About
I write to understand. I think in public.
This is where I publish essays, field notes, and technical explorations — mostly about philosophy, systems, decentralization, and how we make sense of complexity.
What you'll find here
Thoughts
Short reflections, usually stemming from a quote I found insightful or thought-provoking. Borrowing the classical "On..." format as playful homage. Think of them thinking out loud, exploring ideas in public
Field Notes
Brief observations and discoveries, usually related to new technology I'm learning. Link-heavy, exploratory, provisional. I hope to better my communication skills through explanations, and to show my struggles and failures openly.
Cheat Sheets
Opinionated summaries with copy-paste-friendly examples. Patterns I've found useful, distilled. Also covers books I've read and want to put into action.
Project Logs
Dated entries tracking builds and experiments — especially UPLEX, my work on a federated ledger for externalities.
How I work
I follow what I call structured provisionalism: stating clearly what I'm confident about, what I'm uncertain of, and what would falsify my thinking. I aspire to build up my knowledge and opinions bit by bit, provisionally but with structure, to hopefully avoid hubris and unearned conviction. You'll often find a section at the end of longer posts that makes this explicit.
The design philosophy here is clarity over flair. Typography-first, minimal UI, generous white space. I want the writing to breathe. The red fox mark represents alertness and curiosity — qualities I aspire to in my thinking.
Each piece is layered: a 30-second gist, a 3-minute skim, full read, and (sometimes) deep appendices. Peel as far as you need. Respect for your time is built into the structure.
Who I am
My name is Alexander Scanlan — I'm a builder by nature, an optimist by force-of-will, and hopefully an occasional writer. My background is mostly in mobile apps, but I hope to expand into distributed systems, AI/ML, and decentralized infrastructure. Currently, I'm focused on UPLEX: a federated ledger for externalities.
I care deeply about:
- Epistemic humility — knowing what we don't know
- Systems thinking — understanding relationships, emergence, and feedback
- Local-first tech — ownership, privacy, resilience
- Intellectual honesty — showing your work, stating your priors
- Accessible knowledge — writing that invites, not excludes
I write because it forces me to clarify my thinking. Publishing in public adds useful pressure: if I can't explain it clearly, I probably don't understand it yet.
Technical details
This site is built with Astro, hosted on GitHub Pages, and deployed automatically via GitHub Actions. Everything is written in Markdown/MDX. The typography uses system fonts with careful sizing (18-20px body, 1.7 line-height, 60-75ch measure). Colors follow a warm neutral palette with Fox Red (#D0342C) as the accent.
The design system prioritizes:
- Visual calm through generous spacing
- High contrast for accessibility (WCAG AA minimum)
- Print-worthy composition
- Fast, lightweight pages
- No tracking or analytics
Source code is available at github.com/AJScanlan/ajscanlan.dev.
Get in touch
The best way to reach me is via email: aj@ajscanlan.dev
You can also find me on:
I aim to reply within a few days, but life happens. If you don't hear back, feel free to send a gentle nudge.
Colophon
Design: Custom, minimal, typography-first
Fonts: System stack (prioritizing Inter, IBM Plex Sans)
Code: JetBrains Mono, Cascadia Code
Colors: Warm neutrals + Fox Red accent
Hosting: GitHub Pages
Framework: Astro + Markdown/MDX
License: Content © A.J. Scanlan. Code MIT.
Updated: October 2025