‘The treacherous are ever distrustful’

Choosing the proper boundaries between functions is perhaps the primary activity of the computer system designer. Design principles that provide guidance in this choice of function placement are among the most important tools of a system designer. This paper discusses one class of function placement argument that has been used for many years with neither explicit recognition nor much conviction. However, the emergence of the data communication network as a computer system component has sharpened this line of function placement argument by making more apparent the situations in which and reasons why it applies. This paper articulates the argument explicitly, so as to examine its nature and to see how general it really is. The argument appeals to application requirements, and provides a rationale for moving function upward in a layered system, closer to the application that uses the function. We begin by considering the communication network version of the argument.

Yes. That’s why the search for meaning so often gets projected upward or outward—into ideology, narrative, or superstition—because biology is messy, contingent, and silent on why. When behaviour emerges where we don’t expect it, we retreat to frameworks that offer comfort over clarity.

"Oooooohhh, yeah! Yeah! That's the stuff, baby!"

Is it just me or do ©️'s victories seem smaller and sadder every day?

While these are non-trivial hurdles, they are surmountable. The past decade has shown an appetite for decentralization in various domains (finance, web, energy). Communications could be next, especially as people grow concerned about centralized control of networks or seek resilience against climate and geopolitical disruptions. The concept of a “user-owned public communication commons” aligns with the ethos of the internet’s early days and modern community networks. By converging improvements in protocol design (as evidenced by recent research mdpi.com mdpi.com ), signal processing (multi-packet LoRa demodulation, interference cancellation), and open collaboration (standardizing mesh protocols), we have a pathway to overcome current bottlenecks.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. Charles Dickens

The absurdity lies in pretending that infrastructure still dictates service when, in fact, services have become abstracted from the infrastructure that once defined them. Email was once metaphorically aligned with postal mail because it mirrored a sequence of identifiable steps—sender, envelope, address, transport, delivery. But the metaphor is now an anchor. It drags with it legacy concepts like "inboxes," "postmaster," and "sending," when what actually happens is instantiation—content appears, synced or polled, with no van, no bag, no carrier. Postal mail required physical intermediaries: boxes, post offices, uniformed workers. Email pretended to have these too—SMTP servers, MX records, mail clients. But now, these are modules. Optional. Invisible. Swappable. And if you squint, mostly irrelevant. You can receive email with no inbox. You can “send” without a sender. Identity is optional. Structure is divorced from essence. We maintain “recognition” of services as if they are still coupled to a whole stack. But modularity exploded that illusion. You no longer need a post office to receive a letter. You no longer need a newsstand to publish a newspaper. You don’t need a university to learn, a bank to transact, or a theatre to perform. The act of “service recognition” is revealed as pure theatre—ritual vestiges serving the comfort of bureaucracy. Structural separation was once a regulatory weapon (telcos and pipes, content and carriage). Now it is the native condition. A podcast isn't a radio show. A bitcoin transaction isn’t a bank transfer. An email isn't a letter. Yet the accreditation systems, legal treatments, and mental models still behave as if the post office is involved. It’s not. It left years ago.

**If the Rooster Crows Twice** *(Slavic polka in 2/4)* **Verse 1** If the rooster crows twice and the moon stays high, I’ll be home by dawn, if the boots stay dry. The cart rolls straight, the mare don’t stray, The saints keep watch and the wolves keep away. **Chorus** Ay di di dai, with a jug in my hand, Through snow or sun, I’ll cross this land. The good Lord willing and the rivers don’t rise, I’ll be back to your arms and your apple-pie eyes. **Verse 2** If the border guard drinks and the fiddle still sings, If the vodka flows warm and the church bell rings, Then I’ll dance through the orchard, step through the gate, With a loaf in my coat and no more weight. **Chorus** Ay di di dai, with a song on my tongue, The barrel’s still turning, the night is still young. The good Lord willing and the stove don’t smoke, I’ll be telling the tales and I’ll laugh at the joke. **Bridge** Oh baba said, “Watch the stars for your path,” But I watch for your light and I dodge Heaven’s wrath. No general, no mayor, no beast of the wood Can turn me from home, if the omens are good. **Final Chorus** Ay di di dai, through the birch and the rye, Through thunder and hail, I’ll never say die. The good Lord willing and the pigs don’t fly, We’ll polka ‘til morning with tears in our eye.

Perhaps, list… It's just amazing watching the same wrinkles appearing every new technology we create, often the best improvement is that things eutrophy and atrophy quicker than before so the mistake is clearer sooner. And n... is self-describing as to content, nostrudel handles n routes: https://nostrudel.ninja/n/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq97grk48ylk9t9j5y8wdlhzzgelarwwc3auw70rv7u46ep5e3udvqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qg3waehxw309ahx7um5wghxcctwvshsqg9udwudfdww86g6q0q85f7pa33lnv2k2hmvjvtzj5uwwksj6cyv5ce6n8ac?tab=zaps