Behind the books by Laurentiu Niculescu https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles.html The real history, ideas and places behind Novissima, The Ghost Patch and AI at Work, with sources. en-gb Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Nine tax cases that never existed https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/nine-tax-cases-that-never-existed.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/nine-tax-cases-that-never-existed.html Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A tax appeal in 2023 rested on nine earlier decisions. None of them were real. The story that opens AI at Work, and the habit it teaches. The near miss nobody heard about: TWA 514, December 1974 https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/twa-514-near-miss-reporting.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/twa-514-near-miss-reporting.html Sat, 24 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Six weeks before TWA 514 hit a Virginia mountain, another crew made the same mistake and got away with it. Nobody else was told. Then aviation changed. Expired certificates: Equifax, Ericsson and a date nobody watched https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/expired-certificates-equifax-ericsson.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/expired-certificates-equifax-ericsson.html Sat, 24 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 An expired certificate left Equifax blind for 19 months and took mobile networks down in two countries. Why a date fixed in advance still causes outages. Zombie servers: the machines running for nobody https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/zombie-servers-comatose-data-centres.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/zombie-servers-comatose-data-centres.html Sat, 24 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 One study found about a quarter of physical servers did no useful work for six months. Why nobody switches them off, and what an unpatched one is worth. The church with no roof: Lisbon’s Carmo and the earthquake of 1755 https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/lisbon-carmo-church-1755.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/lisbon-carmo-church-1755.html Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 How the Carmo convent lost its roof on 1 November 1755, what the quake did to Lisbon, and why the same ruin turns up again in 1974. The last invention: Butler, Wiener and Good on thinking machines https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/last-invention-butler-wiener-good.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/last-invention-butler-wiener-good.html Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Warnings about thinking machines from 1863, 1960 and 1965, quoted from the sources, and the clause in Good’s famous sentence that carries the argument. Four Portuguese places in Novissima, and what’s true about them https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/portugal-places-in-novissima.html https://books.laurentiu-niculescu.co.uk/articles/portugal-places-in-novissima.html Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The Chapel of Bones in Évora, the bats of the Joanina Library, the well at Regaleira and the cliff at Cabo da Roca: the facts behind four settings.