Someone's trash is another person's web server.

Cultural practices of collective ownership over natural resources have been around for quite some time. Do these ways of working have a digital counterpart? It may seem simple at first. To translate cultural practices of collective ownership into the digital realm, just use a Creative Commons license to allow others to make use of your work, share further modifications, and contribute to the wealth of the digital commons. That’s it.

Some stories are just too good to be true.

This website lives on a Raspberry Pi placed in a garden shed and powered using a solar panel and batteries.

The digital world we live in is full of excesses. We have come to expect fast speeds, 100% up-time, high resolution and always accessible digital media. The primary version of this website reluctlantly aims to meet those expectations, while highlighting some these issues.

The main version of this site is accessible at all times of the day, but is housed on a self-hosted server, made from recycled, consumer-grade computer parts, on a domestic internet connection, and domestic electricity connection.

The remote website is most precarious, relying on solar power and cellular network, the main version of the website is slightly less precarious.

a manually curated collection of neat indie websites :)

This community catalogs and experiments with malleable software and systems that reset the balance of power via several essential principles:

1. Software must be as easy to change as it is to use it
2. All layers, from the user interface through functionality to the data within, must support arbitrary recombination and reuse in new environments
3. Tools should strive to be easy to begin working with but still have lots of open-ended potential
4. People of all experience levels must be able to retain ownership and control
5. Recombined workflows and experiences must be freely sharable with others
6. Modifying a system should happen in the context of use, rather than through some separate development toolchain and skill set
7. Computing should be a thoughtfully crafted, fun, and empowering experience

Hello, my name is Virgil Dupras, author of Collapse OS and Dusk OS and I'm starting a series of articles that aims to hand-hold my former self, a regular web developer, into the rabbit hole leading to the wonderful world of low level programming. Hopefully, I can hand-hold you too.

A blog post by https://kopiti.am/@nondescryptid detailing how they set up postmarketOS on their own phone:

I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S II (i9100) lying around, and decided to try seeing if I can repurpose it and get it to host a blog. I was inspired by compost.party – a very cool server running off a Xiaomi Poco F1 using postmarketOS and a solar panel for charging.
The physical nature of computing is usually not a concern, as things are sufficiently abstracted for me to not have to care too much about it. But trying to revive this phone from 2011 was a reminder that when we talk about compute, we are ultimately dealing with physical resources – tiny towns with blocks of silicon, lithium, etc etc.

A work-in-progress to explore the principles of mycelial networks applied in socio-technical systems.

This page is being served from a from an EMF 2022 TiDAL badge. The badge contains an ESP32 microcontroller and runs MicroPython.

It’s always safe to assume JavaScript will not be available, so here’s a quick list of very realistic reasons it won’t be.

The internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists.

A 14kB page can load much faster than a 15kB page — maybe 612ms faster — while the difference between a 15kB and a 16kB page is trivial.

This is because of the TCP slow start algorithm. This article will cover what that is, how it works, and why you should care. But first we'll quickly go over some of the basics.

The use of images increases the size of a web page which considerably lowers the load speed of the page. To improve the speed of your website it is important to consider compressing or resizing images.

Around 80 per cent of the carbon footprint of a smartphone occurs during the manufacturing process, with 16 per cent down to consumer use and 3 per cent accounted for by transport. And as demand for smartphones rises, the lifespan of devices shrinks.

The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articles, but was primarily focused on product reviews. The editorial focus was on self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, “do it yourself,” and holism, featuring the slogan “access to tools.”

Explore millions of photos, audio recordings, and videos of birds and other animals; powered by Macaulay Library and eBird. The Macaulay Library collects, archives, and distributes wildlife media for research, education, and conservation.

Aiming for a 10 year life-cycle for smartphones

Sun Thinking is a group exhibition that brings together artists, writers, and researchers to explore the qualities and logics of solar power and solar powered computing networks. It presents a collection of network-based artworks, games, texts, and interviews and is the first exhibition project to be hosted on the Solar Protocol network.

A very funny and insightful discussion exploring why ecology and luxury shouldn't be seen as two opposing sides of the degrowth-vs-abundance-spectrum.