The only class I've ever failed was a c++ class where the instructor was so terrible at explaining the tasks that I literally could not figure out what he wanted.
I had to retake it with the same instructor but by some luck I was able to take it online, where I would spend the majority of the time trying to decipher what he was asking me to do.
Ultimately I found that the actual ask was being given as a 3 second aside in a 50 minute lecture. Once I figured out his quirk I was able to isolate the ask and code it up, ended with an A+ in the class on the second take.
I would like to say that I learned a lot about programming from that teacher, but what I actually learned is what you're saying.
Smart, educated, capable people are broken when it comes to clearly communicating their needs to other people just slightly outside of their domain. If you can learn the skill of figuring out what the hell they're asking for and delivering that, that one skill will be more valuable to you in your career than competency itself.
I asked ChatGPT to do the same, it was rather dystopian in comparison:
Hacker News — December 9, 2035 (Dystopian Edition)
(All links fictional but realistic)
1. Amazon pauses same-day delivery after logistics AI outage strands 22M packages (reuters.com)
1,402 points by supplychainfail 5 hours ago | 512 comments
2. Google merges Drive, Gmail, Docs, Maps, Calendar into “Google Life” — opting out requires a support call (blog.google)
1,210 points by privacyisdead 6 hours ago | 689 comments
3. US announces “Temporary Broadband Stabilization Fee”; ISPs increase prices 30% overnight (fcc.gov)
1,008 points by ispescapee 7 hours ago | 344 comments
4. OpenAI suspends 40% of API keys after new worm spreads through agent-to-agent messaging (openai.com)
927 points by llmsec 3 hours ago | 382 comments
5. Show HN: “ColdBooter” – A tool to back up your cloud VM before the provider reclaims it with no notice (coldbooter.io)
780 points by survivethecloud 2 hours ago | 192 comments
6. Apple fined €8B for shipping non-removable batteries in “Environmental Edition” iPhone (europa.eu)
754 points by greenwashhunter 10 hours ago | 316 comments
7. LinkedIn replaces activity feed with AI-generated “Career Stories” that users cannot disable (linkedin.com)
710 points by corp_life 8 hours ago | 267 comments
8. China’s new export restrictions cut global GPU availability by 60% (ft.com)
701 points by chipboom 9 hours ago | 414 comments
9. Linux 8.6 maintainers warn of mass CVEs after corporations abandon LTS patch sponsorships (kernel.org)
632 points by ossburnout 11 hours ago | 255 comments
10. Ask HN: Anyone else locked out of their homes after the SmartKey cloud migration?
601 points by keylessandhomeless 4 hours ago | 310 comments
11. US healthcare providers hit by nationwide outage of Cerner-Epic merger “CareSync Cloud” (wsj.com)
577 points by sysadmdespair 12 hours ago | 203 comments
12. Meta to require facial-expression telemetry for “engagement quality optimization” in Horizon apps (meta.com)
530 points by metaescalates 3 hours ago | 421 comments
13. Starlink announces 5 TB/mo cap; remote communities report complete service loss (starlink.com)
502 points by dishdown 5 hours ago | 158 comments
14. New DMCA expansion criminalizes “filter removal,” affecting adblockers and local inference runtimes (congress.gov)
488 points by freedomtoadblock 7 hours ago | 389 comments
15. AT&T sunsets 4G; millions of medical devices lose connectivity (theverge.com)
455 points by techdebtkills 10 hours ago | 197 comments
16. Show HN: “ShellSafe” – A terminal wrapper that prevents AI-suggested commands from wiping your system (shellsafe.app)
430 points by iaccidentallysudo 2 hours ago | 111 comments
17. US CISA: 42% of corporate networks now rely on AI agents with no audit logging (cisa.gov)
402 points by auditnow 6 hours ago | 188 comments
18. The Great Repo Archival: GitHub purges all inactive repos >5 years to “reduce storage load” (github.blog)
388 points by codearcheologist 9 hours ago | 320 comments
19. Mastodon instances collapse under moderation load after EU’s Automated Speech Mandate (mastodon.social)
350 points by fedifragile 7 hours ago | 144 comments
20. NYC adopts automated congestion fines after human review team eliminated (nytimes.com)
332 points by finesallthewaydown 4 hours ago | 201 comments
21. Dropbox raises base plan to $49/month, cites “AI compute costs” (dropbox.com)
301 points by storageinflation 11 hours ago | 176 comments
22. Open-source maintainers strike after 3rd corporation claims their work as proprietary training data (github.com)
290 points by maintainerburnout 6 hours ago | 120 comments
23. FEMA: 2025–2035 wildfire season officially declared a “decade-long emergency” (fema.gov)
268 points by cookedagain 12 hours ago | 112 comments
24. Quantum ransomware group QShadow hits 11 banks using break-through key recovery exploit (krebsonsecurity.com)
250 points by qubitcrime 3 hours ago | 98 comments
25. Show HN: OfflineLAN – A mesh-network toolkit for neighborhoods preparing for rolling blackouts (offlinelan.net)
231 points by diynetworker 1 hour ago | 44 comments
nytimes is really digging deep to generate controversy, huh? I haven't seen a non-scummy non-clickbaity title from one of their articles in a while, but they're hitting new lows 2025
I think the main issue for most people is that the layout is slightly different, probably to help prevent microsoft from suing them.
But once you get used to those differences, (also, knowing that there are a handful of themes that can shorten the difference significantly) then it becomes a non-issue after less than 10 hours of use.
It should be noted that the things you are supposed to be allowed to break are YOUR things. When you start breaking MY things then we're going to have a real problem.
The other thing is that they're FORCING it on the users. Its invasive and creepy and assaulty and it has multiplied my loathing of Microsoft infinitely.
Someone in Microsoft needs to watch a lecture on affirmative consent.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing with AI, both local and online. If you tell me its available if I want it, I might come dabble a bit.
But cram AI into every facet of my machine? That's a 1 way ticket to never being installed on any system I ever own in the future ever again.
Companies should treat AI like a madam treats the workers in a whorehouse. You don't make them go door to door. You let the johns come to you.
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