Your Next "Access Database Problem" Is an AI Agent
AI has collapsed the cost of building software again, and the debt this time will not be bad code but agents nobody owns, knows about, or can account for.
sjg.io
Simon's personal website and blog
Latest posts
When "Secure by Default" Means "Microsoft by Default"
Microsoft has switched off Graph access to Teams meeting transcripts by default, breaking already-consented third-party integrations while its own Copilot defaults stay on.
SQRL Wasn't Wrong. It Was Early
How Steve Gibson's SQRL anticipated passkeys, and why timing and coordination mattered more than the cryptography.
The Rules I Try to Do Business By
A collection of rules, habits, and bits of borrowed wisdom that have shaped how I try to build services, lead teams, and do business with people.
Working From Home Holds Your Learning Back
Output is not the same as potential. Full-time home working weakens passive learning, flattens the development curve, and does younger workers a disservice.
Gen 5 AI and the Enterprise Harness War
Why the next enterprise AI fight is less about the smartest model and more about the harness: interfaces, runtimes, connectors, skills, governance, identity and agent-ready software.
No, your Agent Skill is not automation
Agent Skills and AI coworkers create real leverage, but personal productivity gains are not the same as operational automation.
Suspend Battery Drain on the Framework 13 Intel - It's Fine, Actually
Investigating battery drain during suspend on a Framework 13 running Ubuntu, finding out s2idle is working perfectly, and setting up suspend-then-hibernate as a sensible workaround.
Fixing EDID Failures on Resume with a Framework Laptop
Why your external monitor connects at 640x480 after waking from sleep, and a dynamic EDID caching fix for Framework laptops on Linux.
The Intel Noise Maker Prank
Sometimes the best pranks are the simplest ones. How an Intel promotional noise maker ended up hidden in Rob Belgrave's new car, and why someone at Intel was feeling very smug.
Forgotten Kickstarter Projects
Finding documentation of a Kickstarter reward I have no memory of receiving or using, and wondering how many other forgotten indie hardware projects are out there - and how Kickstarter has changed.
Texture Engraving and Branded Moleskines
A period of experimenting with texture engraving at rLab, creating bump maps from STL files, and using those textures to produce Wirehive branded Moleskines on mass.
Email Is Not Dead
In 2014, Asana's founder predicted the imminent death of email. Eleven years later, email is still very much alive. Here's why predictions about technology often miss the mark.
My First 3D Printer
A look back at my first 3D printer from 2013 - lead screws, MDF construction, and a hand lathed nozzle. How times have changed in the world of 3D printing.
Yet another major outage caused by everybody using the same cloud provider
Cloudflare was down again, taking a swath of the web with it—and reminding us that monocultures are a choice, not a law of nature.
Reminiscing Over Old Projects
Looking back at a door entry system built in 2014 - prototyped at rLab, deployed at Wirehive, and a reminder of the joy of building things that actually work.
An Eleven-Year-Old Lightpack Still Going Strong
Rob Belgrave's original Lightpack Kickstarter project is still working perfectly after 11 years, attached to an ultrawide monitor that just changed hands.
Work, Woodlands, and Geocaches
When work expands to fill every gap, you stop noticing how much you are giving up. Here's how I learned to find hobbies that actually pull you out of work.
Which year does your role become redundant? A personal playbook for now through 2045
Evidence-led guidance for individuals in the Western world. What to do, when to do it, and which signals to watch so you stay employable through the next four waves of automation.
The 2026 Computer-Literate Bar
Why computer literacy matters now, and exactly what to do to reach the 2026 bar.
Consolidation, Again
When one AWS region falters and half the internet stumbles, it tells us something deeper about the state of technology. This is not just a cloud story. It is a consolidation story.
The Slack I Loved Is Slipping Away
Salesforce's grip on Slack is reshaping it from a neutral collaboration layer into a gated CRM surface, squeezing communities and third-party builders.
Firepit Planner
Building a firepit for the forest school woods with a little help from Cursor
The Shape of Agentic Work
A field guide to agents that actually ship work: embedded in your systems, guided by policy, and obsessed with closing the loop.
Day 1 at Beyond EMEA 2025: Building from Within
How Pax8 is proving the Managed Intelligence Provider model by living it first through Customer Zero.
Touchdown in Amsterdam
On the ground for Pax8 Beyond EMEA. What I’m watching as AI and automation hit real workflows.
Open Source, Open Home: A Practical Approach to Home Automation
Building a house that's polite, not flashy - using Home Assistant, open source tools, and automation-first thinking to create a transparent, adoptable home system.
New Role: SVP, Workflow Engineering at Pax8
The three outcomes my new role at Pax8 is designed to deliver: enablement, automation, and orchestration.
Hiring for AI? Look Beyond Certifications
The three kinds of AI work-and why the real ROI is new capabilities, not hours saved.
Against the Great Convergence
Why I am fighting the consolidation of the internet and how you can too
Operational AI that actually ships
The routing layer that makes agentic systems safe and measurable in enterprise operations
CI/CD for communication: how we ship clarity every week
Apply product discipline to leadership comms so people know what matters and why, every week.
From single region to product pods
How we moved from a regional service hub to product oriented pods with worldwide coverage
Why I still care about DNS, routing, and logs when people want to talk models
Linux and networking roots that still apply to AI and modern systems