Collection
Computing Analogies
Updated 4mo
Collection
Updated 4mo
The cost of opinion
It appears that I’ve been writing this essay since 2012, never quite finding the right framing. One of my brilliant colleagues asked me this question back then: “How do you evaluate whether a Javas…
Avoid the nightmare bicycle
In my opinion, one of the most important ideas in product design is to avoid the “nightmare bicycle”.
Insurgent Tooling and the Collective Making of Slave Revolts
Hampton Smith Sometime in the spring of 1800, enslaved tobacco cutters in Henrico County, Virginia, brought their scythes to one of Brookfield plantation’s blacksmiths, Solomon Prosser, for sharpening.
Adversarial Interoperability
“Interoperability” is the act of making a new product or service work with an existing product or service: modern civilization depends on the standards and practices that allow you to put any dish
[009] Folkification - Dreaming at the Edge of the Apocalypse
Sunday 24 August 2025
Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement
A classic pattern in technology economics, identified by Joel Spolsky, is layers of the stack attempting to become monopolies while turning other layers into perfectly-competitive markets which are commoditized, in order to harvest most of the consumer surplus; discussion and examples.
[010] Theseotomy - Dreaming at the Edge of the Apocalypse
Wednesday 3 September 2025
"nihiliberalism" - feels like a useful new concept "nihilist neoliberalism, ... or nihiliberalism... intensifies the dynamic of endless growth while doubling down on hierarchies of oppression that enable it" From "AI, Decomputing and the Interregnum" by @danmcquillan.bsky.social
AI, Decomputing and the Interregnum
zenodo.orgLong-tail of user needs
An analogy to understand how the rigidity of software interfaces fails to meet what we need from it.
User Agency in Other People's Websites - Orion Reed at JOTB25
When to Design for Emergence
