how senior you are in my field you still end up doing Level 1 helpdesk crap, I was helping a Sales Director add the company holidays calendar. I sent her directions but neglected the fact that she had to choose her own account in a step. It was the only possible choice. There literally were no others.
Nevertheless, this person was halted there claiming that it “wasn’t working.” They’d tried nothing and it all failed. At the very, very simplest of steps in a non-risky situation.
And this is the common case with people and computers. Why?
Learning Experience
How many of you ever got into a fight and lost? Did you learn anything?
I’ve lost many fights. Some so terribly I’d not call them fights, but rather beatdowns where I couldn’t and didn’t really do anything. Ah, the joys of growing up a misfit in rural North Florida.
What I learned is to get better at fighting. I did, so lost a lot fewer and that reputation of being a tough scrapper reduced the bullying by a ton.
Amazon darf Kunden auf Prime Video nicht zu Werbung zwingen.
Gut Bacteria from Amphibians and Reptiles Achieve Complete Tumor Elimination.
Personal computing is moving to a “renter” model. We need to get ahead of this and stop it before it’s too late. They’ve been trying this for years. Now finally succeeding.
This was a wild experience and a new scam tactic I hadn’t seen before.
Make me CEO of Mozilla. I too would do a better job.
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Now it’s asking why.
We may never be able to tell if AI becomes conscious, argues philosopher.
China’s High-Flying Swarm Mothership Drone Has Flown.
Gen Z would rather cut Social Security benefits for current retirees than pay higher taxes to save the program. Nice bit of foot-shooting there.
The World Failed Holocaust Survivors at Bondi Beach.
US prices continued to rise despite Trump claims they are ‘rapidly’ falling.
US announces more than $10bn of arms sales to Taiwan. Good.
These are all the vehicles destined for extinction in 2026. So few sedans left, which I vastly prefer to SUVs.
Spacing In
At work there’s one customer (that has over 10,000 times our yearly revenue) giving us trouble about why we don’t have two disaster recovery locations. Hello, we do not have nearly-unlimited monopoly money like you do. We can’t go spooling up data centers and environments all across the land.
Anyway, as long as I have the data (which I do), I can spin up an environment anywhere nearly. I’m tempted to list “the ISS” as our second DR location and be done with it.
Not Russian There
If Poland didn’t have about a 98% chance of being invaded by Russia in the next decade, I’d consider immigrating there.
About AI
Just because you use a tool poorly doesn’t mean it’s a bad tool. All it means is that you are a deficient user of that tool. If I pick up a sharp knife, cut toward myself and then slice my hand, does that then make it a poor knife?
People’s reasoning skills are utterly absent in the face of their big and worthless feelings about things.
Control Role
I am always amazed and saddened by how complacent and complaisant others are about having someone else in control of their computers, devices, and by extension, their minds.
Kelvinator
I’ve absolutely never found the phrase to be true that Northerners like to spout about, “You can always get warmer. But you can’t always get cooler. There’s only so many clothes you can take off.”
Sure, the part about the clothes is true. But I just do not get warm in winter at all. When it’s below about 50 degrees outside, there is no unchilling my bones. Yes, even indoors.
I just hate winter so much.
How Know
Please learn how to use your computer.
Fuck yes.
I’m so sick of the “I’m not a computer person” excuse. Look, no one is asking you to code an OS from scratch. They’re just demanding that you know the extreme basics. If you forgot how to use the steering wheel of your car every time you went to drive, that’d be the same as many people act around a computer.
There is just no reason this incompetence should be tolerated. If a plumber was like, “So, what is a pipe?” we’d fire that idiot in a flash. We should do exactly the same with any other person who does not know how to use the tools of their trade. Because it is 100% identical.
Trust
One thing I think about often is the logistics of resupplying convenience stores in Poland.
Pallets of products are simply left on the sidewalk outside the store, left unattended, and slowly brought in by the workers.
Poles don't understand how much we benefit from having a… https://t.co/A9D1MH8GUj
— Polish Connection (@PoleConnection) December 17, 2025
Cool. I really hope Poland doesn’t cede all this to Islamoleftism and allow unrestricted Islamic immigration. It’ll ruin their entire society and perhaps the last redoubt of Western civilization.
Mamdani and the Future of the Left.
The Entry-Level Hiring Process Is Breaking Down.
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter.
40 Percent of MRI signals do not correspond to actual brain activity.
Meet the biggest heat pumps in the world.
Batteries now cheap enough to make dispatchable solar economically feasible.
Americans Are Turning Hard Against Trumpism.
Why it’s time to reset our expectations for AI.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado. Utterly fucking moronic.
The $4.3 billion space telescope Trump tried to cancel is now complete. Sweet. Idiots don’t can everything at least.
Personnel Is Policy: The Fabric of Government Organization.
Did It To Yourselves
30 years of man-hating feminist propaganda permeating society will do this, yea.
Speaking generally now: Why would men bother when they get (less than) nothing out of it? The feminist paradigm punished normal and healthy masculine behaviors because they were "sexist" and… https://t.co/7yCCF7QTHM
— Coren ✒🎨 (@CorenLaVolpe) December 14, 2025
Exactly. I don’t think it means rejecting feminism, though. But it does mean rejecting the man-hating “All men are evil rapists all the time” brand of feminism that has come to the fore the last few decades.
And that tweet is 100% right about why no man helped her: If one had chosen to do, in the feminist accounting it’d be because “he only wants sex.” But not helping is also criticized — the typical is “he’s oppressing me by not meeting my needs” — but it is the safer path. I’d do nothing too. It’s better just to never interact in any situation where you could be called a sexual harasser and dragged on social media. That risk never pays off.
So, women got the world they thought they wanted. Turns out they didn’t. Imagine that.