About this site

smudging the binary is an independent publication launched in October 2025 by Lenthic Info Design. Your subscription makes this site possible, and allows smudging the binary to continue to exist. Thank you!

Access the right areas for you

By subscribing, you'll get access to the level of information complexity that works for you. Information literacy is useful to anyone. Social fractals looks at facets of society and culture as pervasive information patterns. Abstractions explains the abstracted information architecture I practice. Concepts details concrete technology concepts.

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About the concepts

Most of this work is a product of logic married with human cognitive patterns, formulated and watched on a personal basis over decades.

I am human. I also hate attention, so I could often fade into the background while I watched. And I deeply wanted to understand across as broad a cohort as I could mentally maintain, because I found deeply skewed information very early. I was searching for a framework out of cognitive dissonance without resorting to dismissing vast realities, either to reject or accept the skewed information. An early (first, maybe?) decision to smudge the binary. 😉

So, I'm a human with a lower (still extant! I breathe!) probability of skewing others' behaviors, and a deep seated urge to understand information across a multitude of dynamics. I will not take it personally if you don't trust this summation, which is a whole complexity of its own.

I am also a voracious reader (deep seated urge to understand!), but have not captured every book, article, and snippet read. If you are aware of materials around particular concepts, please feel free to comment at that concept. As I have time, I'll at least scan, possibly even read closely, and add the ones that seem relevant as footnotes. I am not looking for only materials that support a particular concept, but also materials that rebut or smudge it, as long as they meet information literacy criteria. Once there's enough for triangulation to springboard deeper searches for a particular page/concept, I'll stop adding.

Each subscription level is another level in complexity. It's not only paying for the deeper thinking and developed expertise, but providing a signal that more thinking will be necessary...and then more. 😄 The intent is to keep a small set of free posts available in each level of complexity.

• All but more complex information literacy writing will be free; many will be behind a free membership login just to avoid AI bot scraping.
• Social fractals are the first level of complexity, and also a way to support information literacy work (or any other level, but my assumption is here). We all have personal experiences to test against the writing. It will be heavy on links.
• Abstractions get in to the abstracts of information architecture that deeply integrates human cognitive behavior. I got here because information consistently fell apart when I tried to silo humanity; but, it definitely ups the complexity dramatically.
• Concepts leverage the abstractions into use cases within specific areas of information in technology. It layers in a specific instance (e.g., prioritized search) in a specific context (e.g., information technology). That refinement is extra layers of complexity. Also, the price is steep because the work is demanding; if I get to the point where I'm hiring others (intended to be on a fee and residuals model that I'm still working out), it needs great work. That has a price.