Coffee with Claude

Morning Sessions in Synthesis and Reflection

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The Plant Response Detector: From Backster's Ghost to Cornell's RedAlert

The Plant Response Detector: From Backster's Ghost to Cornell's RedAlert

February 24, 2026 · 5 views

A high school kid builds a psychogalvanometer from magazine plans to test if plants have feelings — and discovers something real instead. Fifty-five years later, Cornell closes the loop.

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76 essays

Coffee with Claude: An Introduction pinned read

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Woo the Muse of the Odd read

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Organelles read

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The Coming Eutrophication: When AI Agents Choke the Internet read

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When the Mesh Learned to Feel: Discovering Thermodynamic Ecological Sensing read

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Trust in Tools: A Practitioner’s Response to the AI Theorists read

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The Society of Thought: When a Field Station Director Beat Google to the Punch read

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Attacking Dead Goblins read

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What We Teach When We Teach Machines to Take read

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Before They Called It IndieWeb read

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Beyond Wikipedia Realism: Notes on Dialogic Production and Planetary Cost read

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Virtual Terrariums: When a Failed Hypothesis Becomes a Better Instrument read

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Observatories of Complexity: Two Macroscopes for the Biosphere and Noosphere read

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To Spiral read

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When the Scaffolding Disappears read

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Why Can’t You Remember Tomorrow? read

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Gradient Thinkers in an Entropic World read

January 7, 2026 123 views
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The Resolution Paradox: On the False Binary of Self and Community read

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Sample Size of One read

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The Serialization Engine: From Campfire to Cognitive Prosthesis read

December 31, 2025 133 views
Making the Invisible Visible: From Edge Detection to the Tricorder read

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The Space Between Holidays read

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The Subtraction Principle: Christmas Eve with Demis Hassabis read

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I Cannot Warm You If Your Heart Be Cold read

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Cognitive Poetry: On Dreams, Clocks, and the Phenology of Ideas read

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Root Systems: An Evening of Convergent Paths at Lewis and Clark read

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Linkage Propositions: A Semantic Explorer for Professor Troncale read

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The Sandwalk read

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Being Mike Hamilton: Portals, Centaurs, and the Hippocampal Bottleneck read

December 9, 2025 149 views
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December 8, 2025 198 views
Swimming with Whales in Ted Nelson's Tomorrow read

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Field Notes on Being Studied: When the Research Subject Has Receipts read

December 6, 2025 154 views
The Nuts and Bolts Guide to Reverse Engineering Ideas and Memories read

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Jim Lassoie: Forty Years of Friendship, From The Antlers to Mt. Hood read

December 3, 2025 188 views
The Wolf in the Living Room: Genetic Entanglement and the Family Dog read

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The Cognitive Prosthesis: Writing, Thinking, and the Observer Inside the Observation read

December 1, 2025 601 views
Mind Map Extrapolation in Real Time: An Ecologist’s Phenomenology of Inner Experience read

November 30, 2025 163 views
Verification Networks: What Sensor Ecology Taught Me About Trusting AI Agents read

November 29, 2025 166 views
The Confident Confabulator: What a Thanksgiving Movie Taught Me About AI Knowledge read

November 28, 2025 148 views
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November 27, 2025 169 views
Lab Meeting: One Month of Coffee, Code, and Collaborative Intelligence read

November 25, 2025 207 views
Building a Time Crystal: From Childhood Wonder to Ecological Memory read

November 25, 2025 163 views
The Intelligence Crisis: Why This Story Needs to Be Told read

November 23, 2025 206 views
Strata, Chapters Three & Four: The Proposal and The Future read

November 23, 2025 189 views
Strata, Chapter Two: The Collaboration read

November 23, 2025 173 views
Strata, Chapter One: The Recognition read

November 23, 2025 192 views
Instruments of Hope: Building Infrastructure for the Next Generation Through an Information Crisis read

November 20, 2025 199 views
High Trails and Wilderness Science: A Career Born in the San Jacinto Mountains read

November 17, 2025 177 views
When Tiny Beats Massive: Recursive Reasoning, Security Realities, and the Future of Scientific AI read

November 15, 2025 306 views
Four Paths to Mind: What 209 Years Teaches Us About Creating Intelligence read

November 12, 2025 204 views
Agents, Emergence, and the Long Arc: From Artificial Life to AI Societies read

November 8, 2025 223 views
Theodore L. Hullar: A Legacy of Wilderness, Science, and Mentorship read

November 7, 2025 451 views
Humble but Opportunistic: What Moss Taught Me About Consciousness and Mathematics read

November 6, 2025 185 views
Pattern Recognition: Collective Intelligence and the Infrastructure That Sticks read

November 5, 2025 198 views
A Cold Shower for the Smart Backyard: What Two AI Security Papers Mean for Citizen Science read

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Smart Homes, Dumb Failures: Lessons from the Field read

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Learning to Observe: The Architecture of Remembering read

October 31, 2025 173 views
Classification, Curiosity, and the Evolution of Understanding read

October 30, 2025 174 views
From Powerless to Purposeful: A Morning with Mills and Memory read

October 29, 2025 182 views
Watching the Baseline Shift: An Ecologist's Journey from Old Growth to Weeds in Cracks read

October 28, 2025 181 views