Showing results by author "Shane Larson" in All Categories

AI models got smart fast. They learned to write code, summarize documents, and carry on conversations that made people question the future of knowledge work. But for the longest time, they were stuck inside a box. They could talk about your calendar, but they could not read it. They could describe how to query a database, but they could not run the query. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) changed that. Developed by Anthropic and released as an open standard, MCP gives AI models a universal way to connect to external tools, data sources, and systems. It is the USB-C of AI — one protocol ...

The Systems Thinker's Advantage: Why the Rarest Skill in Software Is the Only One AI Can't Replace AI can write your code. It can't see your system. The software industry is splitting in two. On one side: developers whose value was translating requirements into code — now watching AI do it faster and cheaper. On the other: developers who see the whole system — the feedback loops between technology, organizations, markets, and human behavior — and who thrive precisely because AI makes that interconnection more complex, not less. This book is for developers who want to be on the right ...

They invented the alphabet you are reading right now. They built the first maritime trading empire, connecting tin mines in Britain to cedar forests in Lebanon to gold markets in West Africa. They manufactured the most expensive luxury good in the ancient world -- Tyrian purple dye, worth more than its weight in gold. They founded Carthage, which would become Rome's most dangerous rival. And almost nobody remembers them. The Purple Merchants is a comprehensive deep dive into the Phoenicians -- history's greatest forgotten civilization. From their Canaanite origins on the narrow Lebanese ...

The most honest book about the biggest shift in software development since the internet. In February 2025, Andrej Karpathy posted a casual observation that gave a name to something millions of developers were already doing: describing what they wanted to AI, accepting the code that came back, and iterating by feel rather than by deep understanding. He called it "vibe coding." Within weeks, the term was everywhere — and so was the debate. Is vibe coding the future of software development? A dangerous shortcut that will produce a generation of incompetent engineers? Or something more ...

They weren't just raiders. They reshaped the world. In 793 AD, Norse warriors attacked a monastery on the coast of England, and Christendom was terrified. But raiding was only the beginning. Over the next three centuries, Scandinavians founded Russia, conquered a third of England, settled Iceland and Greenland, reached North America 500 years before Columbus, served as the elite bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor, besieged Paris, conquered Sicily, and carved out the Duchy of Normandy — whose descendants conquered England in 1066. What you'll find inside: The longship revolution — the ...

Most people have heard of the dark web. Almost nobody understands what it actually is. The dark web started as a US Navy project to protect intelligence communications. It became a tool for dissidents and journalists. Then it became the backbone of the most sophisticated criminal marketplace the world had ever seen. Today it is all of these things simultaneously. This book tells the full story — not the sensationalized version, not the libertarian fantasy, but the reality. What you will learn: What the dark web actually is — and why most statistics about it are wrong How Tor works, who ...

Remote work advice is everywhere. Almost none of it is written for engineers. Generic remote work books tell you to set up a dedicated workspace and overcommunicate. That is fine if your biggest challenge is remembering to take breaks. But if you are an engineer trying to ship code across time zones, build technical credibility without hallway conversations, or keep your skills sharp when nobody around you does what you do — you need something different. The Remote Builder is the book that finally addresses the real challenges technical professionals face when working remotely: The ...

NGINX handles a third of all websites on the internet. Properly configured, it does everything a microservices API gateway needs — routing, load balancing, rate limiting, SSL termination, caching, and security hardening — without the complexity or cost of dedicated gateway products. This book takes you from a fresh NGINX installation to a production-hardened API gateway, with complete, production-ready configuration examples in every chapter. What you will learn: How to configure NGINX as a full-featured API gateway for microservices architectures Routing patterns: upstream blocks, ...

For centuries, they were equals to Egypt. They fought Ramesses II to a standstill at Kadesh in the largest chariot battle the ancient world ever saw. They signed the first peace treaty in recorded history. Their laws were more humane than Hammurabi's. Their queens held real power. Their empire stretched from the Aegean to Mesopotamia. Then the world forgot they existed. The Hittites vanished so completely that for three thousand years, the only traces of their civilization were a few puzzling references in the Hebrew Bible. It took a German archaeologist digging into a Turkish hillside in ...

In 1177 BC, the Bronze Age world collapsed. Palaces burned. Trade networks vanished. Writing stopped. But people didn't disappear. For three hundred years, survivors adapted to a world without palaces, without long-distance trade, without the systems their ancestors had built over millennia. They simplified. They migrated. They forgot old skills and invented new ones. And eventually, they built something new—the foundation of the classical world we still inherit today. The First Dark Age tells the forgotten story of what happened after the collapse: How ordinary people lived when the ...

The Bronze Age collapsed. What came next changed everything. Around 1200 BCE, the most advanced civilizations on Earth were destroyed in a catastrophe that ended empires, erased writing systems, and shattered trade networks spanning continents. Most histories end there — with the dramatic fall. Iron Age Dawn picks up where the collapse left off. It tells the story of the technological revolution that rebuilt civilization: the slow, uneven, transformative adoption of iron that reshaped the ancient world from the ground up. Inside this book: Why the Bronze Age was built on a fragile supply ...

Rome didn't fall in a day—it took centuries. The Bronze Age world collapsed in a single generation. The Maya walked away from their cities and never returned. What do these catastrophes have in common? More than you'd expect. The Collapse Pattern examines history's greatest civilizational failures—from the world's first empire in Akkad to the slow unraveling of Rome—to uncover the recurring patterns that appear again and again when complex societies destroy themselves. You'll discover: Why increasing complexity often causes the problems it was meant to solve How climate stress ...

Before there were computer hackers, there were phone phreaks. In the 1960s, a blind seven-year-old boy whistled into a telephone and discovered he could control the largest machine ever built. That discovery sparked an underground movement that would reshape technology, launch Apple Computer, and create the hacker culture we know today. Phone Phreaks: The Original Hackers tells the complete story of the curious misfits who reverse-engineered AT&T's telephone network using nothing more than toy whistles, homemade electronics, and an obsessive desire to understand how things worked. Inside ...

Every CIO faces the same AI integration nightmare. You have dozens — maybe hundreds — of enterprise systems. Every time you want to connect an AI tool to one of them, your team builds a custom integration. Ten AI tools times fifty data sources equals five hundred custom connectors. Each one needs to be built, maintained, secured, and governed. This is the N-times-M integration problem, and it's killing your AI strategy. Model Context Protocol (MCP) is the open standard that solves it. Think of it as USB-C for AI — one universal connector instead of hundreds of custom cables. Adopted ...

By 2030, 0% of IT work will be done by humans without AI. That's not speculation—it's the forecast from Gartner's survey of 700+ CIOs. The question isn't whether AI will transform software engineering. It's whether you'll be ready when it does. Right now, 84% of developers use AI tools daily. AI generates nearly half of all production code. And the engineers who've mastered this shift are pulling ahead—fast. The AI-Augmented Engineer is the first data-backed career roadmap for software engineers navigating the biggest transformation since high-level programming languages. No hype. No ...

In 1520, a twenty-six-year-old prince inherited the most powerful empire on Earth. Over the next forty-six years, he would conquer Belgrade, Rhodes, Hungary, and Baghdad. His navy would dominate the Mediterranean. His legal code would govern millions for three centuries. His architects would build monuments that still stand today. His people called him "Kanuni"—the Lawgiver. Europeans called him "the Magnificent." Suleiman the Magnificent tells the complete story of the Ottoman Empire's greatest ruler—from the siege of Vienna to the love affair that scandalized his court, from the ...

Around 1200 BCE, the most advanced civilizations on Earth were destroyed in a single generation. The Hittite Empire — gone. Mycenaean Greece — gone. The great port of Ugarit — burned and never rebuilt. Trade networks that had connected the Mediterranean for centuries — collapsed. An entire world of palace kingdoms, international diplomacy, and bronze-age prosperity vanished in a cascade of fire, famine, and war. At the center of the destruction: a mysterious coalition of raiders the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. Who were they? Where did they come from? And did they really bring ...

When Alexander the Great died at thirty-two, he left behind the largest empire the world had ever seen — and no plan for what came next. His generals — the Diadochi, the "Successors" — spent the next forty years tearing each other apart in wars more dramatic and consequential than Alexander's own conquests. An eighty-one-year-old one-eyed general charging into his last battle. A siege engineer who built towers taller than city walls. A pragmatist who stole Alexander's corpse and built a dynasty that lasted three centuries. A political operator who murdered an entire royal family to ...

Everything you think you know about Cleopatra is probably wrong. She wasn't Egyptian — she was Macedonian Greek. She wasn't defined by her love affairs — she was a polyglot who spoke nine languages, a shrewd economic manager, and the most capable ruler her dynasty had produced in generations. And she wasn't swept along by fate — she was a calculating strategist who played the most dangerous political game in the ancient world and nearly won. In this book, you'll discover: How a Macedonian Greek dynasty ruled Egypt for three centuries — and why Cleopatra was the first of them to ...

They impaled prisoners on stakes. They flayed rebel leaders alive. They deported entire populations across hundreds of miles. And they did it all on purpose. The Assyrians didn't commit atrocities because they were uniquely cruel. They did it because terror worked. For three centuries, a city-state on the upper Tigris built and maintained the ancient world's first superpower through a calculated combination of overwhelming military force, systematic propaganda, and administrative genius that later empires — Persia, Rome, and beyond — would study and imitate. But the Assyrians were far ...