Vector space, Pages, Mark-but-don't-sweep, and the world's slowest ever rapid prototype
I started work on the Post-scarcity Software Environment on the second of January, 2017; which is to say, more than nine years ago. It was never intended to be a rapid prototype; it was intended, largely, to be a giant thought experiment. But now enough of it does work that I can see fundamental design mistakes, and I'm thinking about whether it's time to treat it as a rapid prototype: to take what has been learned from this code, and instead of trying to fix those mistakes, to start again from scratch.
So what are the mistakes?
Letter concerning the war in Iran
This is a letter to my [Tory] MP, John Cooper, urging him to protest about British engagement in Trump and Netanyahu's attack on Iran. It is, obviously, framed to persuade a Conservative. It's not necessarily what I'd say to someone who was not Conservative.
The Claimants to the Tortured Land
Don't study theology, friends. In particular, don't study the Abrahamic religions. It will make you deeply cynical.
The Trouble with Tents
The Trouble with Tents
It's obvious that something has gone badly wrong with the supply of tents to Gaza. Many of the tents that have been supplied are not standing up to the weather.
Writing Wisdom
I've had a very rough idea for a story kicking around in my brain for months. A young woman is the hereditary Wisdom Speaker of her tribe. She's inherited her rôle young, because her mother, aunt, grandmother, and great grandmother have all been killed by leading men of the tribe, for giving good advice — speaking wisdom — that they did not want to hear.
Should she accept the rôle? Would it be wise? Why should she care? Are these people worth risking her life to support? And if she does accept the rôle, how should she act, to put her tribe onto a sustainable footing and bring it into peace with its neighbouring tribes?
In the first week of 2026, I've already written the first ten thousand words of this story. None of what I've written yet is very good; it's all sketchy. But I do have a sketch of the whole arc of the story. It's provisionally entitled 'Wisdom,' and it's provisionally subtitled 'a meditation on theology, and right action.'