Some parts (like the AI bit) didn’t age so well, but this is a fascinating piece by all means. I’m reading part II (the 2021 update) now.

viznut.fi has no HTTPS support, so if your browser complains about it just dismiss the warning and go on like it’s the 1990s… 🖧

This is a collection of random thoughts regarding the application of permacultural ideas to the computer world.

via viznut

We use “minimal computing” to refer to computing done under some set of significant constraints of hardware, software, education, network capacity, power, or other factors. Minimal computing includes both the maintenance, refurbishing, and use of machines to do DH work out of necessity along with the use of new streamlined computing hardware like the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino micro controller to do DH work by choice. This dichotomy of choice vs. necessity focuses attention on computing that is decidedly not high-performance. By operating at this intersection between choice and necessity minimal computing forces important concepts and practices within the DH community to the fore. In this way minimal computing is also an critical movement, akin to environmentalism, asking for balance between gains and costs in related areas that include social justice issues and de-manufacturing and reuse, not to mention re-thinking high-income assumptions about “e-waste” and what people do with it. Minimal computing thus relates to issues of aesthetics, culture, environment, global relationships of power and knowledge production, and other economic, infrastructural and material conditions.

They are not active anymore. They have a cute abacus as a logo.

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

COUNTER-N is a web-based publishing, exchange, and research collection curated by Shintaro Miyazaki and Özgün Eylül İşcen.

The dominant use of personal computers in the 21st century is the functional simulation of non-computers.

Today I spent unnecessary hours chatting online. It could've been... a visit to a bar? Do I have to drink every day? A park? Huh? Where do people talk nowadays? And at winter?

Then I watched some moving pictures. Sure, it could've been a video disk. But the moving pictures I watched would probably never get to me here, in a less-computer world.

Then, I've read some posts in Solderpunk's gemlog. It could've been a book which I don't think would've read.

Then I saved it to this Betula. What would I do elsewise? Cut the article from the book? Rewrite? Hmm, there is photocopy. Oh wait, I don't make copies of content in Betula (although it's a planned feature), I merely comment on them. Yeah, it could've been a notebook. No search though. And no RSS...

I'm not sure I want a world with less computers. Maybe just a little less.

Permacomputing is a nascent concept and a community of practice centred around design principles that embrace limits and constraints as a positive thing in computational culture, and on creativity with scarce computational resources.

Kartik rocking.

Этот процессор может быть выполнен на транзисторах в домашних условиях. Схема строится только на логических элементах NOT, OR, AND, XOR, NOR. Битность можно задать любую добавляя провода и логические элементы в соответствии со схемой. Здесь представлена схема минималистичного 4-х битного варианта на 155 логических элементов.

This processor can be hand-made. The only logic gates the circuit uses are NOT, OR, AND, XOR, NOR. You can adjust the word size by adding more wires and logic gates in line with the circuit. The circuit provided here is a minimalistic 4-bit one with 155 logic components.

Я туда коммитнул чуток текста в ридми!

This is a collection of random thoughts regarding the application of permacultural ideas to the computer world.

Cheapskate installs an outdated OS on an outdated computer with laughable capabilities, yet somehow manages to use it.

Permacomputing is a more sustainable approach to computer and network technology inspired by permaculture. Permacomputing is both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in digital technology.

The Screenless Office is a system for working with media and networks without using a pixel-based display. It is an artistic operating system. The office presents a radically alternative form of everyday human interaction with media. It is constructed using free/libre/open hard- and software components, especially for print, databases, web-scraping and tangible interaction. Currently, it exists as a working prototype with software "bureaus" which allow a user to read and navigate news, web sites and social media entirely with the use of various printers for output and a barcode scanner for input. While our existing software allows for interesting new ways of consuming media, we are currently working to expand the system to make it capable of publishing content and thereby, enabling a provocative possibility for active participation in contemporary social life.

They haven't really got anything to show, and the project seems to be abandoned. And using so much paper, I don't know, seems not so good. But cool concept! I want to learn more, but how?