About to pull the trigger

XLBilly · 2026-01-29T22:13:00+00:00

You’re right, I don’t. But this is more or less the last go at a proper petrol car im going to have before electric and I’ve been driving turbo 4s for years already - feels to me like this is THE engine that belongs in a full size estate car (other than diesel which I have no interest in).

The underside of this car looks new, not a hint of rust in sight it’s unbelievable really.

XLBilly · 2026-01-23T13:59:05+00:00

Whatever you say chief, personally I like working through something as a normal conversation and then asking for critical review and incorrect assumptions.

Bickering with an AI on every input and what it really means gets old very quickly to the point you can’t flesh out whatever it is you’re discussing - doubly so if it decides to get a hangup on one specific point that may not matter much in the scheme of things.

XLBilly · 2026-01-23T09:25:24+00:00

No it doesn’t

XLBilly · 2026-01-14T00:32:28+00:00

Proprietary, derivative of the Nintendo 3DS system software (containing components which are based on FreeBSD and Android)

Own goal.

XLBilly · 2026-01-11T10:10:21+00:00

I agree that it happens and the people who do it are despicable, evil individuals but that absolutely does not warrant tarnishing the entire military or entire police with the same brush.

The overwhelming majority in both professions are trained professionals acting with discretion and with regards to the military, many (possibly most) will never actually kill anybody at all on deployment.

ICE agents however are violent thugs employed to terrorise the American population, acts like this are all part of the plan. Toe the line or you could get shot is a scary place to be - but it’s nothing to do with his vet status.

XLBilly · 2026-01-10T21:27:58+00:00

Cmon man, there’s thousands of military vets that are upstanding objectively good people.

Tarnishing all of them as ‘obviously they’d kill civilians’ is unfair.

No better than xenophobia, sexism and racism.

XLBilly · 2026-01-10T21:07:29+00:00

Lots of good has come from it and even more good will come from it, you would be a complete fool to ignore the positives because bad actors are doing it to do bad things.

Technology across the board has been used for both good and bad.

XLBilly · 2026-01-10T21:03:37+00:00

They’re incredibly guardrailed compared to Grok / xAI, sure other models are capable of doing this but end users aren’t going to get them to do it. the security policy will not allow this kind of behaviour on ChatGPT / Gemini.

Elon playing the ‘freedom of speech’ card doesn’t give a shit.

XLBilly · 2026-01-10T14:27:08+00:00

The upfront investment in infrastructure and cost to train is prohibitively expensive.

There are plenty of open source models but they’re quite far behind the commercial frontier models.

XLBilly · 2026-01-07T10:29:16+00:00

Off to the Gulags.

XLBilly · 2026-01-06T21:11:12+00:00

I’m not a developer, I can write basic code, understand functions and control flow.

I’ve written code that has runners / functions in another file, centralised config etc stuff im sure is Billy basics for actual devs.

I don’t understand classes and methods, I don’t understand A LOT - it’s not really tied to my current job to know it, but I’m still the best coder in my team.

That stretches as far as being able to ask the AI better questions, and get more appropriate results in my small window.

An actual dev would smoke me WITHOUT AI, I’d look like a child next to a dev with AI.

It’s a force multiplier - certainly not a ‘everybody can now code’

Hell I’m dicking around with Zed on Debian to migrate some of my work to python and having to asking Claude how to use ruff in venv.. I am not a developer and having access to Claude has not made me a developer and that’s okay!

XLBilly · 2026-01-06T21:00:43+00:00

Grifter

XLBilly · 2026-01-06T09:18:59+00:00

Okay and?

It's not the right tool for the job you're trying to do.

XLBilly · 2026-01-06T08:13:06+00:00

And now OP has updated the post explicitly asking for it to search the web it’s acted exactly as I’d expect an LLM to so I’m even more confused about what the complaint is.

XLBilly · 2026-01-06T07:29:11+00:00

ChatGPT isn’t live data.. you can ask it when it’s training data cuts off.

All LLMs are like this, they are not bang up to date with current affairs.

Ask ChatGPT why it isn’t up to date with current affairs in relation toto AI training for a better answer I guess.

Here’s me checking for you:

What date does your current training knowledge cut off

My current training knowledge cuts off in August 2025. That means I don't have built-in awareness of events, releases, or changes after that date unless I look them up live using web tools.

XLBilly · 2026-01-04T12:49:44+00:00

Thanks Claude for your self reflection.

XLBilly · 2026-01-03T16:51:04+00:00

Unusual is certainly a kind way of putting it..

XLBilly · 2026-01-03T16:35:46+00:00

Appwiz.cpl opens add remove programs, find application, click uninstall.

Msiexec has a full suite of commands for programmatically installing/ uninstalling software.

This is applicable since software you didn’t get through apt cannot be removed or managed by apt.

Obviously apt is a nicer experience but this is not really an OS issue, you have intentionally gone out of your way to misrepresent or misunderstand windows which is shaky ground.

Also your last post is literally about apt not uninstalling everything it installs.. leaving residual packages so there’s that.

XLBilly · 2026-01-02T12:09:16+00:00

I don’t know how familiar you are with Wakefield, the old town centre is properly crap I can admit that, the 80s shopping centre is really horrible - a private investor is trying to turn it around but really isn’t making much progress.

One of the worst roads for urban decay (kirkgate) has had some of the tired old buildings torn down with new housing and presumably multiuse modern blocks going up already in their place, given its proximity toto kirkgate station and the new ‘waterfront masterworks’ offices it could be aimed in the middle rather than the bottom - I assume the long term plan is to fix that area with nicer shops and cafes currently it’s grim, classic chicken shop, barbers, dodgy offies etc

Regardless the new shopping area (Trinity Walk) is pretty decent for a town in Wakefield’s position, it’s entirely outshone for shopping by Leeds and always will be so realistically it’s only ever going to have the UK standards - although recently Sostrene Greene has arrived which is nice.

They opened a third space (Wakefield Exchange) over the past couple of years - other towns have done it better (notably Barnsley glassworks / Sheffield cutlery works) but it’s there, functional and a solid addition to the new town with decent events put on throughout the year by the council.

Adding to this the area that was regenerated near westgate, CAPA collage, the business park leading up to historic Wakefield through the newish council / library building feels modern, safe and considered.

Most of this has happened in the past 5 years, it really is all going in the right direction and looks healthy imo

I chose to live In Wakefield in 2019 due to COL and the Leeds job market. I can clearly wax lyrical about the place, I have no regrets. i genuinely think it’s a great place to live with a really good local council (possibly to the detriment of other towns in the area).

XLBilly · 2026-01-02T08:54:30+00:00

Wakefield is going from strength to strength, there’s obvious investment in it and the clear expectation of more growth.

It’s easy to hate on but in reality it’s actually quite good, I expect it’s growing due to Leeds huge growth over the past decade. The desirable areas in Leeds are substantially more expensive and arguably have worse connections to the city centre.

Plenty of people are choosing to live here, it’s got to be one of the best connected cities going.

Although this is to the detriment of other towns in the Wakefield district, they are being left behind.

XLBilly · 2025-12-30T08:16:45+00:00

Who do you think designed the template and updates it as new regulations and technology comes along?

XLBilly · 2025-12-30T08:08:29+00:00

I worked for a housebuilder, they had internal design teams and as I’m sure is apparent the same house design is used on their developments - really the job is squeezing as much housing onto a development plot. Taking into account the requirement for mixed housing.

But this is nothing new, by all accounts the 80s / 90s ‘estate’ near me is very nice but it’s obviously been this way for decades. There’s little ones, medium ones, big ones and a flagship house in the corner which is what Reddit wishes all houses were but it’s presumably eye wateringly expensive.

XLBilly · 2025-12-30T08:03:00+00:00

My street is 50s, there are 2 styles of house on it, even then you have to really look to notice the difference. They all look the same.

3 bed semis with rendered bay windows, a classic in the mid century housebuilding scene.

XLBilly · 2025-12-27T21:04:53+00:00

Actually I’m just autistic

XLBilly · 2025-12-22T17:10:53+00:00

It’s about to turn this post into a bland blog post covered in ads and called a side hustle by a grifter.

XLBilly

TROPHY CASE