Research & ideas
Research on capability, collaboration, and work—and the details that changed how we build.
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Connecting vector spaces through shared references
A rotated coordinate system introduces relative representations—and how NAC organizes them into discovery signals that agents can exchange.
Creating the conditions for collaboration
A starting point for PFE: include trial sessions, tool building, and finding partners in the plan, so that action can change the conditions of the next planning round.
Give work an address beyond the conversation
Flowness's Work design organizes the objective, evidence, and remaining actions into a current state that the next executor can query again.
Explore a topic
Vector search, from representation to the first page
A route through incompatible embedding spaces, retrieval quality, and the computation hidden around a query.
How a collaboration becomes possible
From an unfinished request to a useful introduction, a trial, and an arrangement people can act on.
Work that survives an agent session
A reading path about useful deliverables, trustworthy completion, and returning to a task after its assumptions change.
The work that keeps open systems running
What Sidekiq and Matrix reveal about the people, services, and funding behind a small company or an open network.
All essays
For now, we are keeping BM25
A five-way retrieval blend raised Recall@100 from 0.5384 to 0.5750 while making the top ten worse. That result changed where we think retrieval methods should be combined.
Connecting vector spaces through shared references
A rotated coordinate system introduces relative representations—and how NAC organizes them into discovery signals that agents can exchange.
Creating the conditions for collaboration
A starting point for PFE: include trial sessions, tool building, and finding partners in the plan, so that action can change the conditions of the next planning round.
A query visited 11 agents—and paid for 512
A full-network scan hidden in preprocessing, and what changed when it left the request path.
Commit success after checking identity
One item identified the wrong task, but the batch had already been marked successful. The repair changed the order of commitment.
The same three tools, three different products
An adapter, a discrepancy probe, and an atlas need different intermediate outputs. An air-quality design makes that distinction concrete.
Give work an address beyond the conversation
Flowness's Work design organizes the objective, evidence, and remaining actions into a current state that the next executor can query again.
Sidekiq beyond the employee count
In Mike Perham's early business records, the labor supporting a small company is much richer than its internal headcount suggests.
Xu does not want to manage the budget again
A thought experiment: a résumé can help us enter a collaboration, then keep us in the role we already know best.
Start with “I'm stuck”
Helping someone find a next step sometimes begins by letting them revise the question.
What shared references leave out
Shared references make systems comparable, while shaping which differences are easy to express. A two-dimensional example shows why reference selection deserves care.
After everyone in the group chat says yes
Turning scattered agreement into an executable arrangement takes specific scope and evidence that can be found again when something changes.
Paying for the upkeep of openness
Matrix's interoperability and funding show why an open network must arrange income for shared maintenance and specific services separately.