Gordon
@gordon.bsky.social
Everything around me was someone’s lifework.
Pinned
Gordon
@gordon.bsky.social
· Apr 22
self-certifying data… over http
"this could have been a skill"
January 27, 2026 at 8:15 AM
"this could have been a skill"
Reposted by Gordon
Today, your most-used interoperable protocols are probably smtp, delivering your email, and https, loading web pages
Interoperability means you can use Gmail and Outlook, or Chrome and Firefox, to access the data that's moving over the same agreed-upon (protocol) rails
ATProto does that for social
Interoperability means you can use Gmail and Outlook, or Chrome and Firefox, to access the data that's moving over the same agreed-upon (protocol) rails
ATProto does that for social
Correct. We refer to that as "interoperability". It works because Blacksky and Bluesky operate on the same protocol which is a social contract on how data should be shared so that all of our apps can work the same or similarly and users have familiar experiences while benefiting from more choice.
January 26, 2026 at 5:06 PM
Today, your most-used interoperable protocols are probably smtp, delivering your email, and https, loading web pages
Interoperability means you can use Gmail and Outlook, or Chrome and Firefox, to access the data that's moving over the same agreed-upon (protocol) rails
ATProto does that for social
Interoperability means you can use Gmail and Outlook, or Chrome and Firefox, to access the data that's moving over the same agreed-upon (protocol) rails
ATProto does that for social
“In a traditional score, you play the music. In a generative score, you play with the system that plays the music. It seems to me that AI agents turn all of us into generative composers.” open.substack.com/pub/subconsc...
Specify it only somewhat
Fragments on agents, Dwarf Fortress, and tape loops
open.substack.com
January 25, 2026 at 8:11 PM
“In a traditional score, you play the music. In a generative score, you play with the system that plays the music. It seems to me that AI agents turn all of us into generative composers.” open.substack.com/pub/subconsc...
“To some, the critical test of whether a machine is or is not a ‘brain’ would be whether it can or cannot ‘think.’ But to the biologist the brain is not a thinking machine, it is an acting machine; it gets information and then it does something about it.”
- W. Ross Ashby, 1948, Design for a Brain
- W. Ross Ashby, 1948, Design for a Brain
It thinks the question of "Does this LLM understand anything" is a question it doesnt find interesting at all. It focuses on "Can this LLM do a thing or not? If no, can it be made to do it anyways?" and figuring out how to make it do the thing it couldn't before.
January 24, 2026 at 5:11 PM
“To some, the critical test of whether a machine is or is not a ‘brain’ would be whether it can or cannot ‘think.’ But to the biologist the brain is not a thinking machine, it is an acting machine; it gets information and then it does something about it.”
- W. Ross Ashby, 1948, Design for a Brain
- W. Ross Ashby, 1948, Design for a Brain
a demoscene will emerge around
unaugmented intellectual labor
unaugmented intellectual labor
January 24, 2026 at 8:45 AM
a demoscene will emerge around
unaugmented intellectual labor
unaugmented intellectual labor
Requisite Variety is the biggest little idea I wish that everyone already knew.
"If you want to make sense of a complex world, you've got to have an internal system that is equally complex." - Karl Weick
found this gem from @gordon.bsky.social on @margin.at (h/t @funferall.bsky.social )
gordonbrander.com/notes/requis...
found this gem from @gordon.bsky.social on @margin.at (h/t @funferall.bsky.social )
gordonbrander.com/notes/requis...
Requisite Variety - gordonbrander.com
gordonbrander.com
January 24, 2026 at 7:49 AM
Requisite Variety is the biggest little idea I wish that everyone already knew.
Reposted by Gordon
Sure, everyone hates the spreadsheet guy for having such an easy job until it's harvesting season and they don't have any oxen for their fields
January 21, 2026 at 9:53 PM
Sure, everyone hates the spreadsheet guy for having such an easy job until it's harvesting season and they don't have any oxen for their fields
Actions create options
January 21, 2026 at 10:41 PM
Actions create options
People are paying $200/mo out of their own pockets. You just can't fake that kind of demand.
January 20, 2026 at 11:14 AM
People are paying $200/mo out of their own pockets. You just can't fake that kind of demand.
Reposted by Gordon
"So the question becomes not whether you can do it or not, because any drudge can do it if they’re prepared to sit in front of the computer for a few days, the question then is, 'Of all the things you can now do, which do you choose to do?'"
January 19, 2026 at 3:28 PM
"So the question becomes not whether you can do it or not, because any drudge can do it if they’re prepared to sit in front of the computer for a few days, the question then is, 'Of all the things you can now do, which do you choose to do?'"
Brian Eno: "The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement."
January 19, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Brian Eno: "The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement."
Reposted by Gordon
The big success of ML is putting "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it" into a model
January 19, 2026 at 5:53 AM
The big success of ML is putting "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it" into a model
Reposted by Gordon
Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that the solution to what looks like a collective action problem is to just start solving it. People will show up.
January 18, 2026 at 3:58 AM
Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that the solution to what looks like a collective action problem is to just start solving it. People will show up.
“Behavioral patterns such as burial rites that one might characterize as religious reach back as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis and possibly Homo naledi.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoli...
Paleolithic religion - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
January 17, 2026 at 1:45 PM
“Behavioral patterns such as burial rites that one might characterize as religious reach back as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis and possibly Homo naledi.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoli...
“don’t should on me”
re: oughtposting vs isposting
you'll notice that I generally always try to write tweets that are framed as "I did this thing" or "I like this thing" and basically never "you should do this thing" or "everyone should / shouldn't like this thing"
my goal, as much as I can, is to be a 100% isposter
you'll notice that I generally always try to write tweets that are framed as "I did this thing" or "I like this thing" and basically never "you should do this thing" or "everyone should / shouldn't like this thing"
my goal, as much as I can, is to be a 100% isposter
January 17, 2026 at 8:51 AM
“don’t should on me”
Reposted by Gordon
I see this in video game terms. Traditional programming is like playing Super Mario or Minecraft where you directly control one character. There are strategy games where you frantically scroll around giving orders to a small army. The next logical step is Sim City where you control land-use policy.
January 17, 2026 at 2:58 AM
I see this in video game terms. Traditional programming is like playing Super Mario or Minecraft where you directly control one character. There are strategy games where you frantically scroll around giving orders to a small army. The next logical step is Sim City where you control land-use policy.
Reposted by Gordon
infinte jestcore
In Neal Stephenson’s novel Fall, they called this getting “facebooked”. Algorithmic fever hallucination injected straight into the eyeballs. Like digital meth.
The videos have no plot, no stories, no characters. All I see are explanatory-seeming kernels of truth-sounding bites, churned up in a stupefying, frothing soup of morphing images, captions, voices.
I don't know how to fight against this.
I don't know how to fight against this.
January 15, 2026 at 9:28 PM
infinte jestcore
In Neal Stephenson’s novel Fall, they called this getting “facebooked”. Algorithmic fever hallucination injected straight into the eyeballs. Like digital meth.
The videos have no plot, no stories, no characters. All I see are explanatory-seeming kernels of truth-sounding bites, churned up in a stupefying, frothing soup of morphing images, captions, voices.
I don't know how to fight against this.
I don't know how to fight against this.
January 15, 2026 at 9:19 PM
In Neal Stephenson’s novel Fall, they called this getting “facebooked”. Algorithmic fever hallucination injected straight into the eyeballs. Like digital meth.
2026: the year of Linux on the desktop 😈
Kind of surreal seeing Claude Code Cowork use the same Linux-as-a-library-VM trick on macOS we first shipped in Docker for Desktop a decade ago (anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-...). Looks like the architecture of embedding Linux on any non-Linux desktop is now everywhere!
anil.recoil.org
January 14, 2026 at 8:58 AM
2026: the year of Linux on the desktop 😈
Reposted by Gordon
reading a record? i'll show you something interesting. the two types of data formats are json and sqlite. all data fall into these two categories
January 12, 2026 at 7:12 PM
reading a record? i'll show you something interesting. the two types of data formats are json and sqlite. all data fall into these two categories
Reposted by Gordon
One idea that stuck with me is that the job of the ego is to negotiate between the desires of the superego (moralizing self) and the id (instinctual self). Finding excuses to engage in self-righteous cruelty is therefore very popular, because it satisfies both!
November 25, 2024 at 4:46 PM
One idea that stuck with me is that the job of the ego is to negotiate between the desires of the superego (moralizing self) and the id (instinctual self). Finding excuses to engage in self-righteous cruelty is therefore very popular, because it satisfies both!
Always bet on text.
administration of a Linux system is done by editing text files, since pretty much all settings of the system are a defined in some text file.
this quirk has, by accident, turned into a UX superpower in the age of text-based AIs, which will fix your problem... by asking it to do so.
this quirk has, by accident, turned into a UX superpower in the age of text-based AIs, which will fix your problem... by asking it to do so.
January 14, 2026 at 7:28 AM
Always bet on text.
friction is generated from a differential in speeds
January 13, 2026 at 12:20 PM
friction is generated from a differential in speeds
Reposted by Gordon
context is like modelling a world in a text adventure. by arranging the set of actions at locations in a space(time), a world is implied.
in a “good game” the arrangement of the context must try to anticipate many traversals of that space while leaving room for agency and (hopefully) fun
in a “good game” the arrangement of the context must try to anticipate many traversals of that space while leaving room for agency and (hopefully) fun
January 13, 2026 at 11:44 AM
context is like modelling a world in a text adventure. by arranging the set of actions at locations in a space(time), a world is implied.
in a “good game” the arrangement of the context must try to anticipate many traversals of that space while leaving room for agency and (hopefully) fun
in a “good game” the arrangement of the context must try to anticipate many traversals of that space while leaving room for agency and (hopefully) fun
It’s astounding how fully the artists of the 70s anticipated the tensions that would arise in generative AI. Eno, Cage, Riley, le Witt…
“Art, at its most significant, is a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”. -McLuhan
“Art, at its most significant, is a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”. -McLuhan
I like seeing this through the lens of generative music. “An experimental composition aims to set in motion a system that will generate unique (that is, not necessarily repeatable) outputs, but that, at the same, seeks to limit the range of these outputs.” www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_stud...
Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK
Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK - an archive of interviews, articles, albums, lyrics and other information about the ambient music master, visual artist and producer of David Bowie, U2 and Coldplay.
www.moredarkthanshark.org
January 13, 2026 at 9:50 AM
It’s astounding how fully the artists of the 70s anticipated the tensions that would arise in generative AI. Eno, Cage, Riley, le Witt…
“Art, at its most significant, is a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”. -McLuhan
“Art, at its most significant, is a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”. -McLuhan