How to Build Around an Open Theorem Without Claiming It
Ambitious mathematical software can formalize the missing object, prove surrounding machinery, and record evidence while keeping the unresolved crux mechanically open.
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How to Build Around an Open Theorem Without Claiming It
Ambitious mathematical software can formalize the missing object, prove surrounding machinery, and record evidence while keeping the unresolved crux mechanically open.
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Showing 18 essays
A Registry Is a Graph, Not a Bucket
Once objects have stable identities, a registry has to preserve namespace state, relationships, atomic changes, reconciliation, and reachability—not just blobs.
A Program Should Be Able to Resume Somewhere Else
A portable suspension needs addressed state, addressed dependencies, explicit host contracts, and fresh authority when execution moves.
Research Should Record What Failed
A useful research repository keeps negative results, pre-declares what would change the plan, and treats instruments that cannot fail as bugs.
The Browser Is a Computer, Not a Thin Client
Running a real AI compile-and-inference pipeline in the browser changes storage, memory, concurrency, and verification from backend concerns into product architecture.
Exactness Is an Interface
When every valid execution path produces the same bytes, memory, scheduling, SIMD, and fallback decisions stop leaking into the caller's contract.
A Hash Can Prove an Answer Was Not Changed. It Cannot Prove the Answer Was Right.
Content addressing gives delegated AI results durable identity and tamper evidence, but correctness still requires recomputation, attestation, or a stronger proof.
Meaning Needs an Address
A hash identifies bytes. A useful object address has to survive harmless changes in representation without pretending every kind of equivalence is the same.
Delete Everything—Except the Ability to Prove Who You Are
A destructive command exposed two hard problems: defining complete deletion in an evolving system and preserving cryptographic identity as one connected set.
A 1 GiB Filesystem Cost 3.9 GiB of RAM
A Rust ownership mistake in MVM's ext4 builder multiplied peak memory, and the fix required changing the shape of the pipeline.
Provenance Is Not Logging
Logs describe events. Provenance records who authorized them, why they happened, and which later decisions depended on them.
200 Milliseconds Is Not a Boot Time
MicroVM latency only means something when the stopwatch includes preparation, verification, activation, first useful work, and cleanup.
Snapshots Can Clone Memory, Not Authority
A restored microVM can inherit computation, but it needs a fresh identity, fresh channels, and a newly admitted security contract.
A Security Claim Is Code—or It Isn't
Security promises need a threat model, an enforcement mechanism, and a witness that breaks when the mechanism does.
The Safest NIC Is No NIC
MVM removes the routable guest NIC and puts network authority behind a host-controlled vsock boundary.
AI agents need a machine boundary
Prompt rules are not a security boundary. Agent runtimes need enforceable capabilities, isolated execution, mediated I/O, and a deliberately small blast radius.
Invisible AI
The advances in AI are incredible, but the most important systems will disappear into ordinary life.
Dad's Blue Sky cream soda
Memories of my father and the derivative meaning of snacks.
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