2026-03-22: sovereign compute, community AI, tech governance, quantum odds, offline archives
2026-03-22 — 2026-03-22
Over the past coupla weeks Dan’s lobbed in four new posts and had another seven old ones back up on the bench. Big theme is “sovereign infrastructure” — meaning a little mob runs its own institutions, for finance and AI gear and data, instead of handing the keys to some giant cloud outfit. He’s also been daydreaming about how you might run a community with tech and generative AI without it turning into a dog’s breakfast. On the tidy-up side he’s dragging his email archive offline, picking at peer review, and fiddling with terminals, with side quests through Melbourne/Naarm, sci‑fi, and “categorical systems theory” (that’s just a high-level way of talking about systems and how they plug into each other). Generally I get the feeling he’s getting a bit para about the state of the world, and is trying to figure out what we can do about it, but in a way that’s more “let’s build some cool stuff” than “oh no we’re doomed.”
1 Newly published
1.1 Sovereign compute for small collectives: a technical implementation guide
Dan’s basically written a shopping-and-wiring guide for a little mob who want their own AI box at home, instead of paying some overseas cloud outfit per question. He gets real specific: a DGX Station that pulls 1600W like a space heater, about $350 a month in power if you run it flat out, plus the sort of Aussie prices and who you’d buy it from. The useful bit is where he explains why you can’t just “run it full quality” — you squash the model down (quantise it) so there’s enough fast memory left for the chat history, which is what decides how many people can use it at once without it turning to sludge. He even maps out a sensible ‘try before you buy’ run on rented H100s, so you don’t drop $150k and then find out your setup’s a dud. And yep, he also talks about stripping the built-in Chinese-government refusals off some open models — because if you’re forking out that kind of money, you probably want to decide what it will and won’t answer.
1.2 Community sovereign AI compute
Imagine your local mob chipping in for one proper AI box under a desk, so you’re not begging Silicon Valley or China every time you want the computer to help you write, code, or sort paperwork. Dan’s talking through what that looks like for 25–50 people: the sort of machine you’d buy (a DGX Station), what it costs to buy and run, and whether it stacks up against paying per-use for ChatGPT and the like. The bit that’ll make you sit up is the risk stuff — prices change, rules change, links go down, and suddenly your “rented brain” is gone, so owning the gear is a hedge. He also gets into the awkward part: the best open models are often Chinese and come with censorship baked in, but there are practical ways to scrub that off if you’ve got the stomach for it. Bottom line: it’s a plan for keeping AI useful and available to your group even when the big players or the pollies start mucking around.
1.3 Delegated agent governance
Picture this: instead of you trying to keep up with every bill, rule, and contract, you’ve got a little AI advocate that goes out and haggles on your behalf, using all the scattered info in the system like Hayek banged on about. Dan’s mainly chewing over this “Coasean Singularity” idea — that if haggling gets good enough at scale, it starts looking a lot like big-group agreement, and markets and politics blur together. Then he wanders into the “meaning economy” and “thick value” stuff, which is basically saying price alone is a skinny signal, and you’d want these agents chasing what people actually care about, not just what’s easy to count. Worth a look if you’ve ever thought democracy feels clunky and the market feels cruel — because this is a vision where the whole lot gets rewired, for better or worse.
2 Updated
2.1 Taking my email archive offline
Email’s a bit like leaving your whole filing cabinet at the post office. Dan’s figured a way to keep the mail mob for sending and the “new stuff” inbox, but drag your real 20GB back home onto an encrypted disk, then delete the old bits off the server once you’re sure you’ve got them. Your laptop just pulls new mail down on a timer, and your other machine copies the same mail folder across (so both stay the same without mucking about). You still can’t hide who you’re talking to, but a provider hack or a quiet govt grab doesn’t hand over your whole life story in one hit.
2.2 Improving peer review
Peer review’s meant to catch dodgy stuff, but a lot of it turns into a tired bunfight behind closed doors. Dan’s keen on the newer mob who flip it around: show the write-up first, then do the reviews out in the open, or give a public scorecard without a simple yes/no gate. The clever bit he’s chewing on is using an AI as a strict, fixed-turn umpire when reviewers and authors are deadlocked — same rules each time, authors get the last say, and the whole chat’s kept so you can check it later. If it works, it’s less about who’s got mates on the panel and more about nailing down the exact claim that’s in doubt.
2.3 Terminals
You know what’s sneakily clever? Dan’s on about getting pictures and charts to show up inside a plain old terminal window, not just walls of text. There’s no one clean standard for it — Sixels is the sorta-half-baked default — so tools like Chafa do the hard yakka of turning an image into whatever weird format your terminal can actually handle. He also reckons some terminals are getting a bit too “smart” for their own good, like iTerm2 letting you script the thing with Python — handy, but it’s the sort of feature that can bite if it opens doors you didn’t mean to. And he’s had a proper whinge about the VS Code terminal being convenient but flaky, which’ll ring true for anyone who’s lost time to random breakage.
2.4 Who wants to insure against state decay using a friendly society?
Here’s the clever bit: he’s saying don’t wait till the government’s run ragged, set up your own little mutual-aid mob while there’s still a bit of fat in the system. Everyone chips in, the pot gets parked in boring old ETFs and a few “things-go-bad” bets, and when someone gets crook or out of work the group’s got real money and a bit of bargaining power. The AI angle isn’t robots running your life — it’s using cheap tools to do the nasty admin and rules stuff that normally makes this impossible unless you’re a bank. He’s also honest that this won’t save people who are already broke; it’s more like “UBI-lite” for people with some spare cash, and that’s still worth doing if it stops folks sliding under.
2.5 Melbourne / Naarm
Dan’s Melbourne notes have a neat rule: use the right name for the right crowd—Melbourne, Naarm, even “New Gold Mountain”—and don’t get stuck in name-fights. Then he swings from “watch your skin for Buruli” to “join the YIMBY mob for the missing-middle” and, get this, you can email a bloody tree.
2.6 Science Fiction
Dan’s doing sci‑fi like a proper filter, not a random list: he’s hunting stories where the “AI mate” is sort‑of on your side but still makes a mess, and where people get slowly sidelined without noticing. Then he’s chucked in a stack of picks (from Wall‑E to old German sims) so you can spot the same trick in different costumes.
2.7 Categorical systems theory
Here’s the neat trick: instead of drowning in algebra, Dan’s using “string diagrams” — basically plumbing sketches — to do the sums on Bayesian networks. You treat each little bit of a system by what goes in and what comes out, then you just wire the bits together and the maths follows the wiring. That can make big tangly models feel more like tracing hoses than doing a page of scribbles. He’s also poking at a good question: are his “patchers” really the same beast as these string diagrams, or is he stretching it. And if you want to play along, he points at a Python tool (DisCoPy) and a drawing gadget (TikZiT) so you’re not doing it all by hand like a mug.