What I'm on, right now.

• Closing the print-farm loop — printer and arm in a single handoff.
• Writing design notes for the next manipulator revision.
• Sourcing suppliers and testing end-effectors.

Hardware timelines always lie. The gap between "it works in the lab" and "it runs unattended for a week" is bigger than any single engineering problem. I keep looking for ways to shorten that gap without adding fragility.

• Seeing Like a State — James C. Scott (on-deck)
• The Mythical Man-Month — Fred Brooks (re-read)

In Dubai. Workshop mornings, meetings in the afternoons, reading in the evenings. Trying to keep the phone closer to airplane mode than to Slack.

• 2026·03·01 Prototyping manipulator v1; first print-farm test runs.
• 2026·02·01 Finalised the manipulator BOM; began supplier outreach.

the /now page is a snapshot, not a diary. full log lives in my head.