2026-11-01 12:00 EST Autonomy and authority aren’t the same thing. Agents can do the work. Restarting the system should still take my signature. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a2 --- 2026-10-26 12:00 EDT Match the model to the stakes. A small coding model is fine for light work and the wrong call for anything critical. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a5 --- 2026-10-23 15:00 EDT Don’t let the main menu turn into a junk drawer. Anything that keeps piling up gets its own menu. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611b2 --- 2026-10-23 14:00 EDT A good test for any app: what would make it a no-question $25 one-time purchase? https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611b1 --- 2026-10-23 13:00 EDT Ask what standard practice is. Then ask what the gold standard is, and build toward that one. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a7 --- 2026-10-23 12:00 EDT When a model swings from “this is nothing” to “build everything around this” in one reply, call it out and get a second opinion. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a6 --- 2026-10-22 12:00 EDT Name things so they don’t collide with words people already know. “Package” already means something on Linux. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611b3 --- 2026-10-20 12:00 EDT If an agent answers with a list of things for me to do, it has the roles backwards. I’m not the worker here. It is. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a3 --- 2026-10-18 12:00 EDT Separate the agents that decide policy from the agents that carry it out. Church and state. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a1 --- 2026-10-17 12:00 EDT If the text already exists, read it. Don’t record the microphone to transcribe what the closed captions are already saying. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a8 --- 2026-10-16 12:00 EDT Let the user pick light or dark. Player controls that change color with whatever is on screen are just annoying. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a9 --- 2026-10-13 12:00 EDT Not every decision needs a frontier model. Let a cheap model judge whether the request needs an expensive one. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2611a4 --- 2025-06-24 22:10 EDT If your agent’s only memory is the chat window, it doesn’t have a memory. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2025a2 --- 2025-02-11 21:50 EST I don’t want an AI that does everything. I want one that tells me exactly what it did. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2025a1 --- 2024-08-20 06:45 EDT A small model that knows its job beats a big model guessing at yours. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2024a2 --- 2024-03-12 22:30 EDT Run a model on your own machine once and you’ll understand what you’ve been trading for convenience. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2024a1 --- 2023-10-03 21:20 EDT The AI demo ends when the model says it worked. The product starts there. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2023a2 --- 2023-05-16 22:40 EDT Prompt engineering is a job title for a problem that should be solved in code. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2023a1 --- 2022-12-06 23:15 EST Everyone’s asking what ChatGPT knows. The better question is what it will do when nobody’s checking. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2022a2 --- 2022-04-26 06:30 EDT Pediatric studies are the hardest work in sleep medicine and the most rewarding. Kids don’t fake sleep, and they don’t fake being uncomfortable either. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2022a1 --- 2021-07-08 06:55 EDT The patient trusts the device, and the device maker never meets the patient. When something goes wrong, the technologist is the one in the room explaining it. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2021a2 --- 2021-03-18 22:05 EDT NFTs are the new box of samples. Same pitch, new chain. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2021a1 --- 2020-09-22 07:40 EDT Home sleep tests will keep growing, and they should. But a home test can’t watch the patient. Some studies still need a technologist in the room. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2020a2 --- 2020-04-14 21:10 EDT Remote work isn’t new. We ran EnLab as a distributed team in 2015. What’s new is that managers can’t hide behind the office anymore. https://waltspence.com/thoughts/w2020a1 --- 2018-08-24 07:35 EDT I always take time to learn from my circumstances. Life has seasons. I’ve learned to embrace the rain. → /notes/embrace-the-rain https://waltspence.com/thoughts/s000002 --- 2018-08-24 07:31 EDT Take a whole day and make a good inventory of what’s positive in your life and what’s negative. → /notes/embrace-the-rain https://waltspence.com/thoughts/s000003 --- 2018-08-24 07:21 EDT You have to understand who you are. That’s critical to finding happiness. → /notes/embrace-the-rain https://waltspence.com/thoughts/s000004 --- 2018-08-24 07:11 EDT While you shouldn’t always concern yourself with what others think of you, you should always aim to present the best possible version of yourself. → /notes/embrace-the-rain https://waltspence.com/thoughts/s000005 --- 2015-08-31 09:05 EDT There are way too many articles selling a lifestyle that doesn’t exist for everyone in this startup community. → /notes/song-of-an-entrepreneurs-soul https://waltspence.com/thoughts/s000008