“There’s a common misconception that state-of-the-art technology has to be expensive, energy consumptive and hard to engineer. That’s because we have been persuaded to believe that #InnovativeTechnology is whatever bombastic billionaires claim it is, whether that’s commercial #spacecraft or the endless iterations of generative #AItools.

As the #Canadian #technologist and #engineer #UrsulaFranklin once said, fantasies of technology would have it that innovation is always “investment-driven, shiny, lab-born, experimental, exciting”. But more often than not, in the real world, it is “#NeedsDriven, #scrappy, on #location, #iterative, #practical, #mundane”.

The real pioneering #technologies of today are genuinely useful #systems I like to call “frugal tech”, and they are brought to life not by eccentric billionaires but by people doing more with less. They don’t impose #TopDown#solutions” that seem to complicate our lives while making a few people very rich. It turns out that genuinely #innovative #technology really can set people free.” — Eleanor Drage

#OpEd / #EleanorDrage / #tech / #FrugalTech / #Cambridge #LeverhulmeCentre / #FutureOfIntelligence <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/02/billionaire-big-tech-frugal-elon-musk-innovation>

Enough of the billionaires and their big tech. ‘Frugal tech’ will build us all a better world

Titans like Musk would love us to believe innovation means top-down solutions that only enrich the wealthy. In fact, we all have the power, says Eleanor Drage, research fellow at Cambridge University

The Guardian

And now, our software boots up on our hardware prototype of the #SmolPhone The keyboard kinda works, too. More work in the future but OK for now.

The substrate is able to display a "modern" UI with buttons, text areas, labels, checkbox and such under the RP2040 constraints (about 200k of RAM but rather OK compute power).

The goal is to allow users to build apps with lua scripts, as in #Scrappy https://jrcpl.us/contrib/2025/Scrappy Maybe before the end of the year, if we're lucky.

#LowNum #FrugalComputing

Pontus Granström: Scrappy: make little apps for you and your friends. “First and foremost, we aim to contribute a vision of what home-made software could be like. We want to make this vision as concrete as we can, by sharing a working tool and examples of apps made in it. Scrappy, in its current state, is a prototype, not a robust tool, but we hope it paints the picture we carry in our heads […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/06/15/scrappy-make-little-apps-for-you-and-your-friends-pontus-granstrom/

Scrappy: make little apps for you and your friends (Pontus Granström) | ResearchBuzz: Firehose

ResearchBuzz: Firehose | Individual posts from ResearchBuzz

Gives a whole new meaning to “personal software.”

Scrappy, by John Chang and Pontus Granström, is a research prototype that helps you make software for just you and your friends.

Hat tip: davew@mastodon.social.

https://pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/ #software #scrappy #LittleApps

Scrappy

make little apps for you and your friends

Gives a whole new meaning to “personal software.” Scrappy, by @jrcpl.us and Pontus Granström, is a research prototype that helps you make software for just you and your friends. Hat tip: @scripting.com. pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/ #software #scrappy #LittleApps

Scrappy
John Chang (@jrcpl.us)

Immigrant (🇺🇸🇸🇪🇪🇺🇹🇼), Silicon Valley refugee (ex-Apple, Skype, Microsoft). #web0 #bicyclesforthemind. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Bluesky Social

The “messiness” of DWeb isn’t a limit. It’s exactly what makes it special and wonderful in the first place!

Check out this interesting reflection by @weswalla 🏞️

https://dwebyvr.org/the-messy-adventure-called-dweb/

#DWeb #decemtralization #experimental #scrappy

The Messy Adventure Called DWeb

The modern web as we know it is embedded deeply in our cultures and day-to-day lives. From social media to instant messaging to 4K streaming, we have become accustomed to a particular set of features, setting our expectations about what it should feel like to use modern software. We expect

DWeb Vancouver

Every once in a while, I enjoy having a closer look at my Postage Stamp with a Twist quilt.
It has over two thousand 1” (finished size) squares of scrap fabric - many with memories of past quilts & clothing. 🥰👏❤️

https://youtube.com/shorts/EDX1cmKc7Hs

#scrappy #quilt

Before you continue to YouTube

Next, I spent some time matching up micro-blocks to create scrappy 4-patch blocks. Sewing them all took over an hour, and pressing them all took at least that long (probably longer). But the trimming! Gods, the trimming! Very time-consuming. All told, today's effort took me about 6 (?) hours, give or take. I ended up with 91 scrappy 4-patch mini-blocks, and 10 scrappy 6-patch blocks (just to get a little fancy).

#quilt #quilting #sewing #fabric #scrappy #ScrapQuilting