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I am already a victim of over ten elections in Slovakia, as far as I can remember. I haven't voted even once. There is just one pattern I see. No matter who won, things got worse.
Heads up, keep morale high, and enjoy your next election. I see the future, it will get worse.
The Intellectual Circle Jerk and Why We Can't Stop
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/the-intellectual-circle-jerk-and
The credentialing cartel. Same top-tier universities, same books, same thinking. If you do not think like them, you do not get the degree. You do not get the internship. You do not get the job. A World Bank economist becomes an EU regulator, then joins a NGO board, then consults for a UN agency.
Fact-checking each other to ensure nobody deviates from the approved script. Monopoly on legitimacy. Dissenters are denied the credentials required to enter the room.
Main character: Harry Roberts
Role: award-winning consultant web performance engineer, designer, developer, writer, invited Google developer expert and Cloudinary media developer expert, also an international speaker from the UK.
Source of the science fiction:
https://csswizardry.com/2026/08/how-to-find-an-exact-gmail-thread-with-codex-or-claude/
Harry wants to find the exact email message with Codex or Claude.
Harry gave up and found it himself manually. Then copied message-id and shoveled it into AI chat, so Codex or Claude can find it too ;/
1200 words, RFC, FAQ. Email found.
If you lost some email, call Harry.
It's 2026 and people are shoveling features from AI into their software every day.
Barry is excited to share the latest paid feature for the pros in Pika.
Hot on the heels of our site-wide Custom Code announcement, we're excited to share that Pika now offers Pika Pro subscribers the ability to add custom code directly into your individual posts and pages.
It offers the ability to inject custom handwritten HTML blocks within the text of your posts and pages ...
Actually it happened. In 2026 you are able to inject custom handwritten HTML code into machine HTML. If you paid good enough.
FAQ: Why can't I use this new editor option on the free Pika Pup plan?
The internet can be terrible.
There is a little genocide in some Africa village. Kids mine some toxic materials by hands for food. Kids die.
The new phone is assembled by slaves. People die.
You have some opinion about some app icon change or the latest social media post by the CEO. You love it, hate it, you share "your" take.
The company does not care. Everything runs as intended.
Recently it's relatively easy to find out hundreds or even thousands of personal websites online. It was not like that few years ago. The internet was strictly dominated by corporations directly.
Now magically "personal" opinions and thoughts are easy to find on the web.
It's already safe for the system to allow that. There are almost no personal opinions or thoughts anymore. Everything dangerous was mostly destroyed, edges were sanded and polished. People now self-censor themself voluntarily, most are even not aware of that. What is left is mostly mimicry of corporate and government propaganda. The narrative script was installed and now it just runs safely.
More I randomly click on the internet, more I see the same template. Topic does not matter.
"Who in 2026?"
"The last time I listened this song, my father ..."
"AI this and that"
"App icon color change"
Pre-programmed desparete reflex. Rarely even opinion or thought.
Executed script. Mechanical output of human mind. Free or very cheap.
Michelle, admirable mother shares her wisdom.
I am building a website, for work. It feels like a radical act these days. I am not using an LLM, I am coding with my own hands ...
Like a woman who plants his own carrots in his garden. Good.
I tested the difference:
Human: <div>HTML element</div>
LLM: <div>HTML element</div>Wednesday's gem from Manton.
https://www.manton.org/2026/08/19/synonyms-and-antonyms.html
The value of getting help from AI is that because it's a synthesis of all the world's information, it tends to pull you toward accepted narratives.
If you spend a lot of time in AI chat, this can happen.
A man bought a font. Paid money for letter shapes. MonoLisa.
https://lmika.org/2026/08/14/ive-been-using-monolisa-for.html
His genuine discovery: "It also looks like the license grants me the use of the font on my personal website. That's interesting to know."
He can use the thing he bought.
Idiot challenge, #shitfest, stupidity festival. Post every day, link something, reply to someone, send 100 emails.
Every day, every month there is some circus. A man announces a challenge, thirty people link to it, they all post about posting, they link each other's posts about linking. The circle closes. Until next call.
Peasant writes because there's something to say. Member who sends 100 emails or writes 100 posts doesn't have 100 things to say. He has one thing to say 100 times: "Look, I'm doing the thing".
The linking is the point. Not the post. The post is the ticket to the circle. You post, you link three others doing the same nonsense, they link you back. Roll call. "I'm here. I'm here too. We're all here."
Apple's mouse charges face down. Windows removes the 'no' button. The bank holds your money and demands permission. This is hostile design.
TSA catches shoes but misses weapons. Government offices demand three copies for a meaningless stamp. This is bureaucratic rot.
Neither requires a master plan. Like a mother who uses daily guilt to control her child without a blueprint. The power dynamic is not engineered. It builds itself.
You flip the mouse. You strip at checkpoints. You click 'not now'. The system does not need to plan your submission. The daily friction builds the power structure automatically. You bend because fighting takes effort.
A company doesn't care what you write. They'd need a government order to touch you. No opinion. A contract and nothing.
Some small platform, one guy running it, can delete you the moment you annoy him. No order needed. No court. Just his mood, dressed up as a rule.
IRC, no rules at all. You don't say "she" fast enough, you're gone. No clause, no appeal. Just a man with a button and a grudge.
Store, covid, a mask. A security guard, not a cop, decided you were the enemy of the room. Your neighbour wanted you in a cage over a piece of cloth. Nobody paid him to want that.
A company has a price. A believer doesn't.
Search for apple and get a phone. Read about freedom and get a router upgrade. Language is transactions. Human experience is product features.
Click Big Bang theory, get sitcom commentary. The highest output is vomiting feelings about last week's consumption. Not thought. Just signals. Display to prove herd membership.
Some attempt authenticity. A cat shitting. A hamburger swallowed. Just meat recording its own functions. There is no mind to document.
The web is not broken. It exposes minds. Consume. Parrot. Comply.
The mind is the fire. The web is fuel. The burning is the default state. There is no escape. There is only the burning.
You ask for text. Just a few words. They don't sell text. Text is free. So they sell the wrapper.
You get HTML, CSS, and two megabytes of JavaScript. Fifty million lines just to render your banana cake recipe. Then the platform. The likes, the comments, the feed from your new tribe. You want an email client. Just send a message. They give you an AI assistant, a calendar, a crypto wallet, and a monthly fee.
You want the potholes fixed. But you cannot just buy the asphalt. You have to buy the whole ideology. You want clean water. You get a political party, a culture war, and a tribe to defend.
You can't just buy the water. The buyer comes bundled too. Wrapping, pretending to be someone.
The real merchandise here is the self. Strip the packaging and there's nothing there.
There is no self. Just the fear of finding that out.
I get an idea. Few words, a sentence or two. I start writing. After few lines it's clear it's going to be shit, a novel. Explaining, examples, luckily not many metaphors, as my English level does not allow it.
The first spit is lazy mode. I talk until everyone falls asleep and I can leave. Done. Mind just keeps going until it feels everything is covered.
The second distilled version requires more work. No pressure to be right or understood. No fillers. No saying the same thing three times. And the title.
Long version serves the writer. Short one respects the reader.
I canceled the OpenBSD server. Moved to free Cloudflare. The infrastructure doesn't matter. I get an extra pack of cigarettes now.
I used a feed reader for almost a month. Too long. I killed it. Reading is just consuming other people's vomit.
I wrote my thoughts. Sent emails. The spam filter caught it. The machine did its job.
POSSE it, they say. Own your content.
Publish once, fork it five times. RSS, Mastodon, Bluesky, webmention, pick your parasite.
Fix the typo in two minutes. Already too late.
Fossils wearing your name.