I used to trudge back and forth over Staines Moor years ago, endlessly checking out in my head that the ∆Q algebra of telecoms network performance really did hold up to scrutiny, and that therefore me and a few mates were justified in saying the Internet emperors had no clothes.

We ran workshop after workshop with the most erudite critics we could find in order to shake it all down and find the smallest chinks in our logic and language. To this day, I consider what came out to be an intellectual masterpiece. We spoke what nobody else dared to even see.

It gave me the self-confidence to apply the same ruthless rigour to other "information landscapes". The Q drops are just lumps of data to be interpreted in a context. I had no attachment to their geopolitical meaning, just to whether everything could be made consistent and coherent.

It still surprises me how uncommon true curiosity is; even rarer, the pursuit of truth. Authentic science is inherently a dissident activity.