https://conten.to/ Recent content on conten.to Hugo en-us Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/njm/njm/ Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0500 https://conten.to/posts/njm/njm/ The modern job market didn't break — it was redesigned. What changes, what stays, and how to navigate a system that has stopped being what it claimed to be. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/15/ Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/15/ Every technology we call 'communication' is the same project under different names: how do we move knowledge out of the fragile, mortal brain and into something that outlasts it? https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/14/ Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/14/ The human species has been generating the same wisdom for five thousand years. The question is why Babylon keeps winning anyway. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/13/ Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/13/ In 1946 Borges wrote a six-sentence parable about a map that was useless because it was perfect. In 2017 eight researchers at Google built one. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/12/ Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/12/ Modern medicine built itself around a proxy — weight, BMI, the visible body — while the actual disease driver, chronic inflammation, burns quietly underneath. We keep watching the smoke. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/11/ Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/11/ The fantasy of going back collapses the moment you take it seriously — not because time travel is impossible, but because you don't actually know the past. You know your observation of it. The coherent response to failure is iteration, not rewind. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/10/ Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/10/ The anxiety about using AI to write is a confusion between two distinct capacities: ideation and articulation. They have always been separable. The escribano is as old as writing itself. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/09/ Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/09/ String theory walked like physics, quacked like physics, and had the resume of physics for thirty years. The duck test failed. The harder question is what it was actually a duck of — and what that tells us about every institutional artifact that learns to spoof its own heuristics. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/08/ Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/08/ A friend from Spain offered a symbolic apology for colonial history. The correct response is not just 'I accept' — it is 'I accept AND I am grateful,' which is harder and more interesting to say. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/07/ Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/07/ The mistake is not taking life seriously. Life is heavy and deserves to be taken seriously. The mistake is confusing gravity — the correct response to real weight — with seriousness: the rigid, rule-hunting, certainty-demanding posture that doubles the load. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/06/ Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/06/ Every time I re-read Borges I cannot dodge the bullet. 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' is not a fantasy story. It is a documentary about how human reality actually works. Civilization is a miracle built out of coordinated fictions — and the people who understand the mechanism most clearly tend to become either novelists or tyrants. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/05/ Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/05/ Five centuries of economic history tell the same story with different characters: a surplus, and someone claiming it. The mechanism has changed shape five times — land, gold, factories, the state, platforms — but the underlying relation has not. China is not an anomaly. It is what happens when a state plays all five games at once, without the requirement that they cohere. The Western categories are not wrong about China. They are wrong about the West. https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/04/ Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/05/04/ In 1654 Pascal wrote that all of humanity's misery comes from a single fact: that we are unable to sit quietly, alone, in a room. Three hundred and seventy years later we have built the most extraordinary device in human history for the express purpose of ensuring no one ever has to. The smartphone is the latest anesthetic in a long line. The addiction is not to the device. The addiction is to the avoidance of the silence the device makes effortless to escape. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/30/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/30/ Almost everyone past forty knows the type — the man still operating, in the part that matters, as if he were twenty-four. There's a developmental window, roughly the late teens through the late twenties, in which certain psychic tasks are meant to be done. If they aren't, the probability of doing them later doesn't drop to zero. It drops to miracle, in the technical sense — requires a crisis large enough to crack the patterns that kept the work from happening in the first place. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/29/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/29/ The public conversation about AI and work is stuck on the wrong question. The real mechanism isn't the robot replacing a person; it's that one person can now do the work of five, so companies stop hiring instead of laying off. The crisis is not 'a world without jobs.' It's a world with plenty of work to do, and not enough jobs to go around to do it. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/28/ Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/28/ AI slop is the moral panic of the moment, and a lot of it is genuinely bad. But if you squint at a lot of professional work — boilerplate, memos, quarterly reports, status updates — much of what we make on a normal Tuesday already qualifies. A four-movement essay on whether AI introduced slop or just made the slop we always made cheap enough to see. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/27/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/27/ The universe is an optimization engine — but not the kind we usually mean. It runs on least action at the bottom, on opportunism at the top, and the part we call intelligence is the slack the engine learned to keep on purpose. A four-movement essay from photons to civilizations, ending on a quiet warning about expecting too much order. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/24/ Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/24/ Steve McCroskey in Airplane! (1980) was a joke. Then Silicon Valley made him a role model. A short essay on the 10x engineer myth, context-switching as culture, and why productivity-as-virtue is quietly the opposite direction from every contemplative tradition worth the name. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/23/ Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/23/ A sequel to Enlightenment and Madness. José Arcadio Buendía wasn't mad — he was trapped in a culture without a category for his state. We have categories now. ADHD, bipolar, schizotypy, the DSM. The medication replaces the rope. Whether that's progress is harder to answer than it looks. https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/22/ Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2026/04/22/ Rereading García Márquez with Remedios la Bella as the Buddha of Macondo and José Arcadio Buendía as the chestnut-tree madman — two faces of the same transcendence that modern life has no room for. With a detour through Chögyam Trungpa's crazy wisdom and Nietzsche's Zarathustra. https://conten.to/posts/2025/02/07/ Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2025/02/07/ Is capitalism a monstrous labyrinth that can be escaped or an eternal force that consumes itself but never vanishes? The myths of the Minotaur and Kirtimukha offer two powerful metaphors for understanding modern capitalism. https://conten.to/posts/2025/02/06/ Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2025/02/06/ Humans are the most opportunistic creatures on Earth, making them both the most sophisticated and the most dangerous species. This blog explores the dual nature of human intelligence and adaptability, with insights from Robert Sapolsky’s research on baboons. https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/24/ Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/24/ An exploration of the petite bourgeoisie's awakening to economic and political realities in 2025, reflecting on their golden era and modern challenges under recent policies. https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/16/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/16/ Explore the history of the Kagyu lineage in Tibetan Buddhism, its most famous monks, and its relationship with the Dalai Lama. https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/15/ Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/15/ Exploring the profound relationship between the speed of light, Planck length, and Planck time, which unites quantum mechanics, relativity, and gravitational principles. https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/06/ Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2025/01/06/ Exploring how belief systems shape communication and the importance of understanding historical context to decode why messages resonate or fail. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/29/ Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/29/ Explore the connection between game theory and modern AI, from strategic decision-making to historic contributions and ethical applications. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/24/ Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/24/ Exploring the transformative convergence of art and science, reshaping creativity and the human experience in the digital age. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/23/ Mon, 23 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/23/ Explore the evolution of binary and analog computing, the reasons behind binary's dominance, and the rising costs shaping the future of computation. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/22/ Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/22/ Explore the history, significance, and profound impact of the Euler constant (2.718182) across mathematics, science, and technology. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/21/ Sat, 21 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/21/ An exploration of the global hypocrisy surrounding China's role as the world's manufacturer and the simultaneous criticism of its political system. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/19/ Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/19/ Exploring the Galton Board, its connection to randomness, and how it beautifully demonstrates the Gaussian Curve. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/13/ Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/13/ An exploration of the ideals and realities of Marxism, capitalism, and socialism, examining their historical contexts and modern implications. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/12/ Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/12/ Exploring how transformer architectures are revolutionizing AI communication, much like language transformed human evolution. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/11/ Wed, 11 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/11/ An analysis of 'Zarathustra’s Prologue,' sections 5 and 6, focusing on the imagery of the rope, the tightrope walker, and the jester as metaphors for Nietzsche's vision of humanity and the journey towards the Übermensch. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/10/ Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/10/ Exploring the parallels between José Arcadio Buendía's dismissal of a flying carpet and the promises and limitations of modern AI, particularly large language models (LLMs). https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/08/ Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/08/ Exploring how creativity evolves in a world shaped by automation and consistency, and the roles where innovation continues to thrive. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/07/ Sat, 07 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/07/ Exploring the features, history, and modern examples of polymaths, with a focus on John von Neumann's contributions. https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/03/ Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/03/ Kissinger https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/01/ Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/12/01/ Complexities of Plastic Recycling https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/30/ Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/30/ [TODO] https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/25/ Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/25/ Blog series on conversations with LLMs https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/24/ Thu, 24 Oct 2024 13:21:54 -0400 https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/24/ Blog series on conversations with LLMs https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/10/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 19:05:06 -0400 https://conten.to/posts/2024/10/10/ Conversations with LLMs https://conten.to/posts/post-1/ Wed, 02 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0500 https://conten.to/posts/post-1/ Under Construction https://conten.to/posts/healthy/healthy/ Thu, 05 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0500 https://conten.to/posts/healthy/healthy/ A curated guide to the researchers, clinicians, and books working on the gap between 'not sick yet' and actually healthy — with a focus on functional medicine, metabolic health, and root-cause medicine. https://conten.to/posts/references/references/ Sat, 20 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0500 https://conten.to/posts/references/references/ References https://conten.to/disclaimers/ Sat, 08 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/disclaimers/ Disclaimers https://conten.to/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/about/ Gonzalo Contento — aka Programmer https://conten.to/cv/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://conten.to/cv/ Gonzalo Contento — Fractional CTO and Enterprise AI Architect. Azure · Microsoft Fabric · LLMs · .NET.