4 Sept 2026
MusicPAF: The Pickup That Should Not Exist
Gibson printed the wrong patent number on its own legendary pickup for years. The PAF fails every modern QC test — and that failure is the tone.
Notebooks
Primary sources. No secondhand summaries. No influencer junk.
I go to the source. AI lab research papers, not blog posts about them. Producer interviews from the analogue era, not articles about producers. Surf history archives, not influencer clips. The gap between a primary source and a summary is the same gap between understanding and opinion.
These notebooks track what I observe, test, build, and break across four obsessions — ocean, music, photography, and thinking machines. Essays when the material demands length. Lab notes when the data speaks for itself. Gear reviews when the signal chain matters. Dispatches when the moment won't wait.
Nothing publishes on a schedule. When the work is ready, it ships.
25 Aug 2026
PhotographyThe Case for Printing
The screen is a proof. The print is the photograph. An image that only ever lived on glass is unfinished work — a mix you never bounced.
20 Aug 2026
OceanThe Wave That Never Reads You Back
A soliton is a wave engineered to never change. That is the point of Surf Ranch — and the exact reason it can teach a turn but never teach the ocean.
12 Aug 2026
MachinesThe Nine-Stage Mind
Nine stages around a 27B local model. On my own tasks it beats a trillion-parameter model alone. Architecture beats parameter count.
3 Aug 2026
MusicThe Accidental Circuit
The Neve 1073 is the most worshipped preamp in recording, and the sound everyone chases is a defect its own designer set out to engineer away.
24 Jul 2026
PhotographyHow to Read Light
Reading light is a trained skill, not luck. You see the finished frame before you raise the camera — the same way you read a set before it stands up.
14 Jul 2026
OceanReading the Swell Before It Arrives
I check the 5am forecast half-asleep — and the math behind it was written in 1947 to put landing craft on a beach under fire.
9 Jul 2026
MachinesThe Harness Is the Product
Every team has Claude Sonnet 4.5. A 20-step pipeline at 95% per step finishes 36% of the time. The harness is where the product lives.
1 Jul 2026
MusicThe Floor Under House Music
The TR-909 and TB-303 were flops. That is the reason house exists — I can trace the whole genre to a supply chain of failed gear.
26 Jun 2026
OceanThe Fin Setup Nobody Owns
Every board at Ribeira d'Ilhas ran three fins this morning. Mine too. Simon Anderson drew that setup in 1980 and never owned a cent of it.
16 Jun 2026
PhotographyThe GFX Question
The GFX 100S is not a better X-E5. It is a different instrument, and I keep the X-E5 anyway.
11 Jun 2026
MachinesM3: Frontier Coding, Not Frontier Freedom
428B params, 1M context, 80.5% on SWE-Bench Verified by its own card. M3 wins long-context coding — then drops MIT for a license with strings.
3 Jun 2026
MusicBuilding the Beast by Hand
I assembled an 80s superstrat part by part, period-correct, across three continents. Not because old is better. Because every spec is load-bearing.
25 May 2026
OceanThe 90s Toothpick Was a Destructive Test
The 90s toothpick era was not a fashion trend. It was a destructive test — every millimetre shaved to failure. Volume is the verdict.
22 May 2026
PhotographyOcean Photography Is Not Surf Photography
The ocean is a subject that demands the same reading as the wave you paddle for. Shutter speed decides what the water is allowed to be.
12 May 2026
MachinesBenchmarks Lie. Daily Use Doesn't.
Benchmarks measure the clean channel. Real agent work lives in the overdrive. The only test that counts is which model you reach for tomorrow.
7 May 2026
MusicThe Room Is the Instrument
Andy Johns hung two ribbon mics in a stone stairwell and caught one of rock's most sampled drum sounds. The room is the first piece of gear in the chain.
29 Apr 2026
OceanRespecting Locals Is Not Tribalism
Three months ago I called localism thuggery. That was the easy half. The local who takes your wave at Coxos usually knows something you don't.
20 Apr 2026
PhotographyFilm Simulation Is Not a Filter
A film simulation shapes the exposure before the shutter fires. A filter only decorates the result. I shoot JPEG on the X-T5 and never look back.
16 Apr 2026
MachinesConsent as Architecture
The Briefing Center is not a privacy feature. It is the protocol layer where you decide what your AI collaborator gets to see.
7 Apr 2026
MusicThe Sound of 80s Arena Rock
The rack-effects era gave guitarists total signal control and homogenised arena rock tone in the process.
31 Mar 2026
PhotographyWhy I Don't Need 20 Lenses
The lens industry sells preparation. What photographers actually need is commitment to a single field of view.
24 Mar 2026
OceanA Great Fish Can Do Everything
A 5'8" twin-fin fish at 34 litres handles waist-high mush and overhead walls. Most surfers dismiss it as a small-wave toy. They are wrong.
17 Mar 2026
MachinesGizmo: Self-Awareness as Emergent Property
Most agents know what they can do because a developer told them. Gizmo discovers its own capabilities by searching. The difference is architectural.
10 Mar 2026
PhotographyLess Buttons for Better Pictures
The X-E5 has dials where other cameras have menus. The exposure is set before the shot, not fixed after. That sequence changes everything.
3 Mar 2026
MusicSlash: Controversial, but Absolute Legend
A vintage-output pickup into a cranked Marshall. The mismatch between the spec and the sound is the entire argument for feel over precision.
24 Feb 2026
OceanMaurice Cole: More Than a Shaper, a Legend
Maurice Cole does not shape surfboards. He shapes responses — to specific surfers, specific waves, specific conditions.
19 Feb 2026
MachinesWhy Local AI Matters
Running models on your own hardware is not a hobby project. It is sovereignty. Your data stays. Your inference does not depend on an API.
12 Feb 2026
PhotographyThe Most Common Places Can Be Special
Same cliff path. Same rocks. Same ocean. Today the frame resolved differently. Beauty is not in exotic locations. It is in seeing what is already there.
6 Feb 2026
MusicJTM45, Plexi, 2203 JMP — You Need Them All
Three Marshall amps. Three eras. Three voices. You don't own three because you can't decide. You own three because each conversation is different.
3 Feb 2026
OceanDid You Lose the Surfing Etiquette?
The lineup has rules. They are not posted. They are earned through presence. The surf boom brought crowds who never learned the code.
27 Jan 2026
MachinesAthena: The Problem Nobody Talks About
The AI notes industry sold a lie. They said the problem was access to AI. The real problem is the workflow — copy-paste, lose context, repeat.
20 Jan 2026
PhotographyPeter, Ellen, Claudia, Cindy, Linda
The supermodel era was the last time fashion photography had a point of view. Lindbergh showed the person. Von Unwerth brought rebellion.
15 Jan 2026
MusicGary Moore Could Make a Guitar Cry
From Thin Lizzy's aggression to Parisienne Walkways' sustain. The fast players get attention. The slow players get remembered. Patience is the technique.
9 Jan 2026
OceanFish Glide, Mid Length Fun, Shortboard Rips
Three boards, three conversations with the wave. The fish glides, the mid-length forgives, the shortboard rips. The quiver is vocabulary, not indulgence.
6 Jan 2026
MachinesThe Search That Sees Everything
Gizmo's NoteSearch queries the entire knowledge space through one path. No embeddings, no vector database, no RAG pipeline.
23 Dec 2025
PhotographyLimitations Are Creativity Boosters
One lens forces you to move. One amp forces you to use your fingers. One board forces you to commit to the line. The best work happens under constraint.
19 Dec 2025
MusicA Les Paul Is a Bitch
Heavy, uncomfortable, neck like a baseball bat, balance designed by someone who never sat down. And I love it. The imperfection is the character.
15 Dec 2025
PhotographyWhat Happens When You Remove Colors
Stripping colour does not simplify. It reveals. When you shoot black and white, you see light for the first time.
10 Dec 2025
MachinesEverything Is a Note
Gizmo NXT collapses six cognitive systems into one entity — the GNNote. The taxonomy lives inside the note, not in the architecture around it.
4 Dec 2025
MusicWhy Comfortably Numb Is a Legend
The greatest guitar solo in rock history is not about speed or complexity. It is about patience. Gilmour waits. The notes breathe.
1 Dec 2025
OceanWhat It Means to Surf Nearly Every Day
Daily surfing is not a lifestyle choice. It teaches through repetition what no single session can. The ocean is the original feedback loop.
25 Nov 2025
MachinesThe Neuron and the Transistor
Denying artificial intelligence is the new geocentrism. A neuron fires or doesn't — yet neurons produce Shakespeare.
20 Nov 2025
PhotographyWhy 50mm Is Amazing
The 50mm forces you to see with your feet. No zoom means you commit to the distance. The constraint is the teacher.
17 Nov 2025
MusicAngus: A Guitar, a Cable, and an Amp
Angus Young's signal chain is three components long. In a world drowning in options, his constraint is the conviction.
Newsletter
Dawn Patrol
Whatever shipped, whatever cracked open, whatever the ocean or the signal chain taught me that month. One email, last Friday. Primary sources. No influencer junk.