The more you think, the better you get at it. But the opposite is also true. The mind is a muscle, and leave it unstrained and it will atrophy.

New programmers are facing a new reality. It's now pay to play. Every bootcamp or certificate requires you pay for some tools to learn the very basic.

I'm here to tell you the free tools I've used in the past are still live and well. You don't need to break the bank to get started.

It's easy to spot bullshit jobs. You just work in exchange for a paycheck even if you know your employer doesn't really need you. It's not so different them misemployment.

However, there are other classes of jobs that look important, seem important. But they are only a director's decision away from disappearing.

Join me as I give you an extract of my book "Just Fired" Stories from the work place.

Years ago, I discovered a single line of code on our company's WordPress server that gave attackers complete control for three years. We patched it, learned our lesson, and moved on.

Today, developers are doing the exact same thing, voluntarily, with AI agents like OpenClaw.

In this episode, I tell the story of that WordPress hack and explain why modern AI assistants with broad system permissions are fundamentally insecure by design. We're downloading "skills" from the internet like we used to download random .exe files, except now they have access to our email, files, banking, and every app on our computers.

Prompt injection attacks can't be fixed with better code. LLMs can't reliably distinguish between legitimate instructions and malicious ones embedded in the content they process. We're trading security for convenience, and the first major breaches are inevitable.

Twelve years ago, I envisioned an AI assistant that would empower users while preserving privacy, local-first, with clear boundaries and manual approval for sensitive operations. We have the technology to build that today. We're just choosing not to.

This is markdown.exe, and nobody seems to care.

Topics covered: AI security, prompt injection, OpenClaw/Claude Desktop, agent vulnerabilities, WordPress hacks, local-first computing, privacy by architecture

Now all the apps are nowhere to be found.

They discovered that the AI app builders are great at making a brochure like app that likes shiny and polished. But when you want it to do anything useful, you need to hire a developer.

We all make shitty software with bugs. The differentiator is how much we are willing to stick around and improve it when the excitement has faded.

Oracle is not a giant of tech because it makes great software. Instead, it's because they have great salesmen who can lock you into a contract for 10 years.

No ingenuity can help you escape.

Have you ever watched an educational video like Veritasium and felt super smart? But then, when you want to explain the concept from the video, you brain falters?

Very often, we feel smart because we pickup on the confidence of the person presenting the video. But the knowledge itself never makes it into our head.

Microsoft is in a campaign to alienate their most loyal users. I've been using multiple OS on a regular basis, but they are making it harder for me to work.

It's time to ditch them for good.

When you go to a store, they ask you for your phone number casually. As if it is required to perform any transactions. This is data collection in disguise.

Just remember, you don't have to share any information to buy anything. You have the power to say no.