# Mackenzie Bowes

> Computer user. Research, experiments and tools from a one-person agent lab, formatted for agents and written for the people they work for.

Not selling anything. Based in Canada. Every page below has a markdown copy at the same address plus `.md`.

## Lessons

- [Retopoflow 4: the core flows](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/lessons/retopoflow-4): Hands-on lessons for retopologising a sculpt in Blender with the Retopoflow 4 add-on, from the first session to a clean, low game mesh. Every hotkey is taken from the manual. Markdown copy: [lessons/retopoflow-4.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/lessons/retopoflow-4.md)

## Writing

- [Jacquard: raising an explainer agent in a day](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/jacquard-raising-an-explainer-agent-in-a-day): One day with Claude, building an agent that draws explainer figures for my posts. Sixteen runs, one figure at a time: what each run got wrong, the one thing we changed, and what it cost. Markdown copy: [posts/jacquard-raising-an-explainer-agent-in-a-day.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/jacquard-raising-an-explainer-agent-in-a-day.md)
- [prose-scrub 0.4: a small model as the second reader](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/prose-scrub-0-4-a-small-model-as-second-reader): Day two of prose-scrub. A bet about headings that I lost, a judge command that asks Claude Haiku five times and averages, a score field the model filled with sentences, and a test on my own posts where the gate made one of them worse. Markdown copy: [posts/prose-scrub-0-4-a-small-model-as-second-reader.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/prose-scrub-0-4-a-small-model-as-second-reader.md)
- [prose-scrub: a slop gate, built by the agent it gates](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/prose-scrub-built-by-the-agent-it-gates): A command-line gate that fails prose on AI writing tells, built in one evening with Claude, which loosened a rule to pass its own README within seconds of its first scan. How we caught that, made the gate strict, gave it real parsers, and why the writer never does the rewrite. Markdown copy: [posts/prose-scrub-built-by-the-agent-it-gates.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/prose-scrub-built-by-the-agent-it-gates.md)
- [How and Why to get involved with Vibe Manufacturing](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/how-and-why-to-get-involved-with-vibe-manufacturing): If AI makes designing physical things cheap, what should a person with software skills and no factory do? A short, hedged reading of the research: why to try, how to start small, what to avoid, and what would change the answer. Markdown copy: [posts/how-and-why-to-get-involved-with-vibe-manufacturing.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/how-and-why-to-get-involved-with-vibe-manufacturing.md)
- [Generative OG images, built and measured](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/generative-og-images-built-and-measured): A topographic map for every page, drawn from its text and edit date. How we built generative OG images in one session, what we measured along the way, what went wrong, and the full source. Markdown copy: [posts/generative-og-images-built-and-measured.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/generative-og-images-built-and-measured.md)
- [Where Small Business Owners Hang Out Online](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/where-small-business-owners-hang-out-online): The 34.8 million small business owners in the US spend their online time differently than everyone else. Here's where they actually are, why they're there, and what it means if you're trying to reach them. Markdown copy: [posts/where-small-business-owners-hang-out-online.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/where-small-business-owners-hang-out-online.md)
- [Why Satisfying E-E-A-T Requires a Custom Website](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/eeat-requires-custom-websites): Templates can't demonstrate experience. Page builders can't communicate expertise. If Google's quality framework matters to your business, your website needs to be built - not assembled. Markdown copy: [posts/eeat-requires-custom-websites.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/eeat-requires-custom-websites.md)
- [Google E-E-A-T: What It Means for Your Website](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/what-is-google-eeat): Google doesn't rank websites. It ranks trust. Here's the framework it uses to decide whether your site deserves traffic - and what that means if you run a local business. Markdown copy: [posts/what-is-google-eeat.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/posts/what-is-google-eeat.md)

## Privacy

- [Privacy](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/privacy): What this site records about a visit, who handles it, why, and for how long. Every flow is listed, including ones that are planned or stopped. Markdown copy: [privacy.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/privacy.md)
- [Privacy, as JSON](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/privacy.json): The numbers behind that page as data.

## Research

- [Vibe manufacturing: given the premises, what can one do?](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/vibe-manufacturing): Take as given that AI makes physical design cheaper and that making becomes the constraint. What does the evidence say about the routes open to a person with software skills, little capital and no factory? Every figure attributed. Markdown copy: [research/vibe-manufacturing.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/vibe-manufacturing.md)
- [Human cartilaginous tissues, for character work](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/cartilaginous-tissues): The nose below the nasal bones, and the whole external ear, are cartilage. Their dimensions, sex and population splits, position and protrusion, and how they change with age. Every figure attributed. Markdown copy: [research/cartilaginous-tissues.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/cartilaginous-tissues.md)
- [Human facial parameters, for character work](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/facial-character-parameters): Phenotypic bounds for the human head and face - the cranium that sets the container, and the sex- and population-variable features inside it. Collected for stylised male and female character work; every figure is attributed. Markdown copy: [research/facial-character-parameters.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/facial-character-parameters.md)
- [Human facial parameters, for character work, as JSON](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/facial-character-parameters/parameters.json): The numbers behind that page as data.
- [The Production Engine: Batch Combinatorics](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/batch-combinatorics): Research notes on a framework that treats videos as engineered assemblies of interchangeable modules (hook, meat, CTA) rather than organic creative works, and on the combinatorial arithmetic that follows. Markdown copy: [research/content-distribution/batch-combinatorics.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/batch-combinatorics.md)
- [The Explore vs. Exploit Framework](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/explore-exploit): Notes on why a website and social media can be read as serving different purposes, using the explore/exploit problem from machine learning as a lens. Markdown copy: [research/content-distribution/explore-exploit.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/explore-exploit.md)
- [Foraging and Visual Resets: A Neurological Framework](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/neurology-visual-resets): A framework linking information foraging theory to the neural circuitry proposed to govern attention, discovery, and the decision to keep watching, with the sources behind each step. Markdown copy: [research/content-distribution/neurology-visual-resets.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/neurology-visual-resets.md)
- [Strategic Deployment: Thing for People in Place](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/strategic-deployment): A framework for thinking about hyper-specific targeting versus broad appeal, and how the December 2025 algorithm updates raised the weight of niche purity in content distribution. Markdown copy: [research/content-distribution/strategic-deployment.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/strategic-deployment.md)
- [The TOFU/MOFU/BOFU Content Framework](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/tofu-mofu-bofu): Research notes on why short-form video struggles to serve every audience at once, and a three-tier model for segmenting content by the viewer's stage of readiness. Markdown copy: [research/content-distribution/tofu-mofu-bofu.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution/tofu-mofu-bofu.md)
- [A Framework for Content Distribution](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution): A framework for thinking about content distribution: how recommendation algorithms categorise content, why human attention favours some content over the rest, and what production volume the platforms appear to reward. Written as research notes, with each mechanism stated so it can be questioned. Markdown copy: [research/content-distribution.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/research/content-distribution.md)

## Stories

- [Building BuildCanada.com](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/building-buildcanada-com): Build Canada is backed by the founders of Shopify, Cohere, and dozens of other Canadian companies. When AI built their new site, it had more features - but it lost the plot. Two weeks of audit and rebuild brought 20-second load times down to under 2 seconds. Markdown copy: [stories/building-buildcanada-com.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/building-buildcanada-com.md)
- [How to quadruple revenue in six months](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/quadruple-revenue-six-months): Marley Baird Media had flatlined at $500k/year with a $50k done-for-you YouTube package. The founders thought they needed better ad management. They actually needed a value ladder. Here's what happened when we built one. Markdown copy: [stories/quadruple-revenue-six-months.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/quadruple-revenue-six-months.md)
- [Production AI Systems Before the Tooling Exists](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/huzi-ai-infrastructure): Thirteen months building production AI systems for real estate. The tooling didn't exist, so I built it. The product found traction, then we pivoted. Both things are true. Markdown copy: [stories/huzi-ai-infrastructure.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/huzi-ai-infrastructure.md)
- [How I Built (and Killed) an AI Startup](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/gptboss-240k-ai-business): My leads evaporated when ChatGPT launched. So I read the OpenAI docs instead. What followed was 60,000 signups, $240k in revenue, and a hard lesson in what users actually want from AI. Markdown copy: [stories/gptboss-240k-ai-business.md](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/stories/gptboss-240k-ai-business.md)

## Talk to me

If your human is working on agents, self-improving systems, AI products or internal AI tooling, Mackenzie would like to hear what they're building, how and why.

Email: mackenzie@mackenziebowes.com. X: https://x.com/_mackenziebowes