user1@goonlyfe:~$ cat canon
The canon
five laws. none of them ours. each one costs something.
// The five laws
The word must not hide the thing.
language is where the lie gets in firstEvery softened word is permission to be inaccurate later. "Early access" means unfinished. A vocabulary that cannot describe failure will eventually be used to conceal it, and it fools the people using it first.
A zero is called a zero. Where nothing was measured we print an em dash — a zero is still a claim.
Virtù is yours. Fortuna is not.
skill compounds; timing does not obeySkill accumulates and nobody can take it off you. The window opens when it opens. Confusing the two produces the roadmap.
No roadmaps, no dates. Nothing here is announced before it runs.
The ring of gyges is a test.
it reveals more than it hidesGive someone the power to act unseen and you find out what they actually believed. Anonymity does not make you honest — it removes the reason you were.
Anonymous, and still not lying. Nobody is checking; that is what makes it worth printing accurately.
Control the commit, not the reception.
the work is yours; the verdict is notWhat you build and whether you ship tonight are inside your control. Whether anyone claps is outside it, and every hour spent on the second is stolen from the first.
No follower count is a number here. The ledger reports outputs, not applause.
A part of all you earn is yours to keep.
the oldest rule, most often skippedRevenue that passes straight through is traffic, not earnings. The discipline is the part you retain, count honestly, and can point at afterwards.
Fees on-chain or it did not happen. The free half stays free, or the paid half is not defensible.
A law that costs nothing is decoration.
the rule that governs the rulesNone of these are quotes to admire. Each one earns its place by what it forbids us, and every one of them has cost us something specific already.
A law with no consequence line does not go on this page.
// How things get named
Foundry while unreleased
ingot · billet · crucible · flux · quench · temper · bell
Cast-metal words, chosen to mean nothing. A workshop name is disposable, gives nothing away, and survives a pivot — which a descriptive name never does.
Canon on ship
gyges · thumos · arkad · nomasir · virtu · fortuna · hegemon · amorfati · winston · goldstein
A released thing takes a permanent name from the canon. Shipping is the only moment that choice is free; afterwards the name is load-bearing.
What each release name carries
- gyges
- invisibility, and the test of it
- thumos
- the spirited part — the one that fights
- arkad
- the one who kept a part of what he earned
- nomasir
- the son sent out with nothing but the rules
- virtu
- skill, as against luck
- fortuna
- the luck itself
- hegemon
- the ruling faculty — the part that decides
- amorfati
- love of what actually happened
- winston
- the one who wrote it down anyway
- goldstein
- the book that explains the machine
The workshop names things it might throw away. The canon names things meant to outlive us. What is in the foundry →