Gary Lucero Writer

Category: Reality

  • The Architect of My Own Reality

    The Architect of My Own Reality

    I’ve spent the day vibe coding an app that has allowed me to create something that mirrors my unbridled enthusiasm and creativity. I know that sounds stupid, but I realized there’s no one around to tell me this isn’t possible.

    And since I’ve yet to reach my $20 a month limit in Cursor, and the app works as I’ve designed it to work, I’m happy. So, I decided to write about why vibe-coding is so much better than my day job. But instead of writing it myself, I let Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite do it for me, based on my prompt, of course.

    I also edited it a bit:

    In my day job, I am a professional software tester. My life is defined by the friction of the “No.”

    I spend my hours documenting elegant solutions, identifying critical edge cases, and proposing features that would make the user experience seamless. I send these tickets off into the void, only to have them return with a status update that feels like a cold splash of water:

    Won’t Fix. Out of Scope. Resource Constrained.

    In the real world, software is a compromise. It’s a series of negotiations between what is ideal and what is budget friendly. I am the person who sees the potential, but I’m not the person who holds the purse strings.

    Then, I close my work laptop and open my personal terminal. I start to “vibe code.”

    The Infinite Canvas

    When I vibe code, the dynamic shifts entirely. The hierarchy of the corporate office dissolves. There is no product manager to tell me that my vision is “not on the roadmap.” There is no lead developer to sigh and tell me that the architecture won’t support the change.

    When I am vibe coding, I am the business analyst, the coder, and the user all at once.

    If I decide that a button should glow when hovered, it glows. If I decide that the data should flow through a custom-built pipeline that defies standard conventions, I build it. And if I hit a wall—if the laws of physics or the limitations of a specific library make a feature technically impossible, I deal with it.

    The Absence of “No”

    The beauty of vibe coding isn’t that everything is easy; it’s that the intent is never rejected.

    When I encounter a limitation, the programmer, the version of myself that exists in the flow state, never says “No.” Instead, the conversation becomes a creative pivot.

    • The Real World: “We can’t implement that feature because the legacy database doesn’t support real-time updates.” (The conversation ends.)
    • Vibe Coding: “The database doesn’t support real-time updates? Okay, let’s build a middleware cache or switch to a different engine. Let’s find a way to make it happen.” (The conversation evolves.)

    In this space, a limitation is not a dead end; it is simply a prompt for a different path. I am never told that my idea is invalid. I am never told that my curiosity is a waste of time. I am never told that the project is “good enough” as it is.

    The Joy of Unrestricted Creation

    There is a profound, almost meditative joy in this autonomy. Vibe coding allows me to reclaim the agency I lose during the nine-to-five. It turns the act of programming from a chore of compliance into an act of pure expression.

    When I am vibe coding, I am not just testing the work of others; I am manifesting my own. I am learning that while the world may have its constraints, my imagination does not. And as long as I am the one at the keyboard, the answer to “Can we do this?” will always be the same:

    Let’s see how we can make it work.

  • AI Can Be Useful

    AI Can Be Useful

    Artificial intelligence is a much hated technology and for good reason. Like all the advances before it, it’s being leveraged by big tech as the be-all, end-all solution for all the world’s problems. It can lower costs, drive revenue, prevent fraud, and do it all cheaply. 

    Or so we’re led to believe.

    To be honest, though, AI isn’t bad. It’s the people who use it poorly and worsen our lives with it, they are the problem.Fortunately, we too can use it, and we can use it wisely.

    There are hundreds of uses for AI, but here are a few I find it particularly good at.

    Building Software

    Proficient coders will tell you AI is a superpower, but only if you know what you’re doing. I agree that’s the case when creating production software, but I create software for myself. 

    In my case, I vibe-code the entire project, and I never look at the source code. I ask Cursor Agents, my IDE of choice, to write the code and tests, investigate issues, etc., and I serve as the business analyst and software tester. 

    It does the rest.

    I also create and configure the GitHub repo, but Cursor Agents handles creating branches, committing the code, and pushing it. 

    And it does an excellent job. None of my projects are huge, and all the coding is done with either the Auto model or using Grok 4.5 High, but it very inexpensively serves the role as code creator and maintainer. 

    Recommending

    I recently chatted with Gemini about books. I told it the kinds of books I like to read, giving it several examples of ones I have enjoyed, as well as some basic information about what I like and dislike. I then uploaded a list of all the Kindle books I hope to one day buy, and asked Gemini to review the list.

    It pointed out how many of them didn’t meet the criteria I had outlined, because they were too technical, or written poorly, or there was some other issue with them. And it recommended several other books. I let it know which I’d already read and liked, added a few it suggested to my list, and now I have a pinned conversation in Gemini I can use anytime I need a book recommendation.

    This is an activity that AI is custom-made for. You could, for example, give it a list of TV shows or movies or video games that you like, and several you don’t, and ask for suggestions. And if you’re already familiar with ones it suggests, go back and forth with it until it understands your preferences and suddenly you have a valuable recommendation machine.

    Sorting Thoughts

    There are days when I feel upset, or have questions on my mind, or maybe I’m just wondering how something in the world works. In these cases I often turn to AI. I tell it what I’m thinking, what my problem is, or what my question is. We chat, exchanging comments, suggestions, and questions until I’m satisfied.

    This is another one of those situations AI is good at. No, it can’t solve all my problems, but it’s excellent as a sounding board, and it has a vast array of knowledge. I do this often, most of the time using the interactive feature in Gemini, where it’s always on, listening for my input, then it responds.

    We chat until I’m satisfied.

    Teaching Me

    I always have lots of questions. 

    I’m constantly wondering about technology, products, gardening, and more. I often turn to AI in these situations, providing it with pictures or other information. It almost always provides solid answers that help me understand the world we live in.

    I’ve gone from knowing almost nothing about how to set up a repo in GitHub properly to actually understanding the difference between CodeQL and Dependabots. I now understand better how to care for the plants in my yard. I have a better understanding about how smart phones, versus bridge cameras or full-frame cameras, work.

    AI encompasses the world’s knowledge, and if you are careful enough, and aren’t too naive, it can help you understand it.

    Reminding Me

    I couldn’t survive without the reminders I keep on my Android phone, or the calendar events I have for appointments. They keep me from forgetting all of the various things I need to do.

    But sometimes I just need a quick way to remember something. With Gemini, I can tell it things, and later, ask it to remind me about a fact I committed to it. I can do the same with notes in Google Keep, or in Google Drive, and Gemini can find those too. 

    It’s a persistent memory store that I can turn to at any point on my phone or computer and retrieve information I would otherwise lose to my aging mind.

    Assisting with Video Games

    Video games are an important aspect of my life, and have been for over 40 years. But my middle-aged brain, eyes, and hands don’t work like they used to. 

    Enter AI.

    Not only can I ask for game recommendations, but it also helps with understanding how accessible and/or difficult a game is, how long a game is, where I’m currently at in the game, and occasionally, it helps me get through a game. 

    In those cases though, my personal opinion is, if I need a walkthrough to complete a game, it’s not worth playing.

    Since chatbots like Gemini have access to all of the FAQs, reviews, opinion pieces, walkthroughs, and other information on video games, it’s the perfect place to answer all my questions.

    And So Much More

    This of course isn’t all AI can do. 

    I use it constantly, and while there are times it’s frustrating, where maybe I say, “Hey, Google,” to my smart watch or smartphone and it doesn’t respond, or I ask it a question and it returns something that doesn’t resemble an accurate response.

    But when it works, it’s like magic. It provides access to so much information, and does it so well so much of the time, it has become indispensable.

  • Video Game Violence Isn’t Violence

    Video Game Violence Isn’t Violence

    Just as I know that holding a conversation with AI isn’t the same as holding one with another human being, I know that killing virtual beings in a virtual universe isn’t the same as killing in the real world.

    When I started playing computer games in the early 1980s, graphics were primitive. Firing missiles and dropping bombs in the original F-15 Strike Eagle on the Commodore 64 required the suspension of disbelief because everything in the game, including the plane and the world, weren’t realistic looking.

    F-15 Strike Eagle

    It wasn’t long before programmers learned how to make computers like the C64 depict more realistic images. Then came along better hardware, such as the Atari ST and the Amiga. Now killing began to look like killing. Then PCs upped the ante by increasing the number of on-screen colors all the way up to 256, then to millions. This, along with the addition of more pixels and more powerful graphics cards, gave developers unbelievable power.

    By the early 1990s we had cringe-worthy video game violence. Games like Castle Wolfenstein, Mortal Combat, Doom, and more, showed gore that disgusted right-wing Christians and had moms asking for such games to be banned.

    Mortal Kombat

    Today there’s no question of whether violence is depicted with sufficient detail in modern video games. The hardware and software are more than capable, and it no longer requires you to imagine it. You only have to open your eyes to see.

    I’ll admit, I play a lot of violent games. And I’m not a big fan of little indie titles where farming, dating, or running a bookstore is the main focus. I prefer big, Triple-A RPGs, shooters, and similar where making progress involves killing bad guys.

    Castle Wolfenstein

    Sometimes they aren’t even bad guys.

    For example, I’m currently replaying the original WatchDogs, a game I’ve completed several times before. Here, you’re billed as The Vigilante, but the game lets you steal from common folk, shoot and run them over, assassinate people who are supposed to be bad, and otherwise wreak havoc on a simulated version of Chicago.

    Do I cringe as I kill and steal in a game like WatchDogs? I do. And I always have.

    But since I know what I’m doing has nothing to do with reality, and I’m not preparing myself to go out and kill in the real world, these feelings I feel as I kill virtual beings just serve to remind me that, yes, I am human, and yes, life is precious.

    That’s what we need to remember with whatever sort of entertainment we rely on.

    When we read, watch TV, play games, chat with AI, surf the Internet, etc., and what we’re experiencing makes us feel uneasy, and we wonder if maybe it’s reinforcing the worst in us, we are human, we value life, and we make a decision every day to preserve it.

  • The Long Road Back to Amiga: A MiSTer FPGA Post-Mortem

    The Long Road Back to Amiga: A MiSTer FPGA Post-Mortem

    Return to the Amiga

    I am a huge Commodore fan and have been since the very early 1980s. I bought an Amiga 1000 the fall of 1985, and an Amiga 500 a few years later. The Amiga was my sole personal computer until around 1983, and I played hundreds of amazing games on it in the 8 years I owned it.

    When I bought a MiSTer FPGA a month or two ago, it was mostly so I could play many of those old Amiga games again. Little did I know the amount of work it would take to get the games onto the MiSTer.  This post mortem details at least some of the steps I took to fruitlessly try to get Amiga games working as .hdf files on the MiSTer FPGA. 

    AI as the Sole Source of Truth

    I have relied on AI, Gemini in this case, every step away. Interestingly, it has proven to be a double-edged sword. It’s been invaluable in some respects, and downright stupid in others. It’s often provided incorrect information, or led me down pathways that didn’t work. It was also sometimes unwilling to provide any information, which forced me to coax it out of it. 

    I admit I rely heavily on Gemini for most things nowadays, and I relied on it here, to my detriment. Had I been more knowledgeable about these matters, I might have had a better outcome.

     The Journey

    • Amiga Vision – I read that Amiga Vision provided an all-in-one solution with hundreds of games. I just had to download and copy some folders to my SD-CARD. I either downloaded the wrong version (I don’t think that was the case) or it somehow didn’t copy over correctly because it didn’t work. I got errors on the MiSTer FPGA when I tried to use it.
    • Conversion – I downloaded .lha files from WHDLoad and was directed by Gemini to use a Bash script to convert them to .hdf files.This didn’t work even though I was using Git Bash, AmiTools, and some GnuWin32 utilities. In the end I had Cursor fix the script to get it working..
    • Bash –  A critical failure occurred where the script logic, likely due to improper variable handling or file path iteration, effectively mapped the same game file into every generated .hdf file, resulting in a batch of corrupted or redundant images. This was resolved, or at least partially so, by adding a line to the Bash script to delete the tmp folder before copying new game files.
    • Amiga Forever – Attempting to create a boot hard drive (DH0) in Amiga Forever failed because that environment is unable to create SCSI hard drives that are compatible. In the end, I could create the initial .hdf file in Amiga Forever, then had to copy it to the SD-CARD, and boot it in MiSTer FPGA, and from there, set the drive information, partition it, format it, and install Workbench 3.1.
    • WHDLoad – Once I got my Workbench 3.1 hard drive working, I attempted to mount a game .hdf file, but found it was missing WHDLoad. Gemini directed me to use a PowerShell script it created to inject WHDLoad into the .hdf files.
    • WHDLoad Continued – I abandoned the automated batch approach in favor of manually injecting files into a master .hdf. This required using the Amiga shell to manually handle the installation of the WHDLoad package. This was difficult because I had to copy the WHDLoad files to the boot drive, and install it. In the end, I created a floppy disk in Amiga Forever, copied the necessary files to it, then copied that to the SD-CARD, and was able to copy it to the hard drive and install it.
    • Mismatched Files – A recurring issue involved the game .slave file on the .hdf. When the .lha was initially unpacked, the internal naming conventions in the .hdf file didn’t match the expected launch parameters, forcing me to manually rename the slave files within the Amiga environment. Potentially, this would have to be done for every .hdf game file, or maybe the Bash script could be altered to do it for me, which would require converting all of the .lha files again.
    • Amiga Vision Again – Finally, after many false starts, Gemini directed me to again install the AmigaVision structure to source the necessary Kickstart ROMs and .RTB files manually, validating them against the requirements of the specific Workbench 3.1 setup.
    • It Works! –  Bewilderingly, when I mounted Amiga Vision in the MiSTer FPGA, it worked, providing a list of hundreds of games I could play. I tried running a couple, and they just worked!

    Final Thoughts

    This whole experience has been illuminating and frustrating, and I’ve felt helpless while Gemini continued to pump out information that I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to refute. I often got upset with Gemini, raised my voice at it, letting it know how displeased I was with it. This of course made no difference to it.

    I have working games via Amiga Vision and my old floppy images, and I’m happy about that. I’ve also spent more time using AmigaDOS and WorkBench in the last several days than I have in 35 years, which has been fun and interesting. It’s also a bit bewildering to see how antiquated yet perfectly functional this old operating system is.

    The worst part is how much time this has taken. I was fortunate to have a few days off work and spent most of several days doing nothing but this. Of course, I could have spent the time playing games, but this is all new to me, since I have never had a MiSTer FPGA before. Also, I’ve been buying new versions of Amiga Forever for probably 20+ years, but I’ve never spent that much time using it.

    My recommendation if you decide to buy a MiSTer FPGA or similar just to play Amiga games is go with Amiga Vision and hopefully it works for you. Playing games from floppy images works fine, but it’s nice to have a unified launcher and a list of hundreds of games to play.

  • Bridging the Capability Gap With AI

    Bridging the Capability Gap With AI

    In my post, Vibe Coding is all About the Requirements, I talk about how I’ve spent more than half my life programming but I’m still not a great programmer. I judge myself a 5 or 6 on a 1-10 scale, and no self-respecting software development manager would hire a 5 or 6 to work on production code.

    So, while I can code, I know my limitations, and there are many of them. 

    What I can do effectively, at least as a hobbyist, is vibe code, not only whole programs in languages and for platforms I have no experience with, but also modify or fix existing code, scripts, etc., that aren’t working correctly. I can also host a vibe-coded application on a platform like GCP, which I have a little experience with. 

    For most programming tasks, I use Cursor with its Composer 2.5 Standard model. It helped me write a digital collage tool to slice images into pieces, manipulate them individually with filters and edits, and reassemble them into a brand-new composition. This is a client-side JavaScript web app managed via NPM, utilizing HTML5 Canvas for image manipulation and hosted entirely on Firebase. 

    I also used Cursor to write a Python script to migrate my entire Obsidian vault, images and formatting included, into Google Docs. 

    These are projects I never would have dreamed about tackling, but with AI, I’m finally able to. Not only does the technology expand my set of capabilities and save me time but also helps me to innovate in areas I never would have previously considered.

  • There’s Nothing We Can Do About The Tech Industry

    There’s Nothing We Can Do About The Tech Industry

    I’ve been accused of not having hope, and I’ll admit, it’s true. I’m glad there are people out in the world fighting for rights, attempting to keep us safe, and generally keeping governments and big corporations in check. I know these same people can make a difference, but I think it’s a losing battle. I think we need to look at things more realistically, especially in regards to tech.

    Big tech is in a constant struggle to make money for their shareholders. They demand infinite profit growth, usually at the expense of the workers. These companies ramp up, hire, invest, and then when things don’t go quite right, they downsize, leaving potentially thousands of workers out of jobs.

    As someone who has worked for tech companies for over 30 years, I know how this works. I know that feeling when layoffs are announced and you worry you’re next. I also know how it feels to get numb to the whole experience. So when a company like Microsoft is rumored to lay off thousands of workers across the entire organization, I genuinely feel for those people. I also realize this is inevitable.

    And while we feel for the workers, we also often have a vested interest. We become attached to products these companies make. Or, when a smaller company is acquired by a larger one, we worry the products will either change in unwelcome ways, or shutdown altogether.

    The reality is, we can’t change this in any significant way. The stock market fuels the growth of these companies, often makes the people running them rich, but requires a cutthroat approach to managing the products and workforce. Just because we’re attached to a given product, we can’t expect the company to treat it differently.

    It’s good to have compassion for others but we need to have a realistic outlook. We need to see big tech for what it is. It’s like a government constantly at war. Those workers who get burnt out, who maybe have lost their spouses after ignoring them for too long, and get laid off at the whim of the corporate overlords, are the casualties.

    They survive, but are forever changed.

  • Life

    Life

    When I first started using computers, in the early 1980s, when I was around 20 years-old, I didn't know I had any limitations. 

    I wasn't interested in programming, not until almost 10 years later, but I  loved using those early computers. Learning all about them. Using word processors, spreadsheets, databases, utilities, 3D modeling and paint programs, and playing video games.

    When I did start programming, I didn't run into any issues. Then I got a job in software development, using PCs and Macs instead of Commodore 64s and Amigas, but they didn't present a hurdle. If anything, they seemed inferior to my amazing Amiga!

    In the mid-90s, I did start to see some limitations with my programming capabilities, but I just worked around them. I didn't see them as a problem, or as something that would keep me from advancing or doing my job.

    More recently, I've realized there are many things that have held me back. Not only my ability to master programming at a high level, but also my inherent disinterest in making that a full-time occupation. And how unwilling I have been to form long lasting bonds with peers, learn the politics of large organizations, all of which would have allowed me to move up the ladder.

    Today I know I have many shortcomings. I realize my life is limited in many ways, and even with the things I'm currently interested in, I can only go so far. I can't suddenly become manager material, become a top-flight engineer, or an expert in AI that suddenly causes headhunters to bang on my door.

    My life is what it is, for better or worse. I have a good job, get paid pretty well, but now that I'm older, my life is set. I won't suddenly become the CEO of a big company, start my own business, write the next great app, or anything of the sort.

    I'll just keep plugging along.
  • Morality Isn’t Real

    Morality Isn’t Real

    Humans invent structures that fashion the world in ways that try to make sense of it. That order it and align people’s thinking, so everyone is worshipping the same god, honoring the same values, and obeying the same laws.

    This is all manufactured. There’s nothing real in any of it, but we say it’s real so that we can convince others it is. So they’ll buy into. Embrace and make it their own.

    There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. We’ve been actively creating reality since man first set foot on Earth. It reflects our ability to imagine, and to see a world quite different than the one we live in.

    But just because we say or think that murder is wrong, or we shouldn’t steal, and even when we attribute these laws to a higher power, for many it makes no difference. Even the humans that assure us we better do right else we’ll go to jail, or maybe even to hell, these laws are arbitrary and often forgotten when passion takes over their senses.

    And while it may make sense to obey laws, each and every human decides what’s right and wrong. We filter through all we’ve learned and decide what to keep, and what to toss away.

    It’s free will at its finest, and there’s no way to escape it. It consumes us, tears at the fabric of our beings, taunts us to do something other than what the consensus asks us to do.