Welcome to RationalStuff — long-form takes on technology, politics, and the forces shaping our future.
Hot Take: .gitignore Should Not Be the Most Important File in Every Project. But It Is.
Git was a masterpiece built for humans making deliberate commits. AI agents are neither. Here's why .gitignore is a symptom, not a solution.
If You Give an AI a Git...
A beloved children's book accidentally explains why AI agents and Git repos are a disaster waiting to happen. It will break your build. Constantly.
Using Amazon Bedrock with Crew.ai
detailed steps to connect crew.ai to use amazon bedrock
Why Are We Necroforming Earth?
open graph description
Will chatbots fix toxic online culture?
The digital world is not a silo; it influences and is influenced by our real-world behaviors and social norms.
Tips for a Safe Thanksgiving or Christmas during COVID
If you want to see your extended family this Holiday season, here is a summary of everything we know about COVID today, and how to plan your Holiday gatherings in a way that respects the virus and keeps your most vulnerable loved ones safe.
Self-Driving Cars and their mind-bending transportation possibilities
Tesla recently announced they would soon have cars with 400+ mile range.
Consulting is a performance art
Consulting is not like working in industry. Not at all. If you want to be successful in consulting you need to understand it is performance art.
You got a problem?
I have tried throughout my career to be a problem solver. But I have learned that there are many barriers to being a good problem solver.
How we can make this the last shutdown in US history
If we want to break the cycle of increasingly frequent US government shutdowns, we need to change some of the rules.
What Blockchain gets wrong: Carbon vs Silicon
Blockchain theorists are adamant and insistent on many features of the requirements for something to be true blockchain.
Blockchain Hype Explained: Much more than Bitcoin
To the average person, the hype around blockchain makes no sense.
The Free Content Economy deserves to die
Social media that relies on user-generated content is morally bankrupt.
The Census is a dumb way to allocate Congressional seats and Electoral College votes
There are so many bad things that come from using the census to allocate congressional seats and the votes in the Electoral College, that I feel like a simple idea will make them all go away.
Gen X, Your Storytellers are all Dead or Retired
No New Tales to Tell It strikes me recently how many of the Artists and Storytellers I grew up on are no longer telling new stories.
Is big business more responsive than elected representatives?
I think it is taken as a given that one of the functions of good government is to regulate businesses and trade.
2018: Is the GPU the most important tech of the year?
It is not often that one technology or trend dominates an entire year. The internet and dotcom had a couple years like that.
Even in Texas: Republicans Are The Minority
Troll all you want, I am right. Sure there may be more registered Republicans than Democrats in Texas. But they are BOTH a minority.
In the News: The legal system won’t save us from Sexual Misconduct
Saw this article today, it strikes a similar message to the first part of my article on the metoo movement.
DivX, Snapchat and Why DRM is the Future
If you remember the dawn of the internet you know as a matter of fact DRM is evil.
Can Markets solve the massacre prevention problem?
As you may know from previous posts I like to look at things in different ways than most folks.
Why Was the Story Different in 2017? Harvey, Louis, & the Open Secret
have been thinking through this post for a while.
Design Matters: How Futura became the most ripped off font ever
I was really sick last week, so this is the first post in a few days. I love reading about the history of fonts and design systems.
Social Media, A disease we build immunity to?
I have always been pretty cynical. And I would say historically pretty sarcastic as well.
Not a Bubble. Investors were right about dotcom.
This will be a short post. People are comparing Cryptocurrencies generally and Bitcoin specifically to the dotcom bubble of the early 2000s.
Good read, AKA why you don't have friends.
I think this is really important. It is so hard to find “your tribe” and the odds that they live within walking distance is really small.
What Comes After AI? 6 Dangerous Things That Will Happen
This is part 3 in a 3 part series on the post-AI possibility of machine-based Artificial Empathy.
What Comes After AI? Part 2: Building the Beast
This is part 2 in a 3 part series on the post-AI possibility of machine-based Artificial Empathy.
What comes after AI? Part 1.
Artificial intelligence is very hot right now, we have self-driving cars on the way, we have algorithms that detect faces, screen possible cancer treatments, translate languages, and even beat humans in Chess, Jeopardy and Go.
Q&A: Is Labor Vs Capital important anymore?
This is a follow up to the last post, where I will address some questions and feedback I got on that post.