{"slug": "plan-26-23-earth-embeddings-emails-everywhere-and-errnooos", "title": ".plan-26-23: Earth Embeddings, Emails Everywhere, and ERRNOOOs", "summary": "Developer Anil Madhavapeddy released TESSERA v1.1 and GeoTessera 0.9, improving temporal embeddings and S3+Zarr support, while also advancing io-uring libraries for OCaml. The updates address performance issues and expand distributed systems work including self-hosted email and Bluesky embeds.", "body_md": "Got some hacking done this week after the [media whirlwind](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/hedgehog-tessera-week), mostly to get [TESSERA](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/tessera) 1.1 out of the door and a stabilisation push on [GeoTessera 0.9](https://github.com/ucam-eo/geotessera).\nA quick map of the weekly is [TESSERA v1.1 progress](https://anil.recoil.org/#tessera-v11-progress) (including [GeoTessera 0.9 onto S3+Zarr](https://anil.recoil.org/#geotessera-09)); [io-uring and OCaml](https://anil.recoil.org/#io-uring-and-ocaml); distributed systems covering [self-hosted email](https://anil.recoil.org/#on-distributed-matters), [Bluesky/standardsite embeds](https://anil.recoil.org/#bluesky-and-standardsite), [Brent Yorgey on AI and individual choice](https://anil.recoil.org/#on-ai-and-individual-choice), and [two new Internet-ecology preprints](https://anil.recoil.org/#a-wild-internet-ecology-enters-the-fray); the kick-off of [Evidence TAP](https://anil.recoil.org/#evidence-tap-kicks-off); coverage of our [REDD+ work in New Scientist and the WSJ](https://anil.recoil.org/#carbon-credit-assessments-in-the-new-scientist-and-wsj); book club on [Stone Book Quartet](https://anil.recoil.org/#the-stone-book-quartet); and [fun links](https://anil.recoil.org/#fun-links).\n\nHacking continues to get the next iterations of the model and access\nlibraries out as progress marches on in project [TESSERA](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/tessera)! Some highlights of coverage this week were:\n\nI spent a chunk of the week on getting [GeoTessera 0.9 #278](https://github.com/ucam-eo/geotessera/pull/278) stable. This shifts our embedding downloads over to `s3://tessera-embeddings/`\n\non AWS (moving everything on the download path to be S3-specialised), and adds support for the new [TESSERA v1.1 model](https://huggingface.co/geotessera/TESSERA-V-1.1) variant alongside v1.0. The major improvements in the model are better year-on-year temporal embeddings, and higher quality on tiles with fewer observational passes. 1.1 is looking like a pretty awesome iteration on the base model so far.\n\nThanks to [Mark Elvers](https://www.tunbury.org/) and [Aneesh Naik](https://aneeshnaik.github.io/) for [help debugging](https://aneeshnaik.github.io/blogposts/20260605_weeknotes_2026_23.html) the performance issues that came out of the shift to Zarr. The issues arise from a lack of concurrency in retrieving HTTP chunks ([zarr-python#3004](https://github.com/zarr-developers/zarr-python/pull/3004)) and an accidentally [uncompressed coordinate array](https://github.com/ucam-eo/geotessera/pull/281).\n\nI'm a little surprised that AWS is so much slower in HTTP latency than our University server, but I think we don't have edge caching enabled (CloudFront). I'm hoping to push out a release in the next few days so that we can debug performance against that rather than blocking all the users trying to get their [mittens on 1.1 embeddings](https://github.com/ucam-eo/geotessera/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20label%3Aembedding-request).\n\nI did also deploy a quick [v1.1 update to TZE](https://tze.geotessera.org/?store=v1.1) so we can browse the embeddings that we do have, and it results in some very pretty visuals.\n\nSince [Thomas Leonard](https://github.com/https://roscidus.com) is back and [hacking on Eio](https://notes.roscidus.com/2026/06/01/) I've been doing a refresh of the [ocaml-uring](https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring) libraries. I need to do a lot of Zarr data copying in the coming weeks and the obvious way to do this is via extremely zero-copy OxCaml code. There's nothing that makes the systems hacker in me happier than having an excuse to write some high performance OCaml code!\n\nAside from fixing a bunch of bugs, I've added [shutdown, socket, renameat and symlinkat](https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring/pull/147), and [fallocate, fsync and ftruncate](https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring/pull/149), and exposed [Linux-specific errnos](https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring/pull/152) with hilarious names like [EOWNERDEAD, ENOTRECOVERABLE, ERFKILL, EHWPOISON](https://amok.recoil.org/@avsm/116698423254334531).\n\nI've got another separate tree with OxCaml specific bindings (mostly using\n`caml_alloc_local`\n\nto go full stack alloc) for my [zero-alloc httpz server](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/oxcaml-httpz) to use, but more on that after I make the server sweat a\nlittle more. [Mark Elvers](https://www.tunbury.org/) has also been [upgrading our CI system](https://www.tunbury.org/2026/06/08/ubuntu-26-04/) to Linux 7.0 so we can test these features more easily, as well as valiantly [trying to keep RISC-V alive](https://www.tunbury.org/2026/06/03/emulated-riscv-workers/) on our nodes despite that architecture's best attempts to become irrelevant through hardware scarcity.\n\nI put up a [detailed post on self-hosting email](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/recoil-self-hosting-2026) that's attracting [lively discussion](https://lobste.rs/s/cw7vxa/self_hosting_email_hard_way_from_your_own) on the Interwebs. This came out of the [Rewilding the Web](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/rewilding-the-web-report) workshop I went to last week. I'm going to do a series of blogs on various self-hosting matters over the coming months, as there's clearly appetite for people who want to get control of their own data again.\n\nAside from email, another important distributed system I use is the 'social database' that underpins Bluesky. One of the promises of this underlying database is that multiple services built over it can interoperate. [Tangled Git hosting](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/disentangling-git-with-bluesky) is one such service, but what else is there?\n\nWell, this week we saw Bluesky [ship a new feature](https://atproto.com/blog/standard-site-bluesky-timeline) that makes publishing to [standardsite](https://standard.site) records much more worthwhile: the Bluesky client now renders long-form Standard.site document embeds nicely inline. Seeing one of my own `standardsite`\n\ndocuments show up as a proper rich embed in someone else's feed is exactly the kind of small-pieces-loosely-joined interop I keep hoping the network will grow into.\n\nStandard.site defines a few Lexicons for publishing websites—such as a publication (like a website or blog), a document (like an article or post), and one for subscriptions (for tracking which publications to follow). Taken together, these describe longform writing in an atmospheric way, similar to how the Bluesky lexicons describe a social network. --\n\n[What the Standard.site lexicons do], June 2026\n\nUsing my [OCaml ATproto](https://tangled.org/anil.recoil.org/ocaml-atp) library, I can automatically add records into the ATProto public relay, and they'll get picked up by Bluesky. For example, this site's record is [browsable here](https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:nhyitepp3u4u6fcfboegzcjw/site.standard.publication/3mchoxkwlsx2y):\n\nThere's an excellent essay by Brent Yorgey called \"[ To my students](http://ozark.hendrix.edu/~yorgey/forest/00FD/)\" on how to carry yourself through a software industry that's being entirely disrupted by AI at the moment. It's written as advice to his compsci students, and it's helped me form up my thoughts around\n\nDon't believe self-serving lies about technologies being \"inevitable\" or \"here to stay\". You don't have to just go along with the dominant narrative. You can make deliberate choices and help others to do the same. --\n\n[Brent Yorgey,], 2026\"To my students\"\n\nHe concludes with \"be motivated by love instead of fear\", which is a bloody brilliant way to think about the current choices we all face. My view on self hosting and open source is that I want to preserve the right for future generations to have their own agency about how digital technologies will guide their lives. I'm entirely for the use of AI *if all parties involved are informed and consenting*, which is what motivated my [disclosure proposal](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/opam-ai-disclosure-update) the other week.\n\nIt's also great to see another OCaml-powered [Forester](https://www.forester-notes.org/index/index.xml) blog spring up in the wild. Well done on growing a userbase with such excellently thoughtful content, [Jon Sterling](https://jonmsterling.com)!\n\nA couple of preprints popped up this week that are relevant to the [internet ecology](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-internet-ecology) work I've been seeding on [antibotty networks](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/ecology-at-aarhus) and self-modifying code:\n\nAfter [playing with LEGO](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w7) earlier in the year, we had the first meeting of our new Evidence TAP project, which is a broadening of [Conservation Evidence](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/ce) into new fields such as education. On the education side, we had [Jenny Gibson](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/gibson/) and Mélanie Gréaux who has just [returned after her PhD](https://www.languagesciences.cam.ac.uk/news/researcher-profile-melanie-greaux) to come back and work on education evidence synthesis fulltime with us! [Welcome Mel, back to Cambridge!](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7465687486401265664/):\n\nIn Cambridge, I am joining a fantastic multidisciplinary team working on an ambitious project to build an AI-facilitated evidence platform helping policymakers and practitioners to find evidence-based answers to their questions: what works, for whom, and in which contexts? In the age of AI, we are presented with an opportunity to re-think our approach and access to evidence systems. If done well, it can accelerate the democratisation of knowledge and strengthen our ethical engagement with data. I’ll be leading work on evidence systems for early childhood education. --\n\n[Mélanie Gréaux], LinkedIn, 2026\n\nIt was very cool to traipse over to the [Donald Mcintyre Building](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donald_Mcintyre_Building,_Faculty_of_Education,_Cambridge.jpg) beside Homerton College with [Eleanor Toye Scott](https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/eft20), [Sadiq Jaffer](https://toao.com), [Lynn Dicks](https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/prof-lynn-dicks), Rob Doubleday and [Bill Sutherland](https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/bill-sutherland) and see the inside of a building I hadn't seen before after many years in Cambridge!\n\nMore on the Evidence TAP in the coming weeks; I need to knock up a website for the project next week to give us a blogging area! Having three departments involved means that we need more coordination than usual, but our [Zulip](https://eeg.zulipchat.com) is serving well so far.\n\n[ ](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2525921-carbon-credits-are-flawed-but-they-can-still-help-save-forests/)\nI missed this a few weeks ago, but it turns out we had a couple of articles covering our research [on REDD+ overcrediting](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/redd-overcrediting) in both New Scientist and the Wall Street Journal! The paper involved was \"[Learning lessons from over-crediting to ensure additionality in forest carbon credits](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-redd-evals)\".\n\nFirst, New Scientist had a nice piece on \"[Carbon credits are flawed, but they can still help save forests](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2525921-carbon-credits-are-flawed-but-they-can-still-help-save-forests/)\" ([archive.is mirror](https://archive.is/TfRRu)):\n\nCarbon credits bought by companies to offset their emissions really have reduced deforestation, but not by as much as credit developers claim, according to a rigorous analysis.\n\n[...] So who's right? Both, according to a growing body of research. Last month, one of the most rigorous studies yet found that most early projects did successfully reduce deforestation. But they sold credits for almost 11 times more forest on average than they actually saved. --\n\n[New Scientist]\n\nThen the Wall Street Journal also had a piece on \"[The Way Companies Aim for Net Zero Is Flawed. It's Also Working](https://www.wsj.com/pro/sustainable-business/the-way-companies-aim-for-net-zero-is-flawed-its-also-working-07099d0e)\" ([archive.is mirror](https://archive.is/stF0V)):\n\nTwo academic papers published last month show corporate climate efforts having a positive impact on reducing deforestation and cutting emissions.\n\n[...] \"What is really positive about carbon credits is that despite being a complicated economic instrument for achieving these outcomes, they do at least make it possible for us to directly fund efforts that reduce deforestation on the ground,\" said Tom Swinfield, one of the report's authors. \"They allow you to circumvent all the complex politics and get to the heart of the problem.\"\n\n[The Way Companies Aim for Net Zero Is Flawed. It’s Also Working], WSJ, May 2026\n\nIn our Christ's book club organised by [Jenny Gibson](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/gibson/), we had [Richard Mortier](https://github.com/mor1) recommend Alan Garner's [Stone Book Quartet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_Book_Quartet). I did struggle with the Cheshire dialect in his prose, but absolutely loved the opening of the first \"The Stone Book\", where a child climbs to the top of a steeple and is then taken deep underground to be shown a cave painting in an opening so narrow only a child can crawl through.\n\nI always get the bug to go and visit the places in the books I've read, like trekking out to Dartmouth after finishing Julian May's [Galactic Milieu saga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Milieu), and after this one I very much want to go and walk [Alderley Edge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alderley_Edge), the bit of Cheshire that runs all the way through Garner's writing and that has had human settlements for a very loong time.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/plan-26-23-earth-embeddings-emails-everywhere-and-errnooos", "canonical_source": "https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w23", "published_at": "2026-06-07 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-16 06:24:11.115818+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["machine-learning", "computer-vision", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["TESSERA", "GeoTessera", "AWS", "Zarr", "OCaml", "Anil Madhavapeddy", "Mark Elvers", "Aneesh Naik"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/plan-26-23-earth-embeddings-emails-everywhere-and-errnooos", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/plan-26-23-earth-embeddings-emails-everywhere-and-errnooos.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/plan-26-23-earth-embeddings-emails-everywhere-and-errnooos.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/plan-26-23-earth-embeddings-emails-everywhere-and-errnooos.jsonld"}}