Blog posts by Colin Steelehttps://colinsteele.org/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_paleozoic_era_of_agentic_frameworks/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_paleozoic_era_of_agentic_frameworks/99.99% of agentic frameworks are evolutionary dead ends. The Permian extinction is coming.Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/ground_beneath_the_map/https://colinsteele.org/blog/ground_beneath_the_map/There's a layer in your brain between reality and symbols, that both language and logic rest on. Transformers lack this layer.Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/elegy_for_dnd/https://colinsteele.org/blog/elegy_for_dnd/Lonely fun is lost. What remains is pale in comparison.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/lightning_talks_part_i/https://colinsteele.org/blog/lightning_talks_part_i/A collection of deliberate bear poking.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iv_skyvida/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iv_skyvida/You can't file a flight plan for a million delivery drones.Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-4/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-4/Die, usage die! The usage die can kiss my d20.Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/300_nopes/https://colinsteele.org/blog/300_nopes/A Stanford survey cataloging ~300 papers on LLM reasoning failures just confirmed every architectural diagnosis I made.Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/raytheon_ate_my_terrier/https://colinsteele.org/blog/raytheon_ate_my_terrier/Two months ago I proposed layered cognitive-kill drone defense built around cheap autonomous interceptors. Yesterday, Raytheon demoed exactly that. They also revealed the gap I'm most worried about.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/say_what_you_do/https://colinsteele.org/blog/say_what_you_do/I wrote that whole departments would vanish. Then I proved it twice in a month. AS9100-grade QMS and a complete Team Operating System, built part-time with LLMs. Nobody got fired. The jobs just never existed.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_horse_job_cope/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_horse_job_cope/Technology has always created more jobs than it destroys. That has been correct for two hundred years. It is about to stop being correct.Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-3/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-3/The heist shouldn't feel like a spelling beeThu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/eksterulo/https://colinsteele.org/blog/eksterulo/The failure to reason is a symptom. The failure to relate is the disease. Frontier models do not relate.Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/granna_holchoys_riddles/https://colinsteele.org/blog/granna_holchoys_riddles/Are you paying attention? Granna has some riddles for you.Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/book_smart/https://colinsteele.org/blog/book_smart/LLMs are trained on the compression of human experience, not experience itself. The territory they'd need to become intelligent is fundamentally alien to ours.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/margin_play/https://colinsteele.org/blog/margin_play/The same optimization that turned feeds into dopamine casinos is now operating on AI assistants.Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_last_levee/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_last_levee/'Massively polygenic' was our security blanket against designer humans. AlphaGenome just pulled it off. The only levee left is ethics. Don't laugh.Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/story_time_for_cxos/https://colinsteele.org/blog/story_time_for_cxos/Meetings replaced memos the same way the feed replaced thinking. Same thermodynamic disease, different host.Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iii_mini_cricket/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_iii_mini_cricket/$100 helmet-mounted edge AI that buzzes 'INCOMING DRONE' before the human ear even registers the sound.Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/sequoias_mission_accomplished/https://colinsteele.org/blog/sequoias_mission_accomplished/Sequoia just declared AGI. Their definition is 'the ability to figure things out.' My Roomba is AGI now. Someone call the LPs.Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/car_keys/https://colinsteele.org/blog/car_keys/RLMs and MoR are real progress. They're also still not reasoning. A critique of the cutting edge.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_ii_kesslergym/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_ii_kesslergym/Train your satellite AI for Tuesday in LEO with bad data. A 'messy reality' simulation environment for autonomous space traffic management.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/petty_gods/https://colinsteele.org/blog/petty_gods/The accelerationists expect the Rapture. The doomers expect Ragnarok. Both are fairy tales. What actually arrives is worse: narrow superintelligences that solve everything except the thing that matters.Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_i_lensreader/https://colinsteele.org/blog/island_of_misfit_startups_part_i_lensreader/Algorithmic feeds are bad for your brain. This startup is vitamins for your brain.Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/axioms_of_polity/https://colinsteele.org/blog/axioms_of_polity/A manifesto for human/machine polity charting civispace. Neither as apex mind. A forest.Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/marvin/https://colinsteele.org/blog/marvin/Your ASI needs a hug.Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/geometry_saves_mawmaw/https://colinsteele.org/blog/geometry_saves_mawmaw/I proposed that goal-space geometry could replace executive function in AI architectures. Then I discovered the math already exists.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/cargo_cult_civilization/https://colinsteele.org/blog/cargo_cult_civilization/Your attention-algorithm feed isn't corrupting you. It's completing a transaction your biology was always ready to make. And a population optimized for minimum cognitive expenditure is maximally controllable.Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/ludonarrative_puppets_sandwiches_and_ai/https://colinsteele.org/blog/ludonarrative_puppets_sandwiches_and_ai/A TTRPG about self-aware puppets who know they're being controlled, and the only freedom left: laughing at it loudly enough that it hurts.Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/ai_cant_help_mawmaw_but_worms_can/https://colinsteele.org/blog/ai_cant_help_mawmaw_but_worms_can/A robot caring for your grandma needs to fluidly inhabit radically different forms of cognition: creativity, logic, and crisis. Nothing in current AI architectures explains how. Worms might.Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/frontier_models_do_not_think/https://colinsteele.org/blog/frontier_models_do_not_think/Transformers don't reason. They perform reasoning kabuki theater. What's missing isn't capability, it's coordination.Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/the_cockroach_of_capitalism/https://colinsteele.org/blog/the_cockroach_of_capitalism/As automation commoditizes execution and cognition, the most durable form of human labor is not leadership or knowledge work, but illegible, risk-bearing, political coordination. An essay on why corporate politics survives every technological wave.Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/vermin_terriers_and_transformers/https://colinsteele.org/blog/vermin_terriers_and_transformers/If $500 drones can destroy the power grid (or an aircraft carrier), million-dollar missiles aren't a defense strategy. They're bankruptcy. A look at the 'Vermin' problem and why we need an immune system for critical infrastructure.Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/paul_graham_can_kiss_my_app/https://colinsteele.org/blog/paul_graham_can_kiss_my_app/Why I'm intentionally building Taleway wrong (no accounts, no UI, no engagement metrics) and why that might be exactly right for 2025Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/build_bridges_not_moats/https://colinsteele.org/blog/build_bridges_not_moats/Prognistication and contemplation of the nature of sustainable competition, circa 2025Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/invictus/https://colinsteele.org/blog/invictus/I am the captain of my soulThu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-1/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-1/5E: the mall food court of roleplaying gamesWed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-2/https://colinsteele.org/blog/game-design-journal-2/Player skill? Character skill? Chocolate AND Peanut Butter?Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/apple_is_a_duopolistic_predator_and_i_know_what_their_next_move_is/https://colinsteele.org/blog/apple_is_a_duopolistic_predator_and_i_know_what_their_next_move_is/Building an ambient audio app revealed Apple's blueprint for the future, and it's not about innovation. It's about control. Here's what they're building next.Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/sears-catalog-moment/https://colinsteele.org/blog/sears-catalog-moment/Your website doesn't matter anymore. Your API does. AI agents are killing web traffic the same way Amazon killed Sears catalogs. Here's what happens next.Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/second-post/https://colinsteele.org/blog/second-post/Thoughts on static site generatorsMon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/60000-percent-growth/https://colinsteele.org/blog/60000-percent-growth/How we scaled from 1,000 to 600,000+ daily users with zero downtime, no late nights, and a four-person team. The architecture decisions that made it possible.Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMThttps://colinsteele.org/blog/against-the-grain/https://colinsteele.org/blog/against-the-grain/The story of how we fired everyone, rewrote everything in Clojure, moved to AWS, and built a scalable OTA platform with just four developers—then got acquired by the biggest hotel chains in the world.Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT