Thought pieces

Thought pieces

November 2026Guide
Start here: AI, from autocomplete to agents

What a large language model is, what it costs, and how far it can be left to run on its own, from a chat window to agents running in loops. Sean's own path, with the picture that made each idea click.

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September 2026Voyage
Four days on the Salish

Thirty aboard a 1913 schooner, phones stowed, and one task: to record the Salish Sea as we found her in 2026.

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The schooner Adventuress under sail on the Salish Sea
2026Field note
A week in Pollica

A week on the Cilento coast of Italy, at the invitation of Sara Roversi and the Future Food Institute. What a single town shows about when this kind of partnership is possible.

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Dusk over the Cilento coast from Pollica.
2026Essay
On emergence

A murmuration of starlings makes a shape no single bird intended and none could make alone. Most gatherings are built for transmission instead. What it takes to build for the other thing.

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A crescent moon over scattered clouds at dusk, above open water.
2026Essay
A living lab

A living lab as a style of engagement: the place participates, the conditions are the curriculum, and every gathering is a trial. The lineages it draws from, and the four experiments each gathering runs at once.

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A sailboat anchored in a green-shouldered bay under low coastal cloud.
2026On practice
The third partner

Change on the coast needs three kinds of partner, and the one most often missing is the one that turns direction into something built. Where we sit, and why.

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Young people at a table spread with paper and sticky notes in a library room lined with books.
Island Lab Who we are