Dan Davies wrote a whole book on this topic, The Unaccountability Machine [1]. In it, he creates the concept of "accountability sinks": organisational structures or systems which abstract the source of a decision away from individuals so that no specific person can be held accountable.
Davies writes: "For an accountability sink to function, it has to break a link; it has to prevent the feedback of the person affected by the decision from affecting the operation of the system."
> Dan Davies wrote a whole book on this topic, The Unaccountability Machine [1]. In it, he creates the concept of "accountability sinks": organisational structures or systems which abstract the source of a decision away from individuals so that no specific person can be held accountable.
The market itself seems to be the epitome of an accountability sink. All kinds of terrible things are done in the name of responding to market incentives, and when someone complains about those things, there's always some guy who points the blame at you the consumer with some BS about "revealed preferences" or the like.
The market itself optimizes for creating companies that are accountability sinks, for obvious reasons.
Regarding that guy, it’s because generally people have two approach to the market: to some the market is just a tool to an end goal, an economic system like any another, it has to be evaluated and corrected to serve that goal if it deviates. To other people, there is no goal, the market is philosophically always right, because it is an economic extension of individual liberty (which is debatable of course, I think Locke was not a proponent of laissez-faire for example).
"The StandaloneWindow module provides a way to create a separate window to display custom content. You are able to control a full-sized webview inside the window, therefore you can use HTML, CSS, and advanced techniques like WebGL to render the contents." [1]
So... someone could make a Webamp[2] plugin?
And Butterchurn[3] for viz? (Assuming one can plumb in a compatible audio node)
Serious question: would it be worth the effort to treat XSLT as a compilation target for a friendlier language, either extant or new?
There's clearly value in XSLT's near-universal support as a web-native system. It provides templating out of the box without invoking JavaScript, and there's demand for that[1]. But it still lacks decent in-browser debugging which JS has in spades.
SLAX is great, unfortunately it was released a bit too late.
XML world is full of ugly standards and failed contenders. None remembers RelaxNG. But had reacher expressive power than XMLSchema and a human-readable syntax.
It would at least be an interesting project. If someone put the elbow grease into it it is distinctly possible that an XSLT stylesheet could be not just converted to JS (which is obviously true and just a matter of effort), but converted to something that is at least on the edge of human usable and editable, and some light refactoring away from being decent code.
Thanks so much for sharing your work. Your blog posts are _far_ more interesting and helpful than most of what I'm seeing about agentic coding.
I'm particularly fascinated by those last two links, along with your latest post about READMEs. It makes me wonder about a visual specification editor that provides GitHub-like task chronology around the spec, with the code as a secondary artefact (in contrast to GitHub, where code is primary).
Hey, if we're already complaining about Microsoft products, can someone explain why the Bedrock and Java versions of Minecraft have not been made cross-compatible in the TEN YEARS since the Mojang acquisition?
(... speaking as another dad just trying to play with my kid.)
I’d imagine mostly due to a lack of incentive on microsoft’s part. Like minecraft is literally the biggest video game to ever exist with, making 2 entirely separate code bases work while keeping all the features the same and preserving compatibility with over a decades worth of mods just so the mostly separate java and bedrock communities can play with each other is just not worth the risk. So many people play minecraft in so many different ways means that making even minor changes in gameplay can be huge sources of controversy, let alone major infrastructure changes.
They still exist separately today because the modding scene is completely different for them. Minecraft Java is the original and has a huge modding community based on decompiling and patching the game. Those mods are all incompatible with Bedrock because Bedrock is a separate reimplementation of the game for performance or whatever.
What does cross compatible mean in this context? They are two different games written in two different languages. I mean, they look like they are the same game, but they are not. Making one compatible with the other is a Herculean task. If not impossible.
I'm talking about network compatibility, so that a Bedrock client can join a Java server and vice versa. It's clearly somewhat possible because GeyserMC[1] exists. It's just ridiculous that it's a third-party addon.
Thanks so much for writing this up and sharing. It sounds like you've been through a horrific few years, but your perseverance in creativity is inspiring and fascinating. I wish you well in your efforts to make a better life for yourself, and I hope your work finds a wider audience.
Take the spoiler warning seriously. The landing page is fun to play with (once you find the tools in the top right corner) and has at least one amazing/bizarre toy in it.
Yep. Enter The Gungeon is my personal favourite among roguelites but it's punishingly hard to get the hang of, and the huge number of weapons makes it quite likely that you'll only get semi-decent guns for an entire run – even when you're playing as the Gunslinger, who activates all synergies automatically.
The upside of putting in the time is that when you get good, it feels fantastic.
If you haven't tried it, I'd recommend Dead Cells. Yes, it's twitchy action, but it's easier than Gungeon to get good at, and the parkour-like flow looks and feels wonderful from quite early on. TBH it's a better game than Gungeon in most respects.
Dead Cells's "Custom Mode" lets you eliminate loads of objects from the set offered, making it much more likely for you to get weapons you want.
It's somewhat unique among the roguelites I've seen in not only offering this but also treating it as valid play: any wins/achievements in this mode (e.g. more BC) will unlock properly.
So, no need to put up with Spartan Sandals ever again!
Davies writes: "For an accountability sink to function, it has to break a link; it has to prevent the feedback of the person affected by the decision from affecting the operation of the system."
For a good short overview, see this piece by Mandy Brown: https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/accountability-sinks
[1] https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo252799...