The Barbell Strategy of Travel: A Probabilistic Framework for Serendipity I’ve been thinking recently about the underlying structure of travel. When we visit famous, well-known attractions, we are essentially engaging in an activity where the upper and lower bounds are strictly defined. A visit to the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall offers a high “floor” (it is safe, impressive, and has good infrastructure) but a capped “ceiling.” You are there to verify information you already have, not to discover something new. The experience is “priced in.” ...
The AGI Mirage: Why "Sufficient" AI is Already Revolutionizing the Workforce
The AGI Mirage: Why “Sufficient” AI is Already Revolutionizing the Workforce We are waiting for an artificial god to arrive and change everything, missing the fact that a highly efficient mimic has already taken the seat at our desk. In the current discourse surrounding Artificial Intelligence, there is a palpable obsession with the “Singularity”—the moment AI achieves Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), matching or surpassing human cognitive abilities across every domain. We argue about whether it’s five years away or fifty. We worry about Skynet scenarios and philosophical zombies. ...
The Universal Explainer: A Survival Manifesto for the Post-Code Era
Introduction: The Anxiety of Relevance If you are a software engineer reading this in 2026, you are likely feeling a specific, gnawing type of vertigo. It is the sinking feeling that the ground beneath your feet—the career you spent years mastering—is turning into quicksand. For the last twenty years, the “Software Engineer” held a privileged position in the global economy. We were the gatekeepers. We possessed a difficult, arcane monopoly: the ability to translate human intent into machine syntax. If a business wanted to exist in the digital realm, they had to pay the toll: high salaries, stock options, and tolerance for our complexities. ...