smolweb.org promotes simple unbloated web. It provides resources to actors who want to participate.

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.

Spanish website collecting many resources on the negative ecological effects of data centers.

Kari Love, David Rios, Shuang Cai, and Becky Stern will go over practical steps required to repurpose disposable vape batteries, as well as the economic and political history responsible for the proliferation of these “disposable” devices. Then we will share one example project, an electronic wind instrument Vape Synth, inspired by both the salvaged parts and the form of a discarded vape.

Video from the 2024 Open Hardware Summit, held in Montreal on May 3rd. More information about the Summit is available at https://2024.oshwa.org/

The EU hails a deal with Serbia on lithium mining as a “historic day for Serbia, as well as Europe”. […]
Mr Scholz was keen to ensure his country’s auto industry was at the front of the queue for supplies.
Carmakers will need ever more lithium for batteries, as the transition to zero-emission vehicles accelerates – and Rio Tinto’s Jadar project could provide as much as nine-tenths of Europe’s current lithium needs.

With pairs of comically oversized exhaust pipes pointing towards the sky and enormous stacks of grey cooling aggregates flanking its sides, AMS09 resembles a child's drawing of an exaggerated, imaginary factory. Despite being painted in a variation of “Go Away Green”, a colour engineered by Disney to draw visitors’ gazes away from technical facilities across its amusement parks, the building miserably fails to blend in with its surroundings.

This handbook provides a brief overview of environmental harm driven by software, and how the Blue Angel ecolabel—the official environmental label of the German government—provides a benchmark for sustainable software design.

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

I always loved the visual aesthetic of dithering but never knew how it’s done. So I did some research. This article may contain traces of nostalgia and none of Lena.

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 plastics industry has heralded a type of chemical recycling it claims could replace new shopping bags and candy wrappers with old ones — but not much is being recycled at all, and this method won’t curb the crisis.

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.

This guide explains everything you need to know to build stand-alone photovoltaic systems that can power almost anything you want.

Billions of phones will be hoarded in drawers and cupboards or thrown away rather than recycled, studies suggest.

A naturally intelligent network programmed by the sun.

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.

When designing computer systems, one is often faced with a choice between using a more or less powerful language for publishing information, for expressing constraints, or for solving some problem. This finding explores tradeoffs relating the choice of language to reusability of information. The "Rule of Least Power" suggests choosing the least powerful language suitable for a given purpose.

On the need for low-carbon and sustainable computing and the path towards zero-carbon computing.

Wim Vanderbauwhede takes a look at the environmental cost of computing and argues that it must change radically if we don't want it to further fuel the climate crisis.

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.