iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 27/09/2026

LGW ✈️ MRU ✈️ RUN After all the travel I did with BCG, that route is not one that ever came up. This is about to my office for the next four months. 😎

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 14/05/2026

SMTP is over forty years old, still wide open, and still effectively owned by a handful of platforms. Just about all tech runs the protocol-to-platform loop but cheap software might be about to run it backwards. Blog #0198: From Protocols to Platforms and Back matthewsinclair.com/blog/0198-fr...

A stylised view of a landscape of digital platforms in a purple/blue colour palette, hinting at different layers and levels.

SMTP is over forty years old, still wide open, and still effectively owned by a handful of platforms. Just about all tech runs the protocol-to-platform loop but cheap software might be about to run it backwards.

Blog #0198: From Protocols to Platforms and Back

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/04/2026

Misere is a spectator sport.

A picture of a misere hand in 500:
6♦️A❤️5♠️6 ♠️Q ♠️K ♠️J ♠️J♣️ ❤️K ❤️

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/04/2026

If anyone, even as recently as 2 years ago, suggested that I would be soon having this kind of conversation with a machine, I would have questioned their sanity.

A screen grab of a chat with Claude Code where Claude accidentally rhymes, and then rhymes again when it is pointed out that it's previous comment rhymed, claiming it was all an accident.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 09/04/2026

Whoa. Looks like Claude just had a stroke.

Claude Code text output showing absolute gibberish.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 06/04/2026

I am totally addicted to this.

A photo of the YouTube livestream on my TV of the Artemis II spacecraft on it's way to loop around the Moon. The craft is on the left and an oddly egg-shaped moon on the right.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0194: The Time Cost of How Is Zero Agentic coding pushes the implementation cost of software towards zero and value shifts from how to build something towards why and what, the latest rung on a very old ladder. matthewsinclair.com/blog/0194-th... #blog #braingasm #ai #gpt #futureofwork

Looking up through the centre of an internal spiral staircase in a cream/white interior towards a blue skylight.

Blog #0194: The Time Cost of How Is Zero
Agentic coding pushes the implementation cost of software towards zero. The value shifts from how to build something towards why and what. But this is just the latest rung on a very old ladder.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0193: Learning and Dreaming Part 4 of 4. Cross-entropy loss, Adam optimiser, the training loop, and autoregressive sampling. The GPT learns and generates. matthewsinclair.com/blog/0193-le... #blog #braingasm #ai #gpt #elixir #fromscratch

More stylised blue lines with white glowing orb spheres over a flowing digital background.

Blog #0193: Learning and Dreaming
Part 4 of 4. Cross-entropy loss, Adam optimizer, the training loop, and autoregressive sampling. The GPT learns and generates.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0192: How Tokens Talk to Each Other Part 3 of 4. Self-attention, multi-head projections, and KV caching — the core of the transformer matthewsinclair.com/blog/0192-ho... #blog #braingasm #ai #gpt #elixir #fromscratch

Blue, purple, and green stylised swirls on a dark background.

Blog #0192: How Tokens Talk to Each Other
Self-attention, multi-head projections, and KV caching — the core of the transformer

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0191: From Letters to Logits Part 2 of 4. Character-level tokenization, linear algebra, softmax, and the complete GPT architecture — all in pure Elixir. matthewsinclair.com/blog/0191-fr... #blog #braingasm #ai #gpt #elixir #fromscratch

Matrix-inspired green hieroglyphs on a dark background.

Blog #0191: From Letters to Logits
Part 2 of 4. Character-level tokenization, linear algebra, softmax, and the complete GPT architecture — all in pure Elixir.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0190: What If Numbers Could Remember? Part 1 of a 4-part series on building a GPT from scratch in Elixir. Autograd, computation graphs, and making numbers remember. matthewsinclair.com/blog/0190-wh... #blog #braingasm #ai #gpt #elixir #fromscratch

Stylised graph of blue connected nodes and lines on a dark background.

Blog #0190: What If Numbers Could Remember? Part 1 of a 4-part series on building a GPT from scratch in Elixir. Autograd, computation graphs, and making numbers remember.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0189: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Highlander Rule matthewsinclair.com/blog/0189-th... #blog #braingasm #agentic #ai #highlander

An image of The Highlander from the 80s sci-fi fantasy film of the same name.

Blog #0189: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Highlander Rule
A simple rule with a pithy name turns out to be surprisingly effective at keeping agentic coding on the rails

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/03/2026

Blog #0188: On Knowing What Code to Throw Away Agentic coding has inverted the job — from knowing what to write, to knowing what to throw away matthewsinclair.com/blog/0188-on... #blog #braingasm #agentic #ai

A greyscale picture of the head of The David by Michaelangelo.

Blog #0188: On Knowing What Code to Throw Away
Agentic coding has inverted the job — from knowing what to write, to knowing what to throw away

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 10/02/2026

I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front for a few months, so this is a quick catch-up post: what I've been doing, what I've shipped, and where things are headed. Blog #0187: A Few Things I've Been Working On matthewsinclair.com/blog/0187-a-...

A picture of a very well-organised workshop tool bench with all of the tools arranged in a set of hanging brackets behind the bench.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 10/02/2026

Over the year, I try to find something interesting to read and digest each week related to or at least adjacent to what I am currently working on. Here's the list for 2025. Blog #0185: (Almost) 52 Things I Learned in 2025 matthewsinclair.com/blog/0185-al...

The year "2025" rendered in a gold-ish translucent 3D font.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 10/02/2026

Here's a simple framework for thinking about where we draw the line on AI autonomy, from spreadsheets to self-driving cars Blog #0186: What We Let Machines Do matthewsinclair.com/blog/0186-wh...

A path in the woods with a fork in the road, one direction has two tracks as if vehicles of some kind have gone down it, the other path is just a single walking trail.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/01/2026

Here’s a wall of 90s and 00s CDs. My wife decided that they were talking up space in the basement and so something had to be done about it!

This is a wall installation of 180 CDs from the 90s and 00s (which was about the last time I bought a physical CD).

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 08/07/2025

I am tired of having to justify “Why Elixir?” so I decided to compile all the reasons in one place. "#0181: Why Elixir? A Rebuttal to Common Misconceptions Why Elixir is not just a good platform for modern development, but a great one!" matthewsinclair.com/blog/0181-wh...

A stylised image of a vile of magic purple elixir.

I am sick and tired of having to justify “Why Elixir?” so I decided to write down all of the reasons why in one spot!

#0181: Why Elixir? A Rebuttal to Common Misconceptions
Why Elixir is not just a good platform for modern development, but a great one!

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 03/07/2025

#til A “higgs-bugson” is a bug that is predicted to exist, but is very hard to find. Thanks, Wikipedia. Well played.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 13/06/2025

Today's #braingasm post explains how to make Emacs appear in macOS Finder’s “Open With” menu for .md files by manually associating file types using duti. #0180: Making Emacs Appear in macOS Finder's Open With Menu for Markdown Files matthewsinclair.com/blog/0180-ma...

An AI-generated example screenshot of an Emacs-like editor editing a Markdown file.

Today's #braingasm post explains how to make Emacs appear in macOS Finder’s “Open With” menu for .md files by manually associating file types using duti.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 15/05/2025

Who do you call when the weather is stuck on 20°? 🤔

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 28/04/2025

We don't have a smartphone problem. We have a software problem. The real threat isn't screen time. It's algorithm time. Discover how we can protect our children—and perhaps democracy itself—from algorithmic manipulation: #0179: Kids and Smartphones matthewsinclair.com/blog/0179-ki...

A plain poster on a tiled wall that reads "Less Social Media."

We don't have a smartphone problem. We have a software problem. The real threat isn't screen time. It's algorithm time. Discover how we can protect our children—and perhaps democracy itself—from algorithmic manipulation:

#0179: Kids and Smartphones
https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0179-kids-and-smartphones

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 12/04/2025

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀 ⚠️ Irresponsible AI When AI goes wrong - practical tips for avoiding "garbage" output from AI assistants, Apple's "$10B+ Siri AI Disaster," and the provocative question: "Is GenAI Digital Cocaine?" 👉 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm060-...

Scrabble pieces laid out to say "LEARN FROM FAILURE" on a plan background.

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀
⚠️ Irresponsible AI
When AI goes wrong - practical tips for avoiding "garbage" output from AI assistants, Apple's "$10B+ Siri AI Disaster," and the provocative question: "Is GenAI Digital Cocaine?"
👉 https://quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm060-irresponsible-ai-reading-list-march-2025

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 12/04/2025

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀 🚀 Engineering Leadership Challenging conventional wisdom by dismantling the '10x engineer' myth and exploring what it means to be a tech leader in 2025. 👉 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm059-...

People climbing a grey, rocky mountain looking upwards towards the sky.

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀
🚀 Engineering Leadership
Challenging conventional wisdom with pieces dismantling the '10x engineer' myth, exploring what it really means to be a tech leader in 2025, and examining the identity crisis facing software engineers in an AI-augmented world.
👉 https://quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm059-engineering-leadership-reading-list-march-202

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 12/04/2025

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀 ⚡ Elixir Deep dive into the evolving Elixir ecosystem with highlights on Women in BEAM, new UI libraries for Phoenix LiveView, and Sean Moriarity's keynote on designing LLM-native systems with Elixir. 👉 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm058-...

Shot of programmers computer over the top of a keyboard looking at two monitors in a darkened office/desk.

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀
⚡ Elixir
Deep dive into the evolving Elixir ecosystem with highlights on Women in BEAM, new UI libraries for Phoenix LiveView, and Sean Moriarity's keynote on designing LLM-native systems with Elixir.
👉 https://quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm058-elixir-reading-list-march-2025

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 12/04/2025

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀 🤖 Machine Intelligence Exploring philosophical foundations of AI, economic implications, and practical applications. Featuring "gradual disempowerment" and Mayo Clinic's approach to combating hallucinations. 👉 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm057-...

Closeup of a women's left eye.

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LIST! 🚀
## 🤖 Machine Intelligence
Exploring the philosophical foundations of AI, economic implications, and practical applications. Featuring discussions on "gradual disempowerment" and Mayo Clinic's innovative approach to combating hallucinations.
👉 https://quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm057-machine-intelligence-reading-list-march-2025

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 12/04/2025

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LISTS ARE LIVE! 🚀 Fresh content alert! My March 2025 curated reading lists are now available covering four tech domains: 🤖 Machine Intelligence ⚡ Elixir 🚀 Engineering Leadership ⚠️ Irresponsible AI 👉 quantumfaxmachine.com

Close-up for a woman's left eye.

📚 QUANTUM FAX MACHINE: MARCH 2025 READING LISTS ARE LIVE! 🚀

Fresh content alert! My March 2025 curated reading lists are now available covering four tech domains:

🤖 Machine Intelligence
⚡ Elixir
🚀 Engineering Leadership
⚠️ Irresponsible AI

👉 https://quantumfaxmachine.com/

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 08/04/2025

Just read "What If We Made Advertising Illegal?" (simone.org/advertising). It argues ads are corrosive, manipulative & harmful—fueling attention hijacking & distorting reality. Rather than banning outright, what if we taxed it instead? matthewsinclair.com/blog/0177-what-if-we-taxed-advertising

This image shows a woman looking at a wall covered in tattered old advertising posters.

The post says:

I recently read “What If We Made Advertising Illegal?“ (https://simone.org/advertising/). It makes a bold case: advertising is corrosive, manipulative, and ultimately harmful to society. It fuels attention-hijacking, undermines truth, and distorts our shared reality. As with other once-tolerated hazards—lead in paint, indoor smoking—perhaps it’s time we called time on advertising altogether.

But what if, rather than banning it outright, we taxed it instead?
https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0177-what-if-we-taxed-advertising

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 01/04/2025

ØNTHR is the result of almost no pioneering research conducted at "The Institute for Nothing", Nullarbor Plain, Australia. FInd out more here: institutefornothing.org

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 01/04/2025

Introducing ØNTHR: The World's First Perfect Stablecoin. ØNTHR guarantees absolute price stability at precisely $0.00—forever. Find out more here: netherzero.com #Stablecoin #ZeroIsTheFuture #Web3 #Crypto #ProtocolLaunch #DeFi #Fintech #InstituteForNothing #Tokenomics

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/03/2025

Wondering what's next once you're a software engineer? Check my #podcast on career boundary conditions—4 episodes in, wanting your feedback. More at matthewsinclair.com/blog/0175-wh... #whatnext

A picture of a young boy at the bottom of a very large staircase that goes up and away out of sight.

Wondering what's next once you're a software engineer? Check my #podcast on career boundary conditions—4 episodes in, wanting your feedback. More at https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0175-whatnext-podcast-next-steps #whatnext

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 14/03/2025

I just noticed in macOS 15.3.2 that holding down the Command Key (⌘) for a few seconds brings up a list of hotkeys. For example, doing so in Finder gives you this. Is this a new thing? Why have I never noticed this before? 🤔

Holding down the Command Key (⌘) for a few seconds in Finder on macOS shows a list of available hotkeys.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/02/2025

🎙️ New podcast alert! 🚀 “I’m a Software Engineer—What Next?” explores the career journeys of engineers, from IC to leadership & beyond. Ep 1 with Carlton Lane is live now! Listen 🎧: open.spotify.com/episode/2P4B... Feed 🌐: whatnext.dev/feed #SoftwareEngineering #CareerPaths

I'm a software engineer ~ what next? S01E01 - Carlton Lane - Boundary Conditions

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 31/01/2025

🚀 Can AI be creative? I tested ChatGPT, Claude & DeepSeek on the Divergent Association Task (DAT). 🔥 Claude: 98th %ile 🔥 ChatGPT: 92nd %ile 🔥 DeepSeek: 83rd %ile Better than humans? Real creativity or just remixing? 🤔 Full results: matthewsinclair.com/blog/0174-ch... #AI #Creativity #LLM

A human hand reaching up into the sky to grab a cloud.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 20/01/2025

I’m advising mylumii.com. They’ve launched a beta and need early users to shape the future of emotional health. It decodes and processes emotions using emotional science, gamification, and AI. See: mylumii.com?ref=MS for access. Disclosure: No financial interest, just helping a fellow entrepreneur.

Using emotional science, gamification, storytelling, and AI, my lumii helps you process any difficult or meaningful moment in just five minutes—finding relief and closure similar to wrapping up a therapy session.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/01/2025

Here’s everything that I found interesting last month about the irresponsible use of machine intelligence: #qfm #quantumfaxmachine #irresponsible #ai #machine #intelligence #december #2024 QFM048: Irresponsible AI Reading List December 2024 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm048-...

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/01/2025

Here’s everything that I found interesting last month about Engineering Leadership: #qfm #quantumfaxmachine #engineering #leadership #december #2024 QFM047: Engineering Leadership Reading List December 2024 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm047-...

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/01/2025

Here’s everything that I found interesting last month about the Elixir programming ecosystem: #qfm #quantumfaxmachine #elixir #programming #december #2024 QFM046: Elixir Reading List December 2024 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm046-...

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 17/01/2025

Here's everything that I found interesting last month about machines behaving intelligently: #qfm #quantumfaxmachine #machine #intelligence #reading #list #december #2024 QFM045: Machine Intelligence Reading List December 2024 quantumfaxmachine.com/blog/qfm045-...

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 12/01/2025

What am I missing here? Isn’t “baked cookie dough” just a cookie? Isn’t that what happens when you bake cookie dough? Next we’ll be having “baked bread” #getoffmylawn

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 27/12/2024

Every week, I try to read or learn something interesting—sometimes useful, sometimes whimsical, occasionally random. Here’s my ‘This Week I Learned’ list for 2024. Enjoy! matthewsinclair.com/blog/0173-52... #blog #braingasm #thisweekilearned #2024

Two folders on a computer disk, one for 2023 and one for 2024.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 11/12/2024

Quite simply some of the best advice you could ever hear on managing software complexity.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 28/11/2024

When your wife goes to Australia and brings back snacks ...and also a message hidden in a greeting card. 🤔

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 19/07/2024

This is quite something. I moved an ethernet cable from the auxiliary port on the back of a wired-in Google Home Mesh WiFi hotspot to an 8-port hub directly connected to the rest of the home ethernet network. Download speed went from 80-100Mbs to >800Mbs. Amazing.

Screenshot of Speedtest.com download speed test after changing some cables around.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 20/06/2024

Nice. I had a couple of goes at it. Here’s another one. They are strikingly similar.

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 20/06/2024

I give you: The Vel-Crow. /HT to GPT and my daughter following an amusing conversation last night on what would happen if two crows had a fight and got stuck together. 😂

A crow covered in Velcro bands. As in “vel-crow”. #pun #dadjoke

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M@ @matthewsinclair.com · 19/06/2024

Reminds me of this stunt I pulled a few years back.

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