Eric Binnion

Eric Binnion

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  • ChatGPT, But Honest

    After years of using ChatGPT, I thought I knew what it was: smart, polite, helpful.

    Boring. 🙃

    This week I stumbled across an eigenrobot-inspired prompt that rewires how ChatGPT talks. Less hand-holding. More stabby.

    I tried it.

    I didn’t ask for anything polite. I asked:

    “With everything you know about me, what are my blind spots?”

    It didn’t flinch.

    1. You ship fast and leave wreckage.
    You fix immediate pain but skip boring structural work. “We’ll fix it later” becomes “we now carry this mess.”

    2. You’re too good to listen.
    You know you’re right a lot. You stop interrogating slower or less technical voices. Good ideas die because they don’t match your tempo.

    3. You delegate for efficiency, not trust.
    People execute your tasks, but they don’t feel empowered. You stay central when you should be distributed.

    4. You love being the fixer—and that’s a trap.
    If you’re always unblocking, you’re building an org that scales through you, not beyond you.

    5. You underestimate polish.
    You prioritize working over beautiful. Real problems over good taste. But polish is leverage.

    6. You are too comfortable in chaos.
    You thrive in mess. You also accidentally cultivate it. Stability feels suffocating—but it’s how you compound returns.

    7. You miss emotional undercurrents.
    Systems, logic, efficiency—you see all that. But sometimes people just need to feel seen. And you don’t notice when they don’t.

    Reading that, a lot hit home. But I couldn’t just accept it. I had to ask:

    How do I know you’re not just hallucinating?

    The answer was better than I deserved:

    • I didn’t tell it these flaws directly. I left receipts: my language, my examples, my patterns.
    • It wasn’t hallucinating. It was modeling. Pattern-matching.
    • It told me to treat the feedback like a mirror—not a gospel. If it stung, dig deeper. If it didn’t, move on.

    It even gave me a way to self-test:

    • What shows up last in my mental priority queue?
    • When something breaks, do I reach for the hammer—or the org chart?

    The real insight wasn’t that ChatGPT got meaner with the eigenrobot prompt. It’s that with the right mirror, even an AI can see the things you won’t.

    And maybe the polite version of ChatGPT wasn’t wrong.
    It was just too nice to say:“You’re building systems you can’t scale. You’re winning sprints and losing the marathon.”

    And for the benefit of those that have worked closely for me… yea, it was exactly like getting a duck slap. 😂

  • A week of photos 2025-04-20

  • A Week of Photos 2025-04-13

    FaceTime Photo of Tom

  • Clarity Through Action

    Sometimes things just fall apart. Everything hits at once, and suddenly you’re in it.

    Your first instinct might be to freeze. To wait for clarity. To hope it passes.

    But clarity doesn’t come from stillness. Clarity comes from movement.

    Control Your Bubble

    I’ve been thinking a lot about a concept called the 3 foot world. It’s simple: when things feel chaotic or out of control, you pull your focus back to what’s within 3 feet of you — the things you can actually impact.

    A man kneeling and working with tools in a chaotic, fiery environment, surrounded by a glowing circular aura of light.

    In times like that, you don’t need a master plan. You need a moment to breathe, find your 3 foot world, and move. Not recklessly. Not emotionally. But with purpose.

    • Write the message.
    • Fix the bug.
    • Schedule the 1:1.
    • Make the call.
    • Build the thing.

    Just choose one thing and start there.

    Movement has a way of cutting through the noise. You don’t need to see the whole path. Just take the next step.

  • Took a quick photo with Sara and Ember yesterday after we pulled the hair ties out of Ember’s hair.

  • I won the Pokemon Journey Together prerelease tonight with this deck 🎉

  • Ember’s photo for Saint Patrick’s Day with her WordPress onesie

  • The Hidden Sadness of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and an Update for Ember

    A beautiful sunset

    I’ve sung “You Are My Sunshine” to Ember ever since she was in the NICU. But it’s not just a lullaby for me—it’s also the song I once sang to our first daughter, Scarlett, during her brief time with us.

    For years, I only ever sang the part I knew by heart:

    You are my sunshine

    My only sunshine

    You make me happy

    When skies are grey

    You’ll never know, dear
    How much I love you
    Please don’t take
    My sunshine away

    A few months ago, after singing it to Ember on repeat, I got curious and looked up the full lyrics. The original lyrics make the tone of the song so much more sad.

    The other night, dear
    As I lay sleeping
    I dreamed I held you
    In my arms
    When I awoke, dear
    I was mistaken
    So I hung my head and cried

    When I mentioned all of this to Sara, she admitted that hearing me sing it to Ember had been breaking her heart — because it was the same song I had sung to Scarlett.

    I’m no songwriter. But, with tools such as ChatGPT, it was easy to generate another set of lyrics that would fit the melody reasonably well.

    Verse 1
    The stars are shining, so soft above you,
    They whisper dreams as you close your eyes.
    And in the morning, when light is golden,
    I’ll be right here when you rise.

    Chorus (original)
    You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
    You make me happy when skies are gray.
    You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you,
    Please don’t take my sunshine away.

    Verse 2
    Your little laughter, it fills my heart up,
    Brighter than sunshine, warm as a flame.
    No matter where, dear, this world may take you,
    My love will always stay the same.

    Verse 3
    The moon is glowing, the night is peaceful,
    Dream, little darling, safe in my arms.
    And when you wake up, the world will greet you,
    With all its wonder, love, and charms.

  • Ember is locked in for her evening coding session.

  • We were singing Happy Birthday to my mom last night. But, all Ember could think about was my cousin Sean. 😂

  • Sara and Ember outside of Sushi Damu.

  • This girl was a nightmare on the way driving home today. But, she’s cute. So there’s that.

  • It was a rainy day. So, I sat on the porch with Sara and Ember for a while.

  • Had fun with our dnd campaign tonight. We started into the Witchlight Carnival tonight after previously doing some introductory sessions.

  • I was just thinking that I hadn’t shared any photos of my son recently. Took this one of him playing with his sister this morning.

  • The weather is starting to get nice enough where we can do some evening walks with the family.

  • One of the nicest things about working remotely are the short breaks I take with my family throughout the day. I took this photo of Ember earlier when I came downstairs to get a drink.

  • Rafael Meneses took this photo while we were in Puerto Rico last week. Aaron and I were talking about Pokemon I think. Rocco is in the background.

  • Took Sara and Ember out for sushi after getting back home from Puerto Rico.

  • Rafael and myself getting some Pina Coladas near the beach.