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freecomputinglab.ohrg.org

To stay tuned for these updates and to follow rookery/Rheo's development, follow along through the socials of the Free Computing Lab: freecomputinglab.ohrg.org

Index

000

Rookery is also the basis for a more structured and local-first way of doing context engineering, the vision for which I wrote about on my blog: www.ohrg.org/ideas/birdke...

Birdkeeping

100

When combined with Rheo, rookeries are incrementally compiled in response to live edits, and browser pages are updated in place.

rheo.ohrg.org

Introduction | Rheo

I built rookery to migrate my knowledge management system (read: scores of plain-text files in a folder) from Org-mode to Typst. It has now become the basis for my todo tracking, my book/paper/meeting notes, my brainstorming, my slideshowing, and---most importantly---my writing.

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Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 20/09/2026

Can't sleep at night for want of knowledge gardens (Zettelkasten-style) in Typst? Stay awake no longer because rookery is here: rookery.ohrg.org

232

A much better example of a (tasteful) vibe-coded system than Yegge's

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 15/09/2026

I do love the FT: "if Anyhropic causes an extinction event, obviously that's bad for investors"

000

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 06/09/2026

The social contract between reader and writer in code Is different. That's not to say there aren't certain kind of code in circulation-- PRs to an open source repository, say-- that might hew more closely to prose's social contract.

000

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 06/09/2026

I also think this might be the foundation for more reasonable thinking on why writing CODE with LLMs might be more acceptable than writing prose with them.

100

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 06/09/2026

More sage thinking about LLMs and the symbolic function of writing from Cantrill: "to use an LLM to write is to void the social contract between writer and reader: we readers shouldn’t be expected to labor to understand a sentence that the writer themselves didn’t work to create."

121

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 11/08/2026

And my blog site has finally been updated with a way to subscribe to new content via email, if you want to stay abreast of the latest in token soup

000

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 11/08/2026

I've been stewing on what to say about the discomforting industrial metaphorics of Steve Yegge's beads and gastown for a while, and here it is: www.ohrg.org/birdkeeping

Birdkeeping

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 06/08/2026

In addition to the process laid out in the blogpost, I've also started using jj workspaces as a way to isolate agents' work from each other while they are working on a bead. If you start using soroban, you'll get this workflow by default.

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 06/08/2026

The basic idea is that LLM agents do much better when you parcellate work for them in advance. This kind of planning also opens up more economical downstream agential workflows such as using a local model to implement work that a more capable model from one of the frontier labs has planned.

120

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 06/08/2026

I recently described this process at length in a blog post: www.ohrg.org/taming-jagge...

Taming jagged intelligence with beads and jj

100

Reposted by Lachlan Kermode

Sophie Moullin @sophiemoullin.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Struggling to diversify your panel? Use our humanoids.

011

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 17/07/2026

Wrote up my current context engineering setup (seeded with a few thoughts about LLM hysteria): www.ohrg.org/taming-jagge...

Taming jagged intelligence with beads and jj

020

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 09/07/2026

Can't believe I missed this post when it happened. Outstanding

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 03/07/2026

You know you've been coding too long when you get up and, as you walk to the kitchen, start thinking about what should be included in the the prompt you're about to write to prepare dinner

000

Reposted by Lachlan Kermode

Gabriella "Biella" Coleman @biella.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Does anyone have any opinions on these paperless drywall products? Please share. I doubt I will get much traction here, but it never hurts to check.

221

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 30/06/2026

(Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, etc.)

000

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 30/06/2026

Let's bring back Weizenbaum's excellent phrase and accusation "the artificial intelligentsia"

Seny Kamara @senykamara.com · 27/06/2026

Reposted by Lachlan Kermode

This is a fantastic essay from @jessica.bsky.social about what it means to do real work/research open.substack.com/pub/letterst...

The "third real" Jessica writes about here-- especially as it pertains to our work (labor) and its value-- is (I think) exactly what Marx would call communism, i.e. a social reality suffused with value(s) that meet our ethical standards, a reality that is "internally consistent".

000

This essay really effectively pinpoints how the ideology of objectivity associated with computing ('the world is REALLY just data') reifies the world and consigns it to its current capitalist reality.

The problem, in a nutshell, is the 'real' status of money. Money is a real abstraction, because it is a fictional contract that quantifies value; but it is a REAL abstraction because it's not just something you can choose to do without, as you might a standard 'abstraction'.

100

The discussion of what makes for 'real' work here really effectively shadows an academic debate going on in the Marxology world currently about Alfred Sohn-Rethel's (mid-century Marxist) diagnosis of capital as a "real abstraction".

101

"To write a program is to legislate the laws for a world one first has to create in imagination. Only very rarely does any designer, be he an architect... have so coherent a picture of the world emergent in his imagination that he can compose its laws without criticism from that world itself"

"This misses the truth that programming is, again like any form of writing, more often than not experimental. One programs, just as one writes, not because one understands, but in order to come to understand."

"Sometimes we connect two clauses with the word "therefore," only to then see that our chain of reasoning is defective."

"Our pen writes the word "because" and suddenly stops. We thought we understood the "why" of something, but discover that we don't. We begin a sentence with "obviously"; and then see that what we meant to write is not obvious at all."

Surely at least this: "Programming is rather a test of understanding. In this respect it is like writing; often when we think we understand something and attempt to write about it, our very act of composition reveals our lack of understanding even to ourselves."

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 23/06/2026

@shriram.bsky.social maybe an idea for your course. It could even be an audiobook assignment IMO

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Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 23/06/2026

Does anyone know of an intro to CS that includes Weizenbaum's _Computer Power and Human Reason_? What with this AI business, it seems more essential than ever to get this in front of computer people as early as possible

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Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 17/06/2026

There's also often a step 1.5, which is to interactively refine the beads issues before handing them off. I have the following general directive for plan mode to ensure the right information is included: github.com/breezykermo/...

000

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 17/06/2026

4. Follow the implementation with abacus - github.com/ChrisEdwards... - and tuicr - github.com/agavra/tuicr

100

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 17/06/2026

Coding workflow: 1. Have Anthropic's Opus family design a feature or fix as a set of beads issues: github.com/Dicklesworth... 2. Using either Anthropic's Sonnet family or GLM 4.7 (an open weights model), turn on caveman mode: github.com/juliusbrusse... 3. "br/jj pair": github.com/breezykermo/...

100

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 09/06/2026

One option would be to paywall ALL preshow rants (as that's what we really come for) and drop the free user unawares directly into the real topic

Lachlan Kermode @ohrg.org · 09/06/2026

Now that you've got serious VC money as a podcast company it's good to see you thinking seriously bout how to monetize.