Regent's Park

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• Essay · RP-0054
  New Primitives
  What might be missing from computing
  Computing doesn’t seem to get any simpler, and AI alone might not fix that. We explore which foundations people and agents may still be missing, and why super apps are not the answer.
• Podcast · Episode 4
  The Four Primitives Missing From Your Computer
  A deep-dive conversation on the thesis at the heart of Regent's Park. ~27 minutes.
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Chapters

The main essay lays out the thesis. These chapters begin unpacking the pieces.

• Essay · RP-0129
  People: why are we scattered across accounts?
  Toward identity as a relationship graph
  Computing has accounts, profiles, sessions, contacts, and keys, but no durable concept of a person carrying relationships, permissions, memory, and delegated agency across contexts.
• Essay · RP-0127
  Spaces: how do we hold work together across tools?
  From scattered fragments to shared structure
  Email, chat, files, calendars, and AI each hold a piece of the work, but not the situation itself. This essay argues for a durable substrate underneath changing interfaces, instead of another super-app.
• Essay · RP-0128
  Spaces: The Geography of Computing
  What do humans need for spatial recall and navigation
  Spaces are not only useful because they scope work. They are useful because humans remember places better than paths. This essay asks what computing would need in order to support orientation, return, and spatial recall.
• Essay · RP-0130
  Memory Is Not Storage
  Continuity, context, and the computing primitive we keep confusing with files
  Computers are excellent at keeping data and strangely bad at preserving the context that lets people continue work.
• Essay · RP-0057
  Objects: why are our things trapped inside apps?
  Toward digital objects you can hold, move, and combine
  Apps confuse the thing with the place that made the thing. This chapter argues for digital objects that can exist independently, move between spaces, and work across interfaces.

Research Briefs

Deeper surveys and technical investigations behind the public argument.

• Research Brief · RP-0106
  Why do I get lost on my computer?
  30 years of attempts to create digital rooms
  You're in a room, at a desk, in a café. Then you open your laptop and you're everywhere and nowhere. A survey of how computing tried — and failed — to give you a sense of place.
• Research Brief · RP-0108
  Why does your computer remember everything but understand nothing?
  State & Memory
  You save a file. You can't find it. You remember the conversation but not the decision. Your computer stores everything and remembers nothing.
• Survey · RP-0107
  What if parental controls worked like rooms, not locks?
  Screen Time & Digital Spaces
  Every parental control app plays the same game: start with the whole internet, then block things. 79 sources on why that's backwards.

Comics

Sequential visual arguments from Computerland. Same thesis, fewer paragraphs.

• Comic · CS-0001

  If the World Worked Like Your Computer

  A normal day in Computerland

  A one-page Computerland comic about why people, spaces, objects, and memory should be shared primitives, not rebuilt inside every app.
  
• Comic · CS-0002

  If the World Had No Geography

  A normal morning in Computerland

  A one-page Computerland comic about search as the patch for a world without navigable places, landmarks, paths, scale, and return.
  
• Comic · CS-0003

  If Every Door Made a New You

  A normal errand in Computerland

  A one-page Computerland comic about why people are not accounts, and why computing needs portable relationships rather than one giant profile.
  

Programme

How Regent's Park works, what it's investigating, and how the research is carried out.

• Background · RP-0000
  How it started
  Background, principles, and the areas of investigation that drive the research.
• Method · RP-0001
  How We Work
  The research philosophy behind Regent's Park.