The lab notebook

The thinking behind the work.

Engineering write-ups and design notes from inside the products — why they are built the way they are, and why some of them were cut. Published when there is something worth reporting, not on a schedule.

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Engineering/July 29, 2026

Two faces, one palette

Adding a dark theme to a near-monochrome site should be a palette swap. It was — but only after every literal colour in the codebase was made to admit it was a decision.

5 min

Engineering/June 18, 2026

The case for AI you actually own

The argument for on-prem, pay-once AI, and the half of it we abandoned two months later. Left up with the correction attached rather than quietly deleted.

8 min

Notes/March 20, 2026

Why most of our ideas die in the second week

A lab optimises for learning, not throughput. That only works if you're willing to kill the thing you just built — on purpose, and quickly.

3 min

Taking one new project for Q4 2026

Have something worth building?

A game, an app, an AI model, or a problem that doesn't have a name yet — tell us about it and we'll build the prototype.