Material intelligence

The other day, I was cutting bread and cheese for sandwiches. I found myself imagining jigs I could make out of wood to ease the task (to ensure a consistent cut thickness, with clever ways to make the thickness configurable, and so on). I mentioned this to T, how I’ve found myself paying more attention to the materials of our built world (at whatever scale)—she mentioned the same with knitting, how you become more aware of what and how things are made, and your mind increasingly reaches for those opportunities.

I felt that again this morning, when it was time to prune and top the tomato plants (once again overflowing their enclosure!). It was a very happy hour or so spent getting to know each plant, but also getting to know the structure of the tomato plant itself, where it branches, where it fruits, and so on. Paying attention enabled me to enter a rhythm where you can move to the next branch, and the next branch, knowing what to prune and what to keep, thanks to knowledge of the material itself.

It looks like we’re topping the tomatoes a bit later than last year, but that’s just the summer it’s been. It’s been nice having a somewhat more normal few weeks—a highlight this week was catching up with some old friends over dinner (and learning about guitar pedals in the process). If you’re not normally here and passing through Ottawa, don’t hesitate to send me a note, I’d love to see you!

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Anyhow—Billy’s made most of his way through Glass Houses, so it’s time to send you off with some links.

• Immensely enjoyed the Ben Franklin’s World interview with Joyce Chaplin on the Franklin Stove, and its connection to mid-1700s concerns about energy and material conservation.
• Anarchism is frequently misunderstood or misportrayed. Alan Jacobs has gathered snippets of anarchist thought into an “anarchist notebook”. (Apparently August is for anarchism, as I’d also linked to Jacobs last year, on the occasion of James C. Scott’s death.)
• What auto-generated and templated text takes away from work—sometimes, friction is what you want!
• Wild story of uncovering and pursuing a British military kickback scheme with Saudi Arabia.
• Never heard of “sousveillance” (surveilling the authorities who might be surveilling you), but I like Ben Werdmuller’s concept for a device that could maintain a trustworthy record in case of unlawful detention. (Wild that that’s a sentence I just wrote. 2025!)
• A wholesome working-with-your-brother appreciation post.
• Tom MacWright, first hire at Observable, described the course of the company’s products so far.
• Clever pattern to aid future debugging (and migration mishaps), including the commit hash of the code that generated data when writing to a database.
• If you ever wondered how web browsers treat the Infinite value in CSS, Eric Meyer has you covered.
• A hopeful, funny, insightful conversation between Olivia Chow and Paul Wells—from her earlier days as mayor.

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas