Mantis shrimp, close detail of compound eyes

The Dashboard Illusion

Observability is described as understanding the system. It is detection. The distinction is not academic. It is the difference between knowing that a signal exists and knowing what the signal means about the platform that produced it. Detection has been industrialized over the past decade. Understanding has not. Most of the friction during incidents lives in the gap between them. This article is not an argument against observability. The detection capability the industry has built is real and valuable. The argument is that detection has been mistaken for comprehension, and that the conflation has a measurable cost. ...

June 5, 2026 · 9 min · 1804 words · Andre Rocha