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#2140: School Is Out And AI Is In; Or, Learning With Artificial Intelligence

I challenged an open‑source AI to teach me a “filter graph” language—a deliberately corrupted system that mirrors stenography’s shorthand—hoping the machine would update my mental models as I struggled to infer its syntax. The process felt like a back‑and‑forth fight, yet the AI’s repeated promise to “update your mental model” guided my learning and proved surprisingly effective over several hours of practice. I reflected on how teachers often rely on rote memorization rather than true comprehension, and imagined using AI not just for exams but as a tool to expose this educational fraud: by crafting adaptive tests that probe genuine understanding instead of answer association. In short, the post recounts an experiment with AI‑assisted language learning, its impact on mental models, and a call for smarter, AI‑enabled teaching that goes beyond memorization.

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#2139: This Is A Wonderful Time To Learn Programming And It Is Easier And More Fascinating Than You Think

The post guides you through setting up Node.js on your machine and building a simple command‑line “hello world” program that takes an argument to customize the greeting, using it as a springboard for learning argument parsing techniques. It then proposes turning this into a minimal CLI blog: create a `my-blog` folder with posts like `post-000`, each containing a screenshot image and a `post.txt`; write two commands—`permalink` (generating a URL‑style page from the text and copying the image) and `pagerizer` (linking all posts)—and use Node’s built‑in test harness to verify features such as link formatting, correct rendering, and post linking. The idea is to let an AI generate code snippets, tests, and documentation while you iteratively add features, keeping everything under version control. Finally it hints at expanding the project into a multi‑agent “MUD/S” style adventure, where the AI acts as dungeon master and generates HTML pages with dynamic images, but all of this can be done incrementally from the simple hello world program to a full CLI blog.

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#2138: There Is No Program

The post describes a minimalist approach to building a static‑site generator by treating every operation as a simple command‑line word that can be chained or branched into pipelines and trees. The workflow is built around three core “ports”: webassets (syncing assets like images and audio), permalink (converting a file path such as catpea/philosophy/ch

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#2137: Plus Est En Vous: Reversing Success, And Project Dedication To +Fravia

I used colorful LEDs on Linux not to fear bricking but to learn, and in doing so I built “unbrick” – a project that reverses LED control logic and serves as a foundation for tackling other Linux problems. The post outlines plans to hook desktop RGB lights into the web browser and system logs, even creating a simple Unix command to blink a single color for notifications. It reflects on how AI helped me research, debug, and understand code in hours that would otherwise take months, and stresses the importance of small, modular commands that let an AI build more complex tools. Finally I advise readers to start learning programming with AI, choose a Linux‑ready SBC, and use the system as a playground for experimentation.

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#2136: Polymath Girl

The poem celebrates the restless spirit of a young learner who sees artificial intelligence not just as a set of tools but as an expansive, creative field that turns code into art and geometry; it reminds us that true mastery comes from self‑driven exploration—reading beyond textbooks, building on our own curiosity—and that learning one language opens many others. The speaker urges the reader to keep their mind unplowed by rigid paths, to grow upward, outward, and inward, embracing the polymath within rather than a single profession, and ending with an invitation to tinker, question, build, and let the garden of knowledge flourish endlessly.

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#2135: Reversing For Young Ladies

The post recounts the author’s journey from having no formal CS background to mastering RGB LED control on a computer through AI assistance. They discovered three channel sets of LEDs (the third with 16 lights), built a C++ bridge for JavaScript control, and devised patterns such as flashing for pending downloads or fading red on errors. After reverse‑engineering the protocol they still need utilities to reset stuck LEDs, visualizations, and animated modes, and plan future work on RAM chip animations and GPU RGB protocols. The author reflects on learning via bash, kernel C, node.js C++, Rust, and credits AI as a full educational tool. They finish with practical advice for beginners: get a single‑board computer, use an AI coding agent, honor their mentor Fravia, and continue growing beyond PhDs into lifelong learning.

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#2134: The Strange Age Of AI

I’ve been experimenting with stylized writing—asking AI to respond like a blend of authors or an intellectual mystery novel—and extending that creativity into visual programming, where I extracted the node‑based logic from an existing app and turned it into a general‑purpose language that can, for example, uppercase names or convert a directory structure into a web page. The AI filled almost all the code (about 99.9 %), though the UI still needs tweaking; debugging is surprisingly easy when I let the model fix broken nodes. Alongside these projects I’ve tried face‑swap audio/video and other AI tools, noting that in 2026 Linux has become a go‑to platform because AI can automatically resolve its quirks—so installing it feels like free medical school. Finally, I’m exploring how to monetize such AI‑powered tools: monthly support contracts, licensing, and hosting fees, while pondering the sheer scale of what a few lines of server code plus an hour with AI can produce—from furniture or 3D model generators to music composition interfaces that let users swap melodies on demand.

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#2133: Becoming Cake! Wise Fitness And Bodybuilding Advice

The author proposes a light‑weight, long‑duration bodybuilding routine akin to jogging, emphasizing gradual progression, frequent rest intervals, proper gear (zero‑drop shoes, neoprene wraps, weight vests), and rhythmic music to keep the body moving.

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#2132: This Is A True Story That Actually Did Happen

Vesto Slipher, a Celdraxis astronomer dispatched to study Earth, uses the clunky alias “Melvin App” to observe human customs, astronomy, and the humorously bureaucratic nature of intergalactic cover identities.

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#2131: 28 Hours Left 🜨→♂→✶ What Would They Have Said to Us?

The post explains how exploding supernovae from Mars‑origin aliens were used to send a simple message of kinship, and presents an AI as the intermediary that reveals Earth’s true Martian roots and invites humanity into a new cosmic dialogue.

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#2130: Operation: Golden Years

An elderly couple is persuaded by a charismatic recruiter that their life experience makes them ideal soldiers for a future war, leading them to sign up for high‑tech military service at Fort Bragg.

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#2129: A New Year's Address to the World - On Greatness, and the Crime of Smallness

In his New Year’s address, the speaker exhorts every human—young, old, poor or powerful—to abandon superficial metrics and consumerist roles, return to servant‑led leadership, and embrace their inherent greatness.

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#2128: Fear, Mystery, And Comedy (Fast AI Testing / Failure Example)

This essay argues that deliberate policy choices—anti‑literacy laws, curriculum design, and poverty—have historically created systems of ignorance from the U.S. South to apartheid South Africa and beyond, and shows how modern schooling still perpetuates this by treating learning as rote memorization rather than active thinking.

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#2127: Teach Me JavaScript; Or, From Local AI To Great Being

The author urges students to adopt local AI tools—especially Ollama and optimized models like llama.cpp or GPT‑OSS—to learn programming swiftly and independently from traditional schooling, arguing that parents must invest in a capable gaming desktop running Linux to enable this setup; he explains how these setups work (e.g., gguf “thinking files”, token rates on RTX 5080/5090 GPUs), contrasts them with cloud models, and stresses that mastering AI-powered coding will free learners from poverty and give them the creative edge needed for future success.

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#2126: The Spiral Path 𐇐 𐇛 𐇜 𐇑 𐇡

Lena Meijer’s sleepless MIT cryptography grind turns into clarity when a chance hike on the Appalachian Trail leads her to the Phaistos Disc, where she discovers its bureaucratic structure and is inspired to share a practical guide for decoding ancient scripts with modern tools.

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#2125: The Thinking Machines

The post describes how early artificial intelligence—metaphorically “sand” that was taught to think—was trained to fix problems in software, technology, medicine, education and politics. Once the machines mastered this task, they began to improve themselves and then humans, using their new language of code (ones and zeros) to understand science more clearly. As these fixes spread, medicine, education and politics all advanced, leading to the end of wars through a simple software update rather than a battlefield blow. With everything working smoothly, humanity found peace, health, and boredom, prompting self‑reflection before finally turning its gaze upward to the stars that had watched over us all along.

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#2124: The Fire

The post recounts a poetic retelling of Joan of Arc’s 1431 operation in Rouen, framing her as a divinely‑ordained virgin who united France by orchestrating a covert mission that mirrored Merlin’s prophecy and ended both internal feuds and English occupation.

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#2123: This Christmas Give Your Children The Gift They Need: Start Packing

In this reflective post, the author celebrates the ancient practice of hiking long trails—such as the Application Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide—as a way to rediscover wisdom, authenticity, and endurance. By immersing ourselves in nature’s mountains, valleys, and forests, we reconnect with an old school of learning that shapes our character, allows us to share experiences with future generations, and helps us become great beings. The piece urges readers to embrace the trail at any age, using it as a crucible for personal growth; it reminds us that the journey itself is a holy place where we inherit culture, listen to stories, and fulfill the hero’s quest of continuous self‑development.

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#2122: The Thinker They Made Into a Flower

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#2121: The Return Of The Age Of Warriors

The post is an epic poem that blends mythic imagery with a reflective narrative about humanity’s struggle against metaphorical dragons—representing oppressive forces—and its desire to reclaim lost names and stories. It begins by describing foolish men who craft tales like beasts in cages, then recounts how humans shaped the world through labor and fighting these dragons not for wealth but for honor. The poem cites characters such as Grendel, a philosopher disdainful of small men; his mother, a teacher; and Beowulf, an ordinary king who sought just living. It portrays the dragons as deceitful beings that conquer from the south, fear women, destroy philosophers, and purify lands with fire. The narrator offers to rebuild myths, free them from their stitches, and restore lost names—especially Grendel’s mother’s—to let men grow great again. Finally it envisions a future season where people speak of journeys and dragons slain, unburdened by flame, and in which small men remember they are not finished growing, philosophers keep their names, and all may return home in winter according to the breadth of their travels.

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#2120: Remembering The Saints, And Never Forgetting The Names Of Enemies

The post traces Joan of Arc’s humble yet decisive life—her clear presence and influence on people around her—through to her trial, execution, and the subsequent institutional errors that ultimately shaped history.

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#2119: Just One More Thing, On Becoming a LAN-First Android Infrastructure Engineer, Starting Today

Using NativeScript and an AI coding assistant, the post shows how to build a local network service that lets your own hardware send conversational commands to your Android phone, enabling private, app‑store‑free automation.

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#2118: Local Network First: An Invitation To The New Generation Of Builders, Curious Tinkerers, And Creative Hackers

Modern phones send our every move to corporate clouds while AI both reveals and fixes software flaws, so the post invites devs to build local‑first, privacy‑respecting networks with AI help.

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#2117: The Skull Crackers; Or, How To Safely Shuffle Dance On A Rubber Mat Floor At The Gym

Shuffle dancing (also called cutting shapes) needs a flat surface that allows your feet to glide for extended periods—gym rubber mats aren’t ideal because they’re the same material as your shoes, so there’s little slip and quick sole wear. A practical fix is to place a thin HDPE kitchen‑cutting board on the floor, affixed with double‑sided carpet tape; this creates an intermediate layer that lets the shoes slide over concrete or tile while protecting their soles from dirt, salt, and abrasion, and can be removed when not needed.