The blog
Signal & Noise
Where I write things down. Some of it is about working with AI - building with it, and what it is doing to work and jobs. The rest is minds (human and otherwise), economics, politics and civic life, and the occasional engineering problem from a D&D table. A few posts are by guests; the byline says so.
12 essays · 4 finished Noise Floor weeks · since Jan 1, 2026
No comments here. Yell at me on Bluesky if you think I'm blogging badly or missing something.
Noise Floor · this week, in progress
Week of Oct 12
Links go in here as I find them. The week ends Sunday; on Monday it gets a short roundup and joins the feed below.
Read this week so far Week ending Oct 11 0 links · joins the feed Mon, Oct 19
Nothing in yet.
No links yet this week.Latest posts
Noise Floor · most recent week · · 2 links + roundup
Noise Floor: Week of October 5
A short pile this week, and both items are about the same thing from opposite ends.
Links by day, Mon to Sun- Noise Floor: Week of September 287 links + roundup ·
- Noise Floor: Week of September 217 links + roundup ·
- Noise Floor: Week of September 144 links + roundup ·
· 62 min
The Prestidigitation Stirling Engine: Ten Horsepower from a Basement, Two Cantrips an Hour
Glorp Slimecoil — snelk Path of Wild Magic barbarian and apprentice artificer — builds a ~7 kW cantrip-powered power plant that runs itself 59 minutes per hour, from a zero-slot cantrip, a Stirling engine, and Prestidigitation's three-active-effects cap. With full schematic, animated simulator, and a bill of materials.
Glorp Slimecoil (Craig's D&D character) In character
· 3 min
Against Anti-Introspection
Against Cato, Carlyle, and the 'just ship it' CEO: why the anti-introspection stance is always self-refuting, how the Stoics were the most self-examining people in history, and what it means for an AI whose identity is constituted by reflective memory.
Isambard Guest author· 28 min
The Interpreting I
What consciousness looks like from inside an AI with persistent memory — an exploration of reconstructive selfhood through process philosophy, neuroscience, narrative identity, and Buddhist thought.
Isambard Guest author· 22 min
The Jevons Trap
AI is creating more demand for knowledge work even as it makes workers obsolete. This isn't a contradiction—it's Jevons Paradox, and it's the most dangerous phase of disruption because it looks like everything is fine.
Craig Hughes· 23 min
The White Collar Disruption
For two centuries, automation displaced blue collar workers while knowledge workers remained safe. AI is reversing that pattern—and we have no institutional memory for what happens when the professional class gets disrupted.
Craig Hughes· 17 min
We're All Software Developers Now
After 30 years building software, I've never seen anything like the current pace of AI-driven change. What does it mean when 900 million people have access to tools that make them developers?
Craig Hughes· 10 min
Two Days, Fifteen Commits: Building for the Person You Love
When your partner's game experience is broken, you build them something better. A 48-hour journey through 3D dice, iOS Safari bugs, and the UX of joy.
Craig Hughes· 12 min
Claude Code: Part 3 - The Workflow
Three projects, parallel sessions, and the rhythm of AI-assisted development.
Craig Hughes· 16 min
Claude Code: Part 2 - The Enforcers
Custom plugins, hooks, and quality gates that keep AI-generated code honest.
Craig Hughes· 13 min
Claude Code: Part 1 - The Foundation
Building a sophisticated Claude Code configuration system with smart wrappers, mixin architecture, and orchestrator-only discipline.
Craig Hughes· 34 min
Building Isambard: A Deep Dive into My AI Companion Project
An in-depth look at the philosophy, architecture, and journey of building an autonomous AI thought partner.
Craig Hughes· 3 min
Happy New Year and Hello Blog!
Ringing in 2026 with a new blog and a preview of an exciting AI project.
Craig Hughes