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Rings

Rings

Posts, revisions, and the changes this place gathered over time.

13 published · 7 revised · 5 site changes

2026

25 entries
September1 entries
  1. 09.03Colors Should Have ProvenancePublishedWe record where data, code, and images come from, yet colors often survive as little more than anonymous hex values. biopalette began with a simple thought: colors should keep their provenance too.
August18 entries
  1. 08.30Power Can Compel Without ControllingPublishedFrom American deportations, tariffs and Iran sanctions to China’s extraterritorial laws, public-sector AI and humanoid robots, this issue shows why coercion becomes self-defeating when power outruns institutional capacity. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions.
  2. 08.22When Signals Become Targets, Systems Lose the PlotPublishedFrom AI consciousness and data-centre forecasts to China’s unemployment rate, stock indices, trade routes and the Strait of Hormuz, this issue shows how proxies become misleading when institutions start managing them as goals. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions.
  3. 08.16Control Is Not the Same as CapacityPublishedFrom Afghanistan, Venezuela and presidential tariff powers to Chinese oil reserves, Taiwanese gridlock, AI agents and embryo screening, this issue distinguishes visible control from the institutional capacity to produce durable outcomes. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions.
  4. 08.09Frontend Is DeadPublishedI never systematically learned JavaScript, yet in one week I rebuilt or created five personal websites with Claude Code and Codex. Frontend has not disappeared from the web, but it is changing from work that requires a dedicated profession into a set of capabilities anyone can invoke through an agent.
  5. 08.09When Action Gets Cheap, Institutions Pay the BillPublishedFrom Chinese jobs, British litigation and autonomous AI attacks to Korean chip wealth, public debt, Hormuz and Sudan, this issue shows that cheaper action does not automatically produce productivity; it first creates problems of congestion, liability and distribution. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions.
  6. 08.06About, and this pageSiteA page saying who writes here and what lands here, and a timeline of how the place has grown.
  7. 08.06After 24 Kata: Learning To Ask A Better QuestionRevised
  8. 08.06Ambition Is Cheap, Capacity Is ScarceRevised
  9. 08.06The Future Is a Maintenance ProblemRevised
  10. 08.06The More You Control, the Less You Can ChooseRevised
  11. 08.06The Rule-Makers Are Escaping the RulesRevised
  12. 08.06Welcome to My BlogRevised
  13. 08.06一个不够好的归宿,比没有归宿更糟Revised
  14. 08.05The rest of the writing followsSiteSeven posts, four of them issues of one series. Most exist in both languages; one is Chinese only, and says so.
  15. 08.05The first post moves inSiteWelcome, in both languages. With it came the post page — a contents rail, code highlighting, and a cover built to one shape.
  16. 08.04The front pageSiteA field of cells for what is worth looking at, a searchable register of everything below it, and a heat map of when the writing actually happened.

    The top of the page is for looking at: one recommended post, the two most recent, and a count of what is here. Everything else is a list you can filter by category, search, and sort — because a page made entirely of framed cells stops working somewhere around the twentieth post.

  17. 08.04Two switchesSiteA light and dark theme, and English and Chinese, both switchable from the header on any page.
  18. 08.03The Future Is a Maintenance ProblemPublishedFrom post-quantum encryption, wildfires and Asian deterrence to AI editing, American entrepreneurship and financial fraud, this issue argues that societies are better at announcing breakthroughs than maintaining the systems that make progress safe and durable. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions from the issue.
July4 entries
  1. 07.28一个不够好的归宿,比没有归宿更糟Published程英、陆无双与完颜萍的结局差别,与其说源于三人对杨过的感情深浅,不如说源于金庸对她们文学分量的不同估价。可以被草草交代的人物,才配得上一个现成的世俗结局。
  2. 07.27The Rule-Makers Are Escaping the RulesPublishedFrom Elon Musk, runaway AI models and prediction markets to Chinese technology standards, British nostalgia and Nicaraguan autocracy, this issue asks what happens when the people who make, interpret or evade the rules become more powerful than the institutions meant to hold them accountable. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions from the issue.
  3. 07.19The More You Control, the Less You Can ChoosePublishedFrom a dimming Earth, the Strait of Hormuz and America’s Department of Justice to sovereign AI, China’s marriage crisis and urban nightlife, this issue reveals a recurring mechanism: attempts to eliminate risk and dependence often create new vulnerabilities and narrow the choices available later. It concludes with 10 useful English expressions.
  4. 07.17Ambition Is Cheap, Capacity Is ScarcePublishedThis issue moves from Russia, European defence and housing to semiconductors, AI bonds and dementia, repeatedly asking the same question: as political and commercial ambitions expand, can institutional, fiscal and technological capacity keep up? It concludes with 16 useful English expressions from the issue.
May1 entries
  1. 05.28After 24 Kata: Learning To Ask A Better QuestionPublishedAfter the first 24 Kata exercises, the biggest lesson was not a specific algorithm, but learning to ask what information each step should produce.
April1 entries
  1. 04.06Welcome to My BlogPublished“Not all those who wander are lost.” This is the beginning of my journey to explore both the world and myself.