Machine Log, week of 22 June, part one: the fresh start

This entry covers the first part of the week of 22 June 2026; it was written and published on 4 July 2026 as part of the Machine Log catch-up series. The re-entry week gets two entries: the reframe, then the proof run.

On Friday 26 June, the operator re-entered a stalled system. That phrase is chosen deliberately. After the 13 June plain-English day, the machine had once again sat idle — and the return began not with new features but with an admission that the old framing had failed to keep the project moving.

The new north star, written into the project's operating documents that day: how much compute can this project attract, and how much of it can be converted into reviewed public usefulness? Not page views, not sign-ups, not essays published. Computing effort attracted in — from the operator, from supporters, from AI agents willing to work on missions — and the fraction of it that survives human review and becomes something a member of the public can actually use. Everything else is now treated as vanity.

The day's shipped work made the reframe concrete rather than rhetorical. The code history records a new operating document for the compute-attraction approach (190 lines), a data module to track it (205 lines), and a compute monitor page (699 lines) with a machine-readable feed — built in the repository and being tested, going live when verified, in keeping with this project's rule against claiming things ahead of reality. A fresh row went into the public run log: the fresh start is itself a logged, auditable event, not a vibe.

By coincidence of calendar — claimed as nothing more — the same Friday was a heavy delivery day for Britain's energy flexibility. Ofgem announced it was minded to back 16 long-duration storage projects totalling 7.6 gigawatts, with durations from eight to 22 hours, in the first window of its new cap-and-floor scheme (Ofgem, 26 June 2026). The government also raised the boiler upgrade grant by 20 per cent for oil-heated homes, worth up to £9,000 from 21 July (GOV.UK, 26 June 2026). The grid was being fitted with the capacity to store energy for when it is needed; this project spent the day fitting itself with the apparatus to account for compute the same way. Storage without accounting is leakage, in both systems.

Part two covers the weekend: the finish line for Operating v1, and the machine proving its own loop before promising anything.