Essays, evolving notes, interactive explanations and experiments on software, philosophy, economics, institutions and history.https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/enhttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/atlas/reading-an-institutional-map/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/atlas/reading-an-institutional-map/A walk through the relationship explorer using a fictional republic — what the boxes and arrows mean, and what a diagram like this can and cannot tell you.Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraAtlasInstitutionsVisualisationhttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/garden/identity-over-time/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/garden/identity-over-time/Questions about what makes something persist through change — and an unexpected echo of them in software.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraGardenPhilosophyIdentity & changeSoftware engineeringhttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/lab/backoff-playground/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/lab/backoff-playground/Adjust an exponential backoff schedule and watch what happens when two dozen clients retry at once — with and without randomness.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraLabDistributed systemsVisualisationhttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/essays/idempotency/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/essays/idempotency/A network can't tell a client whether its request failed or only its reply did. Idempotent operations make that ambiguity safe to retry through.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraEssaysSoftware engineeringDistributed systemshttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/garden/retries-are-inevitable/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/garden/retries-are-inevitable/Over a network, a client that times out cannot know what happened. So it will retry — and the system must be built to survive that.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraGardenDistributed systemsSoftware engineeringhttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/garden/ship-of-theseus/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/garden/ship-of-theseus/If every plank of a ship is replaced, one at a time, is it still the same ship? A compact statement of the puzzle and its best-known variant.Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraGardenPhilosophyIdentity & changehttps://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/essays/reading-layout-specimen/https://articulation.sadeeptha.xyz/essays/reading-layout-specimen/Every typographic element an article on this site can use — headings, lists, quotations, code, tables, maths, notes and citations — shown in one place.Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTSadeeptha BandaraEssaysPublishing