Notebook
Essays, short stories, and other writing that isn’t a working paper. Pieces that emerged for their own reasons, in whatever shape fit them best. These sit here rather than on The Practical Thinker or in the working papers because they’re closer to reflection than reference.
Thoughts and responses welcome — andrewbruce@me.com.
What actually dies, what survives, and who gets handed the bill
SaaS is not dying. It is being forced to reveal what customers were really paying for — and whether the moat beneath the interface is real, or merely inconvenient.
A Magical Adventure of Discovery
When an old map wakes in Mara Vale’s bedroom, it reveals a moonlit road to her missing grandfather, Poppy—and a warning about the thirteenth bell.
The Practical Thinker
A wry Practical Thinker piece on AI, judgement, cognitive debt, and the small professional miracle of noticing when a beautiful answer is solving the wrong thing.
The Magic of Unfinished Things
Roen Veck is paid to finish dangerous magical works left undone. In a village bell tower, a stair has been returning climbers to the wrong places for forty-three years.
My Velcro girl, my gentle giant
A remembrance of Freyja — a five-year-old Great Dane with the heart of something ancient and the softness of a whisper. A shadow, a leaning weight, a love carried for the rest of a life.
A Life in Architecture
A philosophical journal in the language of hardware, software, and the long work of integration. Fourteen sections, from boot sequence through midlife load to current state — a framework for anyone who has had to quietly maintain the code they inherited.
Written for anyone who has lived long enough with early trauma, ADHD, or both, to notice that the agents running below their thinking were written for an environment that no longer exists.