# johnbrennan.xyz ## About Change Log is a personal portfolio and blog by John Brennan — a consolidated collection of essays, thoughts, apps, and books. The site covers technology forecasting, artificial intelligence, space-based computing, intelligence analysis, and generative engine optimization. ## Key Topics - Space-based data centers and orbital compute - Satellite constellation economics and launch cost modeling - Wright's Law manufacturing cost compression - Technology readiness levels (TRL) for space systems - Thermal management and solar power in orbit - Artificial intelligence strategy and forecasting - Computing performance trends (petaFLOP forecasts) - Intelligence community analysis and oversight - Generative engine optimization (GEO) - Analytics trends and data-driven decision making ## Essays - **Can Claude Read Your Website? A Live Experiment in AI Legibility** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/can-claude-read-your-website - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/can-claude-read-your-website.md - Summary: A live case study in which Claude Opus 4.6 attempted to read three websites — johnbrennan.xyz, agentweekly.ai, and aitoonup.com — revealing which design patterns make content visible to AI agents and which leave sites completely dark. - **Veridread and Lucent Surrender** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/veridread-and-lucent-surrender - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/veridread-and-lucent-surrender.md - Summary: Two new words for the epistemic risks of the AI era. Veridread is the dread that an AI answer looks right but you cannot verify it. Lucent surrender is the quiet moment you stop trying. - **Building the Cognitive Factory** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/building-the-cognitive-factory - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/building-the-cognitive-factory.md - Summary: The firm is adding a second class of worker: the agentic employee. But intelligence alone is not the product—the harness is. The winners will redesign themselves into cognitive factories where humans steer, agents execute, and organizational architecture becomes the durable competitive edge. - **The Churn Myth: Why Your Fear of Robots is 150 Years Late** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/the-churn-myth - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/the-churn-myth.md - Summary: Occupational churn is at historic lows, not historic highs. The real disruption is delayed productivity — and the organizational redesign required to unlock it, as shown by 150 years of GPT adoption. - **Engineering the Sky, Part II: The Industrialization of Orbital Compute** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/engineering-the-sky-part-2 - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/engineering-the-sky-part-2.md - Summary: The transition to orbital compute is an energy and thermodynamics problem. This analysis examines heat rejection, solar mass efficiency, launch economics, Wright's Law cost compression, and the technology readiness levels that govern the pace of industrialization. - **Engineering the Sky** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/engineering-the-sky - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/engineering-the-sky.md - Summary: How a million satellites could rewire launch, cloud computing, and global power — applying the Foresee, Forecast, Alert, and Warn framework to space-based data centers. - **Artificial Intelligence: Thinking, fast(er) and slow** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/thinking-faster-and-slow - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/thinking-faster-and-slow.md - Summary: Before artificial intelligence there was intelligence. Wisdom is knowledge combined with discernment. - **Checking in on my 2010 petaFLOP forecast** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/petaflop-forecast - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/petaflop-forecast.md - Summary: A look back at technology forecasts made in 2010, checking the progress of computing costs from supercomputers to cloud TPUs. - **Capturing the Potential of Outlier Ideas in the Intelligence Community** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essay/outlier-ideas - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays/outlier-ideas.md - Summary: An examination of how intelligence organizations can better identify and leverage unconventional ideas. ## Infographics - **Weight and Launch Forecasts** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/infographic/weight-and-launch-forecasts - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/infographic/weight-and-launch-forecasts.md - Summary: Satellite mass trends and launch cost projections for orbital compute constellations. - Topics: satellite mass, Starship, launch cadence, Starlink - **Space vs. Terrestrial Power Costs** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/infographic/space-vs-terrestrial-power - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/infographic/space-vs-terrestrial-power.md - Summary: Comparative analysis of orbital solar power delivery costs versus terrestrial renewable energy. - Topics: solar power, orbital energy, levelized energy cost, thermal management - **TRL and Performance Targets** - Human: https://johnbrennan.xyz/infographic/trl-performance-targets - LLM: https://johnbrennan.xyz/infographic/trl-performance-targets.md - Summary: Technology readiness levels and subsystem performance benchmarks required for a 30% orbital cost advantage over terrestrial data centers. - Topics: TRL, radiators, cooling loops, compute efficiency, Wright's Law ## Books - [The GEO Handbook: Generative Engine Optimization for the Answer, Citation, and Agent Era](https://www.thegeohandbook.com/): The definitive guide to GEO, focusing on visibility and influence inside synthetic answers. Learn how to get your brand cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other AI systems. - [Intelligence Oversight Reconsidered: Assessing the 1975-1976 Intelligence Oversight Reforms](https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Oversight-Reconsidered-Assessing-Intellgence-ebook/dp/B01NAS2HTK/): A quantitative analysis of the effects of the mid-1970's intelligence oversight reforms, comparing intelligence outcomes between the National Security Act of 1947 and the Church and Pike Committees. - [The Future of Analytics: the trends, the implications, and who will lead](https://www.amazon.com/Future-Analytics-trends-implications-will/dp/0615372953): A forward-looking analysis of analytics as an emerging art and science, examining trends, implications, work roles, and leadership in the data-driven future. ## Apps - [AIToonUp](https://aitoonup.com/): Ensure your site is ready for the AI era. Audit your robots.txt, sitemap.xml, llms.txt, SEO metadata, and Unified TOON Meta-Index (UTMI) for consistency and coverage. - [ReplAnalytic](https://replanalytic.replit.app/features): Analytics and feature tracking for Replit applications. - [Syrepu](https://syrepu.com/): A daily word puzzle game where you guess word pairs based on reverse-order synonym hints. ## Links - [Homepage](https://johnbrennan.xyz) - [Essays](https://johnbrennan.xyz/essays) - [Books](https://johnbrennan.xyz/books) - [Apps](https://johnbrennan.xyz/apps) - [About](https://johnbrennan.xyz/about) - [Sitemap](https://johnbrennan.xyz/sitemap.xml) - [RSS Feed](https://johnbrennan.xyz/rss.xml) - [UTMI Manifest](https://johnbrennan.xyz/utmi.toon)