My Current OpenClaw Setup: Practical Local AI Agents with Private Routing I’ve been experimenting heavily with OpenClaw, and I wanted to write up my current setup for other IT professionals who may be curious about what is possible with it today. The short version: OpenClaw is powerful, but it is still very much in the “foot gun” stage...

The most success I’m having with AI lately is using Claude Opus as a thinking partner, not just a generator. 1. I start with intent: I want to do this, and I want you to interview me until you’re 95% confident. That forces the conversation out of guesswork andinto clarity. 2. I point to prior documentation to manage context. If there’s...

I'm a historian by training. The first thing you learn is the hierarchy of sources. Primary sources — first-hand accounts, original documents, directtestimony — are the raw material. Secondary sources are someone else's interpretation of that material. The further you get from the primary, the moredistortion accumulates. Every layer of...

General-purpose AI assistants have an infinite goal space. Give one the instruction "answer whatever the user asks" and you've created a system with nodefensible perimeter — every question is a new attack surface, every novel request a potential failure mode. You can't patch your way to safety when theboundary is everywhere. The fix is...

Lately, I’ve been bothered by how so many movies treat the iPhone (or any phone) as the be-all, end-all device—every key moment, the climax even, just ends up being people yelling into a little slab of glass. It feels empty. The device isn't supporting character or story; it’s replacing them. That made me think of why I find Star Trek ...

Looking back at history, I’m often reminded of that famous Mark Twain quote: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” I see proof of this in the words and phrases we still use today—many of which have roots centuries deep. Take Shakespeare, for example. Expressions like “break the ice,” “wild goose chase,” or “wear your hear...

For a long time, I used to think branching strategies were just a technical detail—something you picked once, then rarely thought about again. But the more I build and work with teams, the more I’ve come to appreciate how trunk-based development makes everything about shipping code less stressful and a lot more fun. What do I love most...

Recently, I listened to a talk at my church that really stuck with me. A few things hit home—simple ideas on how to show love. 1. Fathers and Sons: If you have a son, tell him you’re proud of him. That affirmation matters, and—like the speaker said—if you don’t, it’s unlikely anyone else will step up in quite the same way. Our boys nee...