Down to the Floor
A queue, a picking route, a shift handover, a till with the network gone. Ten field tools on what a screen has to survive when it stands where a person stands.
Vol. 8
horizon
- Who Stands in Front — Closing Six Months of EvidenceIn 2026-06 we closed the magazine's first six months with "the person who knows best what to build stands in front". That piece folded the earlier articles by summarising them, and the summarised things had no evidence. This time we fold while standing on fifteen rebuilt samples — and record that the original conclusion was only half right.FREE
- Only the Same Shape Stacks — The Condition Under Which Experience CompoundsIn 2026-05 we wrote that "experience kept in the same shape does not stop, it multiplies". What that "same shape" actually is was stated only in prose. This time we pay it in real things — it was six fields, and because of those six a sensor nobody had seen before fell straight into the rules. And that without an anchor, an exception cannot speak.FREE
build
- A Folder of JSON Is the App — There Is No Code in a BundleWe built the owner-facing app for an unmanned store. The source is four JSON files and no compilation. Follow a route to the second screen, edit some text and the screen changes — no build runs. Except only the screen changes; the items stay. That split is this piece's subject.DEV
- Put the Grounds Next to the Answer — Wiring an LLM That Asks the PlantA person standing in front of a machine asks in words, and the LLM calls the plant's tools to answer. What matters is not the answer but that what it actually queried appears on screen beside it. An answer that called no tool is marked as such. The whole mcp_client + mcp_llm wiring, the run log, four real render captures.DEV
- Swap the Sensor, the Control Stays — How Not to Build a Greenhouse TwiceThe real reason greenhouse controllers are expensive is that sensors and control are wired 1:1 inside the code. Let the nodes declare themselves and write rules by kind rather than by model, and swapping the temperature probe leaves nothing to fix. A record of running two different greenhouses on the same server and the same rules.DEV
field
- One App, Two Shops — If the Second Shop Is a Code Change, You Have LostTwo cafés share the same counter screen. Prices, hours and menus differ, and one quotes tax-inclusive while the other adds it at the counter. Not one character of either shop's name appears inside the bundle, and the verification protects that with a single grep.DEV
- The Rule Travels with the Date — What a Deadline Board Does Not StoreIn 2026-06 we ran a piece about a tax practice's deadline board. That piece never said where the dates came from. This time we built it — and this board stores no deadline at all. It computes from rules every time, and when a date slipped past a weekend it says so.DEV
- Orders with the Till Gone — Filling One Hole We Left OpenSince the launch issue this magazine has been writing that it never tested offline behaviour. This time we killed the till process mid-run and took three more orders. Losing them and taking them twice are opposite failures, so both are checked.DEV
- The Thing Nobody Is Deciding — What a Shift Handover MissesWhat gets lost at handover is not the item somebody forgot. It is the item that appears at every handover all week and that nobody touches. Once the board stopped being retyped and started being carried, the number of times it had crossed counted itself.DEV
- Why This Is on Top — The Screen of Somebody Working AloneIn 2026-06 we ran a piece about a sole trader gathering several roles onto one screen. Gathering everything onto one screen is just a list. The hard part is trusting that list on your own — so every item comes out carrying its source, and the sort rule is written on the screen.DEV
- The Order of the Walk — The Order on the Order Form Is Not the Warehouse's OrderAn order arrives in the sequence the customer typed it; the picker walks the racks in the sequence the racks are in. Instead of asserting that the two differ, we computed both routes and put them on the screen. 106 steps and 82.DEV
- The Line Outside — Two Screens Looking at One QueueManaging a queue means two people in two places looking at the same line. The moment the door and the counter each start remembering their own number, an argument with a customer follows. We built two screens, called one party from the counter, and re-photographed the door screen nobody had touched.DEV
- The Driver Presses Nothing — Meter, OBD and Payment on One DashboardWith four terminals in a taxi, what joins them is the driver's hands. The door opens and the meter starts, the speed frames the vehicle sends become a fare, and on arrival payment appears on the passenger screen. In one trip a human pressed one button — the passenger's "pay". Full source, run log, eight real render captures.DEV
- One Place a Price Is Made — Why the Label and the Ledger Drift Apart at ClosingA shop that sells by weight eventually finds the day off by a few hundred won. Because the price is calculated twice — once rounded so a customer can pay it, printed on the label, and once from the original weight into the ledger. Both are reasonable and they differ.DEV
- Nothing Is Overwritten — What an Inherited Notebook Needs to Be UsefulIn 2026-05 we ran a piece about inheriting a father's work notebook. The difficulty of an inherited record is not reading it but not knowing who knew what and when. This time we built it — here nothing is overwritten. A line proved wrong stays exactly where it is, and why it was believed stays readable.DEV