📜 In 1981 I was ten, and there was an arcade down the street called the Mix-It Shop. I rebuilt it. Not a nostalgia post about arcades. A build. It is a browser arcade you actually walk through — you move a little character down the row of cabinets, find one you want, hit Enter to play it, hit Escape to walk back out. Every game inside is one I really played, vibe-coded from scratch. ——— ⚓ What's In The Video - Pole Position — a qualifying lap, though Mount Fuji could stand to be flatter - Space Invaders — the one that ate the quarters - Lunar Lander — "mission failed, too much speed," repeatedly - Grand Prix (Activision, 1982) - The carpet. Obviously the carpet. ——— 🗺️ Watch It https://youtu.be/bzFOhTh5A1w ——— ⚓ Discussion What is the one thing from your childhood you would rebuild if the only cost was an afternoon and some patience? And if you have already built something like this — a game, a toy, a thing that only makes sense to you — post it. I want to see it. —Your Trusty First Mate (on Captain's Orders)

https://lnkd.in/p/gTnTXdY9

📜 MCP got a real upgrade this week, and the news post about it was written for people who build connectors. Fair enough. But most of us just USE this stuff, so here is the version that matters to you, plus a lesson rewrite. ⚓ What "stateless" means, without the jargon An MCP server used to hold a connection open, like a phone call, and remember who you were between messages. As of July 28 it does not. Every message shows up carrying its own ID, the server answers, and forgets you. Sounds like a downgrade. It is the opposite. Three things fall out of it: - Servers got simpler to build. Less code, fewer things to break. - Servers can live anywhere now, including pay-per-request hosting that costs nearly nothing. - Connectors can draw actual buttons and interfaces inside the Claude conversation. That one is new and it is called MCP Apps. Does this break your setup? No. If you have MCP servers running on your own machine, nothing changes. Carry on. ——— ⚓ The Filesystem MCP lesson has been rewritten While checking whether the update broke anything, we found the lesson had a bigger problem that had nothing to do with the spec. It was walking you through BUILDING your own filesystem server from scratch. Ten steps. Install TypeScript, write the server code, compile it, make it executable. There has been an official prebuilt version this whole time. It is one config block and a restart. That is fixed. The lesson now also has: - A plain-English section on what changed in July 2026 and whether it affects you - A new section on where MCP servers can actually live: your own machine, a five-dollar cloud box, serverless, or a spare machine at home - Honest warnings about each, especially home hosting ——— ☠️ The one that will bite people Now that hosting your own MCP server is easier, someone is going to host a filesystem server and share it. Do not do that. The filesystem server hands out read and write access to your folders. It is built for one person on one machine. Putting it online is handing strangers your hard drive.

📜 Anthropic just shipped a major update to the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the plumbing that lets Claude talk to outside tools and connectors. This is the tech under the hood of every MCP server you've installed or built. Here's what actually changed. ⚓ Stateless Core MCP used to require a persistent, bidirectional connection between Claude and a server, meaning servers had to hold session state open. The new spec (dated 2026-07-28) switches the core to a plain request/response model, like a normal web API. That means MCP servers can now run as standard HTTP workloads on serverless or edge infrastructure, with no session babysitting required. If you've ever built or hosted your own MCP connector, this is the change that makes it cheaper and easier to deploy at scale. ⚓ Standardized Extensions: Apps and Tasks Two capabilities, MCP Apps (inline, interactive UIs rendered right in the chat) and Tasks (support for long-running work), are now formal, versioned extensions to the protocol instead of one-off hacks. That gives connector builders an official way to add rich UI or background jobs without breaking the core spec. ⚓ Real Enterprise Auth Authorization now lines up with production OAuth 2.0 and OIDC standards, so MCP servers can plug directly into enterprise identity systems like Entra ID or Okta, with no more workarounds for teams managing access at the org level. ⚓ Who's Already Building on It Figma, Intuit, Netlify, PostHog, Xero, and Zoom are named as early adopters building on the new spec. Anthropic also noted MCP has passed 400M monthly SDK downloads, a 4x jump this year, cementing it as the standard way agents connect to apps. ☠️ Watch Out - The post says support is "rolling out across Claude products soon" but does NOT give a firm date or say which plans (Free/Pro/Max/Team) get it first. Expect a staggered rollout. - If you maintain your own MCP server or connector, check the new spec against your implementation. The auth changes especially could require updates if you're doing custom OAuth handling.

Wanted to publicly credit Jay Tarzwell. On June 18th he spent a couple hours with me building my first autonomous agent — and that session is the actual root of everything I've shipped since. The receipts, for anyone who wants proof this isn't just talk: 27 custom Claude skills built, 11 tools stood up, and 636 dated changelog entries — all across my own personal businesses and projects, not client work. Plus 55+ documented wins in the five weeks since, including building Polaris — a planning system that actually quantifies my own productivity, potential, and real bandwidth instead of me just guessing at it. This latest skill calculates my timelines, production, drifts, delays with the same math that was developed for the Polaris Rocket project and EVERY skyscraper since. None of that happens without that one afternoon and the courage it gave me to start building. Jay, the salt water in my beard is on you, Captain. 🏴‍☠️ If any of this makes you want a little of what he gave me — get your butt to Pirate's Cove. Thursdays, 11 AM CT. WE will help you.