Permissionless Research
The philosophies of science that I find most compelling, such as Paul Feyerabend’s, tend to argue for methodological anarchy as the characteristic of the most historically impactful science. It is not...
View ArticleStorytelling — The Penumbra of Mortality
I’ve been reading Permutation City by Greg Egan, my first taste of his work. I picked it because it seemed like something of a contemporary chaser to J. G. Ballard’s work, whose complete short stories...
View ArticleLife After Language
In October 2013, I wrote a post arguing that computing was disrupting language and that this was the Mother of All Disruptions. My specific argument was that human-to-human communication was an...
View ArticleHello Again, Seattle
Last week, for the 11th time in my adult life, I made a long-distance move to a different city. But for only the second time, it is to a city I’ve already lived in: Seattle. And the first time doesn’t...
View ArticleThe Resourceful Life
I used to think of resourcefulness as a kind of practical intelligence, but I’ve recently started thinking of it as a combination of an energy state, an attitude, and an unexamined philosophy. A lived...
View ArticleWorldly, Yet Carefree
The 90s and aughts were pretty optimistic times through much of the world (with the notable exception of Russia). There were troubles of course, but it felt like everyone felt on top of things. There...
View ArticleWorlds in Waiting
I learned the phrase Keep the Lights On (KTLO) several years ago in a consulting gig with a big company, where it’s an official planning term. Projects in that company are spoken of as having a claim...
View ArticleVastness
The most idiosyncratic and esoteric visualization I’ve ever made up is the Goat-Crow-Rat triangle, which I first wrote about in Thingness and Thereness (2017). I’m renaming it my Thinkability Map, and...
View ArticleThe Future of the Blogosphere
Two weeks ago, I was trying to finish up a blog post when I noticed a bunch of weird characters showing up in posts. Here’s a sample from Worldly, Yet Carefree: It turned out to be a fairly complex...
View ArticleTouching Transistors
After a longish break, thanks in part to my stuff being packed away in boxes I was too lazy to unpack because we’re theoretically house-hunting (that’s going slow), I’m finally back tinkering in my...
View ArticleCharnel Vision
One of my minor affectations is periodizing my writing into sardonically named 6-year eras. The first six years of this blog were the Rust Age (2007-12). The next six years were the Snowflake Age...
View Article2023 Ribbonfarm Extended Universe Roundup
Extended universes are a bit passé now, given how even the MCU appears to be struggling a bit. Still, I like the metaphor and am going to stick with it till I find a better one. The public social web...
View ArticleDoes AI Have Buddha Nature?
This year, I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to use this blog in notebook mode, posting very short shitposty things at a higher frequency. Let’s kick things off with this screenshot of a prompt...
View ArticleKnowledge Management
A young robot and an old robot sat by the fire, contemplating its dancing flames, their charging ports hooked up to a coughing generator. A troop of scruffy humans clambered around the derelict hulk of...
View ArticleAccretive Growth Logics
I made up a term: Accretive Robotics. Robotics driven by accretive growth logics, as opposed to organic growth logics. Two examples, both from cartoons (I overindex on cartoons clearly). First: Pickle...
View ArticleUniversal Kit Template
Thanks to my recent involvement in creating a kit, I’ve become very interested in the idea and conceptual structure of kits of all sorts: Lego, Meccano, Arduino-based electronics learning kits,...
View ArticleWhy Monsters Are Dangerous
Saw an interesting paper float by, Why Monsters Are Dangerous. Monsters and other imaginary animals have been conjured up by a wide range of cultures. Can their popularity be explained, and can their...
View ArticleAdventures in Mediocre Sweetmaking
For the first time in decades, I’ve been trying to systematically expand the range my cooking skills. I’m pretty decent at Indian cooking, and passable at similar adjacent ones like Mexican, Chinese,...
View ArticleCan Robots Whittle?
Continuing my descent into a middle-aged cliche, I bought myself a cheap beginner whittling kit. The impulse was born of wondering whether a robot powered by modern AI and equipped with appropriate end...
View ArticleUnknown Knowns
In a thread on the various socials, my friend necopinus pointed out that my essay on AI, A Camera Not An Engine, effectively maps the generative potential we’ve discovered latent in AI models of...
View Article
