Stories

The background story behind each awryLabs project: why it exists, what it taught me, and what I got wrong building it. Less changelog, more thinking out loud.

Kindling The problem that wouldn't let go Jun 2026 · 5 min I once nearly did a PhD on recommender systems. Two months of not being able to leave the problem alone, and the unfashionable result that shallow methods still hold up. Morass The line you can't quite draw Jun 2026 · 5 min A game about boundary ground, and why the most interesting border is the one that keeps moving. Embedding Playground Meaning is geometry Jun 2026 · 4 min Why a word, to a language model, is a place rather than a string. And what the famous king − man + woman ≈ queen trick quietly leaves out. WOPR The only winning move May 2026 · 5 min Five games on one menu, and a war simulator whose most common ending is the one where nobody plays. Tyche Outsourcing the small decisions May 2026 · 4 min On the strange relief of letting a coin, a die, or a goddess of fortune pick lunch for you. Gravel The question routing libraries don't ask Apr 2026 · 5 min Everyone computes the shortest path. The more useful question is what happens to a network when one edge fails.