Tolics Engineering Mind

Software architecture, AI systems, and engineering insights

PHILOSOPHY

Agentic AI Was Invented in Melbourne
May 22, 2026 • 5 min read
The agentic AI loop wasn't born in 2024. It was shipped from a Melbourne lab in 1991 — the BDI architecture — inspired by a Stanford philosopher's …
#AI #AI-AGENTS #SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE
Systems, Incentives, and Carparks
May 04, 2026 • 4 min read
A Malmö carpark, a Melbourne blackout, and the cheerful realisation that systems — not luck or geography — quietly decide what does and doesn't get …
#PHILOSOPHY #PERSONAL #REFLECTION
Every Schema Is a Worldview
Apr 19, 2026 • 6 min read
SUMO tried to encode all of reality into first-order logic. Its directory listing is a philosophical argument most AI engineers have never …
#AI #LLMS #SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE
Most Software Issues Aren't Software
Apr 17, 2026 • 4 min read
The real bottleneck in software development is not knowledge — it is processing. Ambiguity, cognitive load, and feedback latency are the upstream …
#SOFTWARE-DEVELOPMENT #TEAM-PRODUCTIVITY #ORGANIZATIONAL-DESIGN
The Smell of the City
Mar 01, 2026 • 2 min read
Your default environment shapes your baseline. Living near nature and visiting the city beats the reverse — your normal state should be the one that …
#REFLECTION #PHILOSOPHY #PERSONAL
Mate, Take a Break: You're Not a Robot
Feb 12, 2026 • 2 min read
Productivity culture destroys the spontaneous, unstructured time where creativity and connection actually happen. Become more human, not more …
#PRODUCTIVITY #PHILOSOPHY #CAREER
Ambiguity as a Vital Sign
Feb 06, 2026 • 5 min read
Traditional observability counts individual leaves. In a living system, ambiguity is the vital sign — it reveals where the system is still becoming.
#AI #SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE #AUTONOMOUS-SYSTEMS
Just Enough
Feb 02, 2026 • 2 min read
Sweden's concept of lagom — just the right amount — reveals how collective sufficiency creates societies where empathy becomes natural, not expensive.
#PHILOSOPHY #PSYCHOLOGY #PERSONAL
Defecting Toward Noise
Feb 01, 2026 • 2 min read
Deep focus and extractable attention are fundamentally opposed objectives. The incentive structures and game theory behind why everyone defects toward …
#PRODUCTIVITY #PHILOSOPHY #PSYCHOLOGY
Complexity Is a Feature: A Developer's Realisation
Jan 29, 2026 • 7 min read
Complexity often isn't a bug — it's a feature that benefits interpreters, gatekeepers, and incumbents. A developer's journey from automation idealist …
#SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE #PHILOSOPHY #ORGANIZATIONAL-DESIGN
The Ruby Diaspora: How Rubyists Shaped Modern Programming
Dec 19, 2025 • 2 min read
How Ruby's community created Node.js, Elixir, Express.js, Flask, Laravel, and other technologies that define modern development.
#RUBY-ON-RAILS #SOFTWARE-DEVELOPMENT #PHILOSOPHY
The Quantum Turing Test
Oct 17, 2025 • 2 min read
When the wavefunction collapses because an AI observed it, consciousness has crossed the silicon threshold.
#HUMOUR #AI #PHILOSOPHY
Prompt Engineering Yourself: Mental Reframing for Anxiety and Growth
Jul 15, 2024 • 2 min read
Transform anxiety through mental prompt engineering. Learn to reframe perspective, release guilt, and become the architect of your experience.
#PERSONAL #PSYCHOLOGY #NEURODIVERGENT
There Is a God Now: An Old AI Anecdote That Aged Like Fine Wine
Aug 09, 2023 • 2 min read
An old computer science anecdote about AI and divinity from the mid-2000s that seems remarkably prescient in today's interconnected AI-driven world.
#AI #PHILOSOPHY #HUMOUR
The Universe Starts with U: A Nature-Based Spirituality
Jun 15, 2019 • 3 min read
Exploring a nature-based spirituality grounded in physics, quantum consciousness, and the profound mystery of conscious existence in a participatory …
#PHILOSOPHY #PERSONAL #REFLECTION
The Uncomfortable Truth About Sounding Wise
Feb 10, 2016 • 2 min read
Discover why true wisdom means resisting the urge to rationalize troubling behaviour with wise-sounding explanations that make everyone feel …
#PSYCHOLOGY #COMMUNICATION #WISDOM