Black Resin Mirrors and the Adequacy

The Casio F-91W, a $14 plastic watch worn by everyone from Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden, exemplifies a design philosophy of "unreasonable adequacy"—meeting basic needs through durability, reliability, and ubiquity rather than sophistication. Its emergence as both a cultural icon and an object of security concern reveals how humble consumer gadgets become entangled with geopolitics, popular culture, and surveillance.

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Archives of Discontinuity

This issue examines California's wildfire management through the lens of prescribed and wild fires at the wildland-urban interface, tracing how 20th-century fire suppression policies fundamentally contradicted ecological understanding of fire's necessary role in ecosystems. The case study explores combustion as a memory practice and investigates how new tools reshape our epistemological relationship with fire management.

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Mar 2025

Nathalia Scherer, Jiordi Rosales

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Dirt Simple

Issue #17 features a case study of the Crescenta Valley Water District examining how public sector protocols create invisible operational mazes with both challenges and reform opportunities. The issue also curates community discussions on alignment protocols, emerging AI standards (MCP, MLOS, ACP), and preparations for Protocol Worlds at Edge Esmeralda.

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May 2025

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The Color of Safety

Faber Birren pioneered the strategic use of color in industrial design to shape worker behavior, safety responses, and emergency protocols, making color a crucial but often overlooked element of Protocol Experience (PX) design. The essay explores how pigment functions as a cheap, persistent, and robust design variable for control systems, from OSHA safety standards to control room layouts, requiring only ambient light rather than electricity to establish effective default schemas.

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Jan 2026

Venkatesh Rao