About Reboot Required

I’m Bryan, a principal software engineer in Seattle. This is a slow blog of substantive posts about projects, mistakes, and the occasional insight — mostly the kind that come from doing things I don’t already know how to do.

Recent threads include retro-computing for a curated audience, Linux kiosk engineering, and AI-assisted craft. Whatever’s next will probably surprise me too.

The editorial principle is simple: if a topic hasn’t survived a few real uses, I probably haven’t written it down yet.

Why “Reboot Required”?

The literal reading is the easy one — the dialog box that interrupts your work to install something new. The personal reading is the truer one. I needed to reboot myself: to step outside the comfort zone of what I already know how to do, install some new thinking, and come back differently. This blog is one of the places that’s happening.

On using AI

I’m learning to use AI effectively. The Chimebox project — the engineering and the writing — would not have happened in the same timeframe or at the same depth without working alongside an AI coding agent.

I also think most people use AI ineffectively. Most “AI-generated content” is the output of a single prompt copy-pasted without comprehension, fact-checking, or voice. The AI didn’t fail there. The human did.

The way I work with it is different: the AI proposes, I verify, push back, and rewrite in my voice. When the AI is wrong, I learn something. When it’s right, I understand why before I ship. The voice you’re reading is mine. The discipline that keeps it accurate is shared.

A longer treatment of this — what the workflow looks like in practice — is in draft and will eventually land here.

Elsewhere