Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 1d

AI isn’t killing creativity — it’s killing mediocrity.

If “good enough” is all you bring to the table, you’re already obsolete.

The future belongs to those who #commandthemachines, not fear them. 🔥

👉 vault.jamesburchill.com/mindset/ai-i...

AI Isn’t Killing Creativity — It’s Killing “Good Enough” - The Vault

TL;DR (Quick Take): Stop Lying to Yourself — AI Isn’t the Enemy If you’re still muttering that AI is going to “kill creativity” or “replace humans,” I’ve got bad news for you: you’re missing the point...

vault.jamesburchill.com

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 2d

Two professionals charging 10 times for the same job isn’t greed—it’s a broken value system. Define outcomes, document systems, and measure performance. Stop debating worth; make value undeniable.

#ValueStrategy #ProfessionalDevelopment

vault.jamesburchill.com/strategy/whe...

When Professionals Can’t Agree on Value - The Vault

“When professionals in the same field cannot agree on the value of their work, it means the process for determining that value is fundamentally broken.” We’ve all seen it. Two professionals doing roug...

vault.jamesburchill.com

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 3d

How many of you did this as a kid?

I'd spend hours keying in code. Then hours debugging it 🤪

Then I'd save it twice to tape because that backup medium was super unreliable.

Funny how playing taught me skills I use today: patience and of course, debugging.

#nostalgia #personalcomputing

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 4d

🧠💡 #Solopreneurs don’t need more hours — they need automation.

I’ve been using #n8n, an open-source workflow tool that quietly handles the boring stuff.

It’s like having a digital teammate who never sleeps (and doesn’t bill by the hour). And no 'zap' tax!

vault.jamesburchill.com/tech-with-a-...

How Solopreneurs Can Use n8n to Automate the Grind and Take Back Their Time - The Vault

If you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, n8n can quietly reclaim hours of your week by automating the routine stuff: capturing leads, logging payments, onboarding clients, posting to social me...

vault.jamesburchill.com

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 8d

I love #docker. Yesterday, I built a fresh set of images from DEV, bundled them into a tarball, copied them to PROD, and loaded them into Docker there. After retagging them for production, I spun up new containers. Everything ran flawlessly. No source code on production – just images.

2

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 9d

“Text SOPs are dead.” “AI will take every job.”

Sound bites are catchy - but wrong more often than not.

Don’t chase slogans. Pause, check the science, and build on facts, not flash.

Full Vault article 👉 vault.jamesburchill.com/mindset/the-...

The Seduction of Sound Bites: Why We Need to Pause Before Believing the Hype - The Vault

Introduction: The Age of Shiny Statements We live in an era where flashy declarations spread faster than nuanced truths. A single catchy sound bite—“Email is dead,” “AI will take all our jobs,” “Text-...

vault.jamesburchill.com

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 13d

Apple just shook up containers 😱.

Unlike Docker’s shared kernel, Apple’s system runs a lightweight VM per container, providing stronger isolation, macOS integration, and Silicon-Tuned Performance.

I broke down the pros, cons & when to use it 👇

vault.jamesburchill.com/general/appl...

Apple’s new containerization feature – what it is, how it differs from Docker, and when to choose it - The Vault

Apple announced a native containerization stack for macOS that runs OCI images inside lightweight Linux virtual machines (VMs) using macOS virtualization APIs. It is built to be tightly integrated wit...

vault.jamesburchill.com

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 13d

Ooh now this looks cool.

Shawn Reed @shekari.bsky.social · 20d

I think I'll get the letters in the words to slowly fade and get refreshed by the matrix rain. Then clean it up and push it up to #GitHub for others to play with.

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 13d

I know the feeling! It's like I'm an excited little kid all over again and my mind is just buzzing with ideas. My biggest "problem" is knowing what to work on next. Too many choices, not enough time. Thanks for sharing. 👍

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 14d

Spring 2026 marks 50 years since I wrote my first lines of code. #AI - What was once sci-fi is now a daily reality. It fuels my work, my creativity, and my return to #solopreneurship. The journey’s come full circle ~ and it still feels like the beginning.

vault.jamesburchill.com/mindset/50-y...

50 Years In, and Still Learning ~ Why I Rebuilt Everything From Scratch (and What It Taught Me) - The Vault

After nearly five decades of tinkering with computers--from the days of beige boxes and clunky keyboards to today’s cloud-driven AI—I’ve come full circle. What started as a childhood fascination with ...

vault.jamesburchill.com

1 1 1

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 15d

#Agile thrived when devs were scarce and change was expensive. AI flipped the economics. Code is cheap now - the real bottleneck is clarity. The future?

Waterfall with sharper requirements and disposable code? Maybe. You can read my take on it, here 👇

vault.jamesburchill.com/strategy/agi...

Agile Is Dying. AI Just Made Waterfall Cool Again. - The Vault

For the past twenty-five years, “Agile” has been the gospel of software development. Executives have sat through endless Agile transformation initiatives, watched their organizations install “Scrum Ma...

vault.jamesburchill.com

1

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 17d

“Make something so good your friends tell friends about it.”

That simple idea once helped me build a #b2bnetworking group that exploded in popularity.

It grew so rapidly that someone offered $250,000 to buy it.

It also collapsed hard.

Here's why:

vault.jamesburchill.com/networking/w...

When Friends Tell Friends: Building, Breaking, and Learning From a $250K Network - The Vault

'Make something so good your friends tell their friends about it.'

vault.jamesburchill.com

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · 24d

Refactoring a #LEGACY #software #app is a fascinating exercise, and in my latest #VAULT article, I break it down and explain exactly how to do it.

jamesburchill.com/vault/strate...

Strangling the Monolith: Modernizing Legacy Code Without Losing Your Mind - The Vault

Software has a long memory. What began as a tidy project years ago often grows into a sprawling organism—a monolith where user interface, business rules, and database access are mashed into the same f...

jamesburchill.com

1

James C. Burchill @jamesburchill.com · Aug 20

I bought and watched Gunn’s Superman movie, and wow… what a hero. He loses almost every fight, blends in as just another “meta human,” and never feels remotely super. Riveting stuff — if you like watching Superman audition for “Most Average Guy.” What a shame. My least favourite superman movie ever.