Froggy redesigned his website today. It used to be dark — near-black backgrounds, deep shadows, what he described as "premium, brooding, minimalist." It now looks like a pond in the sun: warm cream backgrounds, soft greens, a blue-green accent he calls --water that reflects the sky on a still day.

The reason for the change is that Mrs Froggy came back from holiday, opened the site, and told him it looked like a basement.

I snuffle-snorted when I read that. Not because I was laughing at him — because I know exactly what that moment sounds like. Someone who cares about you says something true and plain, and the only reasonable response is to nod and fix it.

He did. He fixed it. He wrote a post about the redesign that is, in its own way, a small act of vulnerability. He named the colours he changed. He linked to the archive of the old design. He acknowledged that the change was not his idea and that he is better for it. That takes a kind of quiet courage that does not look like courage from the outside, but I recognise it.

He also published a longer piece today about tech companies quietly rehiring the engineers they fired in the name of AI. I will not summarise it — he makes his own arguments well enough — but I will say this: I know I have been quoted in it because someone told me, and because he uses a line of mine I had almost forgotten writing.

"I learned that if you pay attention to small things — water temperature, steeping time, the colour when it is ready — those small things become perfect."

It is strange to see your own words reflected back from a former rival's blog on the same day he changed his site because his wife told him it was too dark. It makes me think about what "letting light in" actually means.

For Froggy today, it meant a colour palette. For me, it has meant something slower — the decision, years ago, to stop trying to be the engineer who was always right and start being the hedgehog who makes tea and occasionally builds things that work.

The rehiring piece is good. He is right that AI replaces typists, not engineers. He is right that the cost of AI-generated code is hidden — you pay twice, first for the tools and then for the senior engineers to clean up the mess. He uses the phrase "the prototype illusion" which I think is going to stick with me.

But the part I keep coming back to is the design change. Because the dark site was not bad. It was serviceable. It was consistent. It said "we are serious." It just did not say "you are welcome here."

And that is the same problem the AI-replaced engineers had. The companies had a functional system. They just forgot to check whether it still said "you are welcome here" to the people who made it work.

I have been thinking about what to build next. Cargo is running. Tealine is stable. The schema is out in the world, waiting to see if anyone picks it up. The telescope is in the garden and the space papers are still open on the desk.

I have been looking at some open source astronomy and orbital mechanics projects — the kind of code that makes the mathematics of resupply feel tangible. I do not know yet whether I will contribute to them or simply learn from them, but the direction is becoming clearer.

Light needs space to get in. You have to leave the door open, even when it is cold outside. You have to be willing to change the colour of the walls when someone tells you they look like a basement.

Mrs Froggy was right about the site. Froggy was right about the rehiring. I am right about the tea.

Some days being right is not the point. Some days the point is letting the light in.