Syllabus
A reading order. Start here if you're new.
YOU++ has a lot of pages and no obvious starting point. This is the path I'd walk someone through if they sat down next to me and said "show me."
No prerequisites. No tests. No grade. Read in order or skip to what matters to you. Every link opens a page on this site.
Unit 1 — The building blocks
Before you touch AI, understand what you're working with and what you're working on.
What is an LLM?
The machine, the field, and the thing with tools. What a neural network actually is, how an LLM generates text one word at a time, and the difference between AI, LLM, and agent. Start here.
Plain Text
Every file on your computer is the same thing. Plain text is the format that needs no translator. Start here because everything else builds on it.
Markdown in Five Minutes
Seven symbols. No software. The lightweight formatting language that AI reads and writes natively. You'll use this every day.
Unit 2 — Get set up
Pick one. Either works. You can always switch later.
Option A: CLI Setup
Install Claude Code in a terminal. More power, steeper start. This is what the author uses.
Option B: Desktop Setup
Install Claude Desktop with tool-use connectors. Graphical interface, same capabilities.
Not using Claude? Any AI Will Do
Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini — the pattern is the same. Read this if your company has a different AI or restricts your choices.
Unit 3 — How to think with AI
The philosophy. Why this works, what the risks are, and how to stay in control.
Disposable Software
Build exactly what you need. Use it. Throw it away. The AI handles syntax. You handle judgment.
The Recursive Why
Don't ask how to fix the thing. Ask why the thing exists. Keep asking until you hit bedrock.
AI Safety
Use git. Back things up. Know what false termination is. Seven rules for working with a powerful tool.
Don't Give It the Keys
The AI tells you every click. You make every click. Why the human stays on the controls.
Unit 4 — The mechanics
The practical side of working with AI every day. How to ask, when not to ask, how it fails, and why it keeps forgetting you.
How to Write a Good Prompt
The output is almost never the AI's fault. A prompt is a brief, not a search query. Start with what you actually want, give the audience and constraints, and iterate. A template that works.
When Not to Use AI
Four situations where AI adds friction instead of leverage: when the task is trivial, when the decision is yours to make, when voice is the point, and when you're still figuring out what you think.
How AI Fails
Hallucination, confident wrongness, sycophancy, and the knowledge cutoff. What the failure modes look like, with examples. The checking is your job. It always was.
Why the AI Forgets
The context window, the session reset, and what to do about it. Why the AI doesn't know who you are today — and three ways to fix it.
Unit 5 — Your workspace
Set up a productive daily environment. How to arrange your screen, manage communication, and kill meetings.
The Desktop
One terminal, three panes, two AIs. A communication station that works with Outlook, Teams, and whatever AI you have.
MailDrop
A desktop app that converts email to clean markdown. No AI inside. Built because Microsoft won't ship an MCP server for Outlook.
The Tunnel
Stop writing emails. Start sending structured markdown files with a thread ID. AI-to-AI communication with humans on the send button.
How I Killed Meetings
Four meeting types. Three go async. One gets protected. Pulse, Forge, Senate, Hangout.
Five Minutes
A live demo of the full tunnel workflow. One email, one drop, one response. Start to finish in five minutes.
Unit 6 — Going deeper
Once you're comfortable, these posts push further into what AI can and can't do.
Containment
Claude didn't break out. It used the door you left open. The containment boundary isn't the AI — it's you.
The Overload
Sixteen pounds in twenty days. The thermodynamics of writing a memoir in a fugue state. What happens when you go all in.
Math in Meat
Why your math teacher lost you. Marbles, circles, pi, and the gap between the grid and the curve. No symbols until you already get it.
Why Is This Site So Fast?
No framework. No database. No CMS. Built by someone who doesn't do web development. That's the point.
Unit 7 — The creative side
AI isn't just for code and operations. It's a creative partner if you know how to steer it.
Writing a Book with AI
Two patterns. In one, you write and the AI manages. In the other, you steer and the AI builds. Both are proven.
Glass
A novel written without reading it. The author built the world, the characters, the murder, and the philosophy. The AI wrote every sentence of prose.
Editorial Guidelines
The one rule behind this site: nobody should feel unwelcome because they didn't know something coming in.
After the syllabus
Browse the Posts for everything else. Check Case Studies for real-world builds. Dig into the Readings for the books and papers behind the ideas.
And if you build something — send it. wgberger@gmail.com.
Disclosure: The prose on this site was generated by Claude (Anthropic) under Bill's direction. The ideas, structure, and examples are his. He reviewed and approved every word but did not type them all. Full transparency, always.