• Where I am now: the backcountry

• What I’m doing now: rethinking everything. Arb is busy.

• Last Song: “When I Argue I See Shapes”

• Currently watching: The Pitt. Bi Gan’s Resurrection was as good as they say.

• Currently reading: Counting Heads

• Current Obsession: driving to loud music.
  

My mother up and died on me. I’ve been writing a lot about her. I haven’t decided whether to post; I didn’t manage to read it to her for approval. My brother’s here. Kristi’s here. Everyone has been very kind. Please go record your family’s voices (I did).

For the first time in my life I want to spend time in the village. Something to do with community - there are 12 people here grieving her - something to do with investment in the nonfinancial sense - something to do with the power of voluntary manual labour - something about being close to her echo.

I learned to drive in about 3 weeks, after 20 years of resistance and repugnance. I’m glad I abstained and also glad I can savour this pleasure now.

I learned that it’s totally normal for lawyers to parasitise >3% of an estate doing probate, often much more. (I am doing it solo instead.) For the first time, I invite the AIs to come and destroy a human institution. The sooner the better.

Posts

• Fermer’s dottur (unpublished)

• Transnormalism

• A loose translation of the Chunwang

Books

Not in the mood yet

• Ice by Dukaj. Mad, gigantic, overambitious, lovely.

• Counting Heads by Marusek. The novel of the agentic near-future.

Playlists

• mam

• br

• the songularity

• doom metal

• Major refactor of Taiwan

• India is coming along

Words

• eik (Scots law n.): addition; codicil. Especially to the inventory of an estate.

• condescendence (Scots law n.): the articulate statement attached to a legal summons

• effeiring (Scots law v.): relating. obviously just "affairing", denominalisation of "affairs"

• fireclay (Scots law n.): peat

• feu (Scots law n.): the lease of land by a feudal owner. Abolished in the year of our lord 2000(!)

• subinfeudation (law n.): leasing land you are yourself leasing to a lessee, thereby becoming a lord in some sense

• crash Higher (Scots n.): Crash course; going for a 5th Year qualification without having completed the prerequisite 3rd and 4th Year qualifications.

• caucacity (internet pej. n.): Caucasian audacity. Conceits and deviances that (purportedly) only white people are safe enough to do.

• smoke test (software n.): basic tests - as in, “is there smoke when you turn it on?” Needed because modern test suites are heavy, up to half an hour.

• to undertriage (medical v.): to underdiagnose; to cause a false negative. Intuitively should mean the opposite

• to gorilla (mechanic v.): to affix with excessive force

• to rip-stall (trades v.): not attested online. Perhaps “to engage a chainsaw and instantly make a quick cut”.

• to sherlock (Apple fandom v.): to choke a third-party app by implementing it in first-party platform. LLM wrappers beware.

• to cornplate (fandom v.): to obsessively point out arbitrary details of some artwork; to attempt to generate interest in something without having an actual point.

• zoopharmacognosy (biology n.): self-medication by nonhuman animals

• twat zone (trades n.): the region immediately in front of and behind a forklift, through which the putative twat is going to walk while you are driving

• soffit (construction n.): the underbit, especially of eaves.

• kerf (construction n.): that cut off. A kerf groove is the hanging bit of a windowsill that encourages water to drip away from the wall. 

• izzat (Arab-Hindustan n.): honour; reputation; face.

• izzaterated (internet v.): driven to extremes by izzat considerations

• answer thrashing (AI n.): oscillating between two answers, particularly when distress is registered in the CoT as a result.