Signals from Our Futures Past is a publication about the evolving relationship between information systems, architecture, autonomy, and society.
Technology doesn’t arrive fully formed. The systems we build today carry traces of futures we once imagined — some we pursued, some we abandoned, some we forgot. By tracing those futures-past, we can spot early signals about where we may be headed next.
I’m Mike Amundsen. I write about software, systems, and the strange loop between where we’ve been and where we’re headed. Signals from Our Futures Past explores the architectures, patterns, and histories shaping how humans and machines interact — one signal at a time.
From Paul Otlet’s bibliographic utopias to RESTful APIs and machine agents, this blog explores the recursions that shape how information flows, how systems behave, and how our technical decisions echo into society.
Here you'll find:
Histories of web architecture and hypermedia design
Essays on composability, autonomy, and protocol systems
Commentary on the social and civic implications of technical choices
Field notes, schemas, and experiments from the edge
If you're a technologist, designer, systems thinker, or just someone suspicious of easy answers in complex systems — you're in the right place.
Think of this as part archive, part workshop. I write for engineers, architects, and curious minds who know that progress isn’t always linear — and that the best way to build the future is to understand the patterns we keep repeating.
Welcome aboard.
