Archive - Contraptions

The Divergence Machine II

Progress as a non-stationary argument

Feb 22 • Venkatesh Rao

Protocolized Writing Workshop

Your chance to race to the frontier of modern AI-forward writing and publishing

Feb 17 • Venkatesh Rao

vgr: The Twitter Years (2007-22)

I made my twitter into a very nice online book

Feb 15 • Venkatesh Rao

Seeking new ways of being wild in new nature

Feb 10 • Venkatesh Rao

Engineering Liveness

New Nature in the Gramsci Gap

Feb 1 • Venkatesh Rao

January 2026

Robotics-native affect beyond googly eyes and human emotions

Jan 25 • Venkatesh Rao

Contours of can’t-be-evil futures

Jan 16 • Venkatesh Rao

Lost in Bugspace

The temporality of implementation uncertainty in software

Jan 10 • Venkatesh Rao

The Divergence Machine

Introducing the 2026 Book Club theme

Jan 5 • Venkatesh Rao

December 2025

The Modernity Machine III

Completion, Saturation, and Phase Transition

Dec 24, 2025 • Venkatesh Rao

2025 Book Club Hangout (Transcript)

Reflecting on a year of reading about the emergence of modernity, 1200-1600

Dec 24, 2025 • Venkatesh Rao

Revenge of the Dilettantes

Book club and AI adventures, age of bespokeness, study groups, new rules of engagement

Dec 20, 2025 • Venkatesh Rao

#nojs-banner { position: fixed; bottom: 0; left: 0; padding: 16px 16px 16px 32px; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; background: red; color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; } #nojs-banner a { color: inherit; text-decoration: underline; } This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts