Month: February 2026

In the 90’s I was working full time at a different bank than I am now, and was studying for a master’s degree in Human Computer Interfaces, or HCI. It was later renamed to User Experience, as UX sounded better than HCI.  During that time, I took lessons I learned from Bruce Lee and merged it into my understanding of UX. Bruce lee believed that you were currently at a level, and to proceed to the next level of enlightenment you need to learn a lesson. Once you learned that lesson, you could progress. His original drawing for the Game of Death is below: 

My tower describing UX development is this (thanks to Nano banana its nicer)  

My belief was that to build a great UI, you need to first understand the Data, then the users’ Tasks, and finally the users’ goals.  I have given lectures on this but just think from the original MP3 players which made you rip CDs, then copy them with another tool for the MP3 player, and a third tool on the MP3 player to listen. Very task driven. Whereas when the iPod was released, Apple thought about the goal of music enjoyment, and it was one software to acquire music and listen to it.  

In 2023 I wrote my first blog post about AI, I talked about it as a great pair programmer. It could take a prompt and write code, or I could give it code and debug it. If you understand pair programming, it was good at it. Life was good, but I did not realize that this was the “Data Layer” of AI and programming.  

Late last year I discovered Specification Based Development (SBD), in the form of planning mode in Claude code, and in open-source tool kits like Speckit. In SBD you start with and requirement, and it walks through several processes: 

• Specify – This helps you document your requirement 

• Clarify – This helps get some details about your requirements, think about things like functional and non-functional parts of the requirement.  

• Plan – Come up with a plan on how you want to implement 

• Tasks – generate small measurable tasks, that can be coded 

• Implement – the actual coding.  

I have used this in my personal coding, as it helps me get my ideas straight and often drives the final product in a direction I was not expecting.  To me this was pair programming but now with a Business Analyst helping me build a system. 

What I was not prepared for was now what is called the year of AOC. This is “After Open Claw.”  I am 29 days (about 4 weeks) into playing with it so technically it is 29 days AOC.  When I first started using it, I thought wow this is cool, and wow this has some serious security holes. I had to put this on segregated machines, and put it in front of a proxy, and use a local model on a machine we call at home the F1 Beast.  

The first thing I had it do was build a news aggregator which would take a whole bunch of RSS feeds and twice a day send me the articles I should read, and a TL;DR.  This saved me a lot of time, as I would go through a lot of articles and waste a lot of time finding great reads.  I had given it articles I like, and do not like and had it score each article on the scale of 1-10 on what it would think I like.  This was cool. This weekend I had some extra time and installed a few clones of Open Claw and decided to also build one of my own. While working on my own using SBD, the questions I was getting back got me thinking. 

Instead of giving the tool a requirement, let me give it a goal. I said “I want you to help me become a better person, friend, parent, son, brother, and human being. What can you do to help me achieve this goal?” Looking back at the Tower, I just went from Data and Task to Goal. I did not give it what to build, I did not give it any requirement other than help me reach my goal. I did this with Open Claw, Agent0 and my homegrown bot, just to see what it would produce. What all three did was research and come back with some ideas. They all asked questions, and I responded and gave me a list of things that I could pick from what to track, etc. I gave it some feedback, and the bots went and started building the system.  I was thinking the whole “Where did it get these ideas from?”  One of the final products was a dashboard (showing only limited info not to show too much) is below: 

What you do not see is the interactions to get this data. It integrated telegram commands so I can log any of this information. It also created an automated check-in where it sends me messages asking, “Did you work out yet?” or “What is your mood?” etc. I can also use some commands used via telegram to log without being prompted.   This was MVP1 (on Agent0) if you know, but they all ended up close to the same. What is interesting is that it created a calculation of how I am doing throughout the day. Yes, I only have one day of data, as it was just done yesterday.  

Some functionality I could add would be connection to my Apple Watch Data, but right now I want to enter it manually, as security is a concern.  Tabs up top which is interesting is it asked me about eating and what do I do. I said I meal prep, it asked where my recipes are, I said I get stuff from Instagram.  What it built was a way to send it a link to an Instagram post, and generate the recipe, and I could add it to a shopping list.  In Telegram and can request to see my shopping list when at the market.  I could go on and on about the functionality but need to get back to my post.  

The Power of these tools like Open Claw was not that it could build code for you, or be a personal assistant, but it could make Goal Based development available for non-developers. Could I do the same with Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI? Absolutely, in fact when Opus 4.5 was released one thing I tried was asking it to build me a SaaS product for generating $1,000 a month in income that was completely stand alone and that needed no assistance from me. It produced several ideas, built it, and walked me through setting up how to get payments. I stopped deploying it to production, was I would need to figure out how to advertise it and spend money driving traffic.  I’m not ready for that yet. These tools really need developers to help it, where Open Claw can interact with a user via WhatsApp or Telegram. The run on Mac Minis and Mac Studios to run it, as well as local models is crazy right now.  

So now I have updated my diagram for the AOC age.  

Again thanks to Nano Banana.  

The power of these tools is there; there are security issues, but that will be remedied.  

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers, have nothing to do with it. I do not write for financial gain; I do not take advertising, and any product company listed was not paid. But if you do like what I write, you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. The fundraising site had to be restarted, and NYP Hospital made changes to their donation sites. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket; my intention is to keep it free.  You can comment, but note it is moderated, and spam will be removed.   

 This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web, I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.  AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them. And as always spelunz iz opshunal. 

For those who know me well, know I was a hockey dad. Ariel was involved in youth hockey from the age of three, till well let’s say she is not done at 24, she works as a referee. When she was between five and ten, one of the most important ways to improve her skills was not during practice, during games or any other structured environment; it came during some free play time.  

She went to open skate and played tag with friends; there were open hockey ice times where she and her friends could play. There were no coaches, no parents, no one judging them. I built an outdoor rink in my backyard where she could skate and play with friends. Kids could make up rules, try things they would not do in front of coaches and just well be kids. There are articles written about the importance of free play in hockey.  

But what about your job? I happen to be in technology, and it changes fast. We transitioned from mainframe to client server, to n-tier, to web-based applications over a thirty-year period. In the last three years, the tornado that is AI (really LLMs but let us make it easy) has thrown developers through a loop.  The question is how does one keep up; how do you make sure that you are staying up to date? Maybe if you are lucky where you work gives you sometimes to experiment or R&D time. Some companies give some training or allow employees to attend conferences.  

If someone loves technology, they may play in their time with what is new.  I have always found ways to play with tech; there is always something that drives me to learn.  Sometimes what I learned is a complete failure. Spending time on how to make my own cryptocurrency or NFTs was a waste of time. In 2022, a class I took on Artificial Intelligence though sparked a huge joy. Now this was pre-Open Ai’s release of GPT; the class was focused on using libraries like “scikit” and how things like Google are able to identify a person in a picture. From that class we had to build some data viewers, where I first found the Streamlit library.  This showed me how to build prototypes quickly and found instant applications for work.  

When I started to play with Chat-GPT and relalized it would write code, I wrote my blog post about the updated version of pair programming. What I was not prepared for was the massive changes that would occur so quickly. I demonstrated the AI development dozens of times at work and got interesting feedback. Now, a lot of programmers are on board, but they still think it is prompt and have the AI write code. But what happened over the past month pushed me to play deeper than I was previously.  

Openclaw (previously Clawdbot, Motlbot) hit mainstream, and at the end of January I had installed it and was kicking the tires. Like many others, we saw plenty of security issues. We also saw the extreme power this AI Agent had. This was the promise of AI.  

Over the past four weeks I decided to play with two of these User Agent Tools and build one of my own. What I learned is that these tools are here now, I did not write a code line in any of the three tools, and they all successfully built me a personal assistant health tracker. I could track if I had a good eating day, what workout I did that day, my energy level etc. I am interacting via telegram; I message it what I want it to do, and it does it. Yes, there is more I need to do, like give it a voice and add lost functionality. But the cost of building these applications, about $10 each in LLM, costs.  

But what was unreal was I did not give it requirements; I gave it a goal. I wanted to improve my accountability of becoming a better person, father, friend, son, and employee. I let the AI ask me questions and create the product. It created ways for me to interact with it so it could figure out what to build. I really could go on and on about what this technology can do, as well as where it is going, but that will be another essay.  

This is about free play; I would not be able to improve myself as a technologist without experimenting. This free play has driven me to get my team to use the tools, to bring in specification driven development versus thinking we are just coders. We are there to enable the business through software, and it is changing. The only way you can keep up is to play.  

Now there is a downside. In a quick text interaction with a friend who is in the same business, they mention they do not look at technology when they are not at work. They need a break. In fact, there are articles that were written about the possibility of “burnout” including the fact that the dopamine hit building so quickly it is addictive. Steve Yegge calls it an AI Vampire.I cannot disagree with my friend who does not want to play after work, and I assume she has the freedom to do some R&D in the office. That is still “free play” as doing R&D does not guarantee and outcome, well the outcome can be “this will not work.”  

To recap, free play is key to getting better, whether you do it during your job, or outside you need to experiment and play without needing a guaranteed outcome. Technology changes so fast that you do not have a choice but to change.  Bruce Lee once said, “To change with change is a changeless state.” in part two of playing i will go in deeper about my thoughts on AI, but for now play with it.  

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers, have nothing to do with it. I do not write for financial gain; I do not take advertising, and any product company listed was not paid. But if you do like what I write, you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. The fundraising site had to be restarted, and NYP Hospital made changes to their donation sites. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket; my intention is to keep it free.  You can comment, but note it is moderated, and spam will be removed.   

 This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web, I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.  AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them. And as always spelunz iz opshunal. 

Recently I watched a documentary about the 1980 Olympic Men’s Hockey Team.  The story has been told plenty of times before, including some great one (Disney) to some awful ones, and even one showing from the point of view of the Russians. When the countdown for the final seconds is going, I still start tearing up, it is one of the great moments in U.S. sports and gave some energy to a country that needed it. 

Hopefully, this is not a spoiler for anyone as this should be something like “the Titanic sank,” most people have heard the story and ending. I do want to remind people of what was going on leading up to the games. 

• 1973 saw the start of the Oil Embargo  
• 1979 Was the Iranian Revolution  
• There was an Oil Shortage  
• Saw Long lines at gas stations  
• Odd / Even days, based on License plates  
• The US was in a Stagflation 
  • High Inflation 13-14%  
  • Weak Growth (wages/GDP) 
  • People felt poorer even if employed  
• Prime interest Rates were in the high teens 
• Mortgage Rates were 18-20%  
• Unemployment sat at 7-8%  
• Vietnam was looming over our heads 
• Iranian Hostage crisis where 52 Americans were held captive  
• We were at Peak Cold Ware with Russia  
• USSR Invaded Afghanistan  
• The US boycotts the Summer Olympics (in Russia) 

The US Hockey team in 1980 did something amazing in sports but did something more amazing to the US. It bonded us together, as we now had a common enemy that everyone seemed to get behind. And through college kids and Herb Brooks captured all the US. hearts. Hockey was a niche sport, it was not played in Texas, Alabama, Florida etc. The team was mostly made up of kids from Minnesota and Massachusetts. 

In my lifetime, that was one of a few events that brought the country together.  The rest of them were tragedies. September 11^th was another. The country seemed different on the 12^th than it did before. Watching that movie, the one thing going through my mind is how divided we are right now, how much trouble this country faces, but there is not one event or common enemy for us to get behind. Instead, we choose to fight each other and blame anyone but ourselves.  

This made me think, what common enemy will bring us back, what one event can get people united. It will be catastrophic, as we do not see the challenges we face as ones to unite us. The problems in this country do not have a single face to them; they are more complex. And instead of finding solutions, we chose to find anger and blame.  

These Olympics will not change anything, no matter what medals we bring home. The Hockey team could win gold, and we will have pride in their success. But it will not unite us or bring us back together. I hope we get there, and unfortunately, I do not have an answer. But I will watch this and other stories about our 1980 Miracle on Ice and will cry every time I hear the countdown of the clock and wait to hear Al Michaels famous call, “Do you believe in Miracles.” For once I hope so.  

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers, have nothing to do with it. I do not write for financial gain; I do not take advertising, and any product company listed was not paid. But if you do like what I write, you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. The fundraising site had to be restarted, and NYP Hospital made changes to their donation sites. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket; my intention is to keep it free.  You can comment, but note it is moderated, and spam will be removed.  

 This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web, I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.  AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them. And as always spelunz iz opshunal.