Essays on footnotes, evidence, scholarly writing, and how AI becomes serious.
RSS →What the database has not heard of is called unstudied two pages later. A limit of reach becomes a statement of fact, and nobody lied.
→July 16, 2026AI PsychosisThe machine does not hallucinate confidence out of nothing. It inherits the user's, amplifies it, and hands it back dressed as an independent verdict.
→July 15, 2026The Illusion of the Company BrainAn archive collects material. Knowledge begins the moment someone takes responsibility for a claim.
→July 14, 2026Geography Is Not CryptographyA German postcode is not a security architecture. When a vendor sells data residency as data sovereignty, it is offering reassurance in place of control.
→July 11, 2026Bullshit in a Lab CoatThe most dangerous distortions in scholarly prose are not lies. They are conclusions the author sincerely believes, reached by a mind that weighed the evidence by desirability. And they wear the full costume of science.
→July 8, 2026The Body Language of a ThesisA thesis speaks twice: once through its argument, and once through its body. The margins, the numbering, the patient order of its parts. Students have learned to fear the second voice.
→July 5, 2026The Footnote SurvivesSmall, lowered, often printed in a size that seems to apologize for being there, the footnote is one of the most powerful devices in the history of serious writing.
→July 5, 2026When AI Agrees Too EasilyA hallucinated source is visible once checked. A too-smooth paragraph is harder to catch — because it sounds reasonable, balanced, and helpful.
→