Live data from Hacker News

Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

100r.co

21–30 of 504 posts

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#21

I had the good fortune to meet and spend some time with Devine at Handmade Seattle a couple of years ago. It was an absolutely wonderful, inspiring experience.

Wishing to thank you for your comment, please, do tell. Can imagine it would have been (inspiring, etc.).-

They are exactly like you'd imagine from their online work.

Extremely passionate about ecology. Pessimistic about where the world is headed but optimistic about our individual ability to cope with it.

Super into low-level programming and old school pixel art and that whole aesthetic.

Absolutely full of stories about sailing. And just completely present in conversation.

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#22
post #5

My solution would have been: older copies of photoshop that don't require an internet connection and a larger battery + solar panels.

A larger battery and more solar panels doesn’t seem to be an option for the authors: > The modern stack doesn't really work for us, it doesn't apply to the limitations that we have on the boat. We have 180 watts of solar. We just spent the whole summer with two 6-volt batteries, which is very small. When you're going down that route, at every turn people are telling to just put more solar panels, or to buy more batte…

The constraints" are amazing. And basically *drive* good solutions.-

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It keeps bouncing between too real and too absurd. Absurd: Not enough power on our sailboat to run Ableton and Photoshop. Real: So we replaced it with open source technology. Absurd: That technology was based on Electron. Real: Electron was too bloated. Absurd: So we ported everything over to the NES. Real: And now you can run our software anywhere you can emulate an NES

Exactly my feeling.- PS. Which leads me - tangentially - to think that (maybe) the solution to (at least) some of our problems might someday be found in a cult :) Who knows ... > Absurd: So we ported everything over to the NES. This was grand. The NES as a most effective "baseline" platform. Can totally see humanity sending out an NES emulator on Voyager VI as a last gasp.-

> PS. Which leads me - tangentially - to think that (maybe) the solution to (at least) some of our problems might someday be found in a cult :)

The major religions have been beating that dead horse for a long time.

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wishing to thank you for your comment, please, do tell. Can imagine it would have been (inspiring, etc.).-

They are exactly like you'd imagine from their online work. Extremely passionate about ecology. Pessimistic about where the world is headed but optimistic about our individual ability to cope with it. Super into low-level programming and old school pixel art and that whole aesthetic. Absolutely full of stories about sailing. And just completely present in conversation.

> Pessimistic about where the world is headed but optimistic about our individual ability to cope with it.

Therein lies one key, methinks. I find that refreshing. It seems a viable "compromise", and, a solution to "data disaster driven dispair" :)

... faith in the individual.-

> And just completely present in conversation.

Incredible.-

Many thanks for sharing.-

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They run 9front, much better than XP and 7. No reinstalls, no DLL hells, everything it's statically compiled, updates can be done totally in place and offline. Good luck running Windows 7 on an RPI and with a laughable power draw. Oh, and don't even compare VS + MSDN documentations (huge GB's wasted) vs what Acme can do and just the plan9's 9.intro.pdf book. The disk usage would wear out any SD in days. 9front, otoh,…

The constraints under which they work are wonderful. Power included. It basically mandates excellence, efficiency.-

Not just that. For any non-JS web, they can compile and share netsurf offline from 9front and happily post at HN or read lots of sites such as http://68k.news and https://midnight.pub

And, with a Gemini client for 9front (there are a few), between the gemini 'capsules' (sites and blogs) and gemini://gemi.dev (web decrafying proxy to gemini, where you can read news stripping out the 95% of the pages, scripts, trackers and all the bullshit, they can get totally covered.

Gopher9 (Gopher client) makes a good point with gopher://magical.fish for global news, translation services and such. Much less bandwidth spent than the web, for sure.

With a bare irc client (again, literally few lines of shell scripting under 9front due how's designed) they can connect to the public IRC servers from bitlbee.org and connect to modern disservices such as Discord and Slack, at least being able to chat against their peers.

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#26

Their philosophy makes me think they should just use Windows XP/7 or something and call it a day. Offline first? “past-proofing”? These are desktop and console programs where the OS vendors have spent onerous amounts of capital to maintain backward API compatibility. In other words: Windows and Win32, and nothing but. Everything else, including the Web, has been broken and deprecated several times over.

I think their philosophy / research is in understanding how to build modern software that is more resilient. So from that research/exploration standpoint it makes sense to me they would go that route instead of using older tech

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#27

Their 2d music programming language, Orca is very cool/fun. Some examples: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MNF8SF69QvM&list=PLb1uDATFJPcEEG... https://youtube.com/watch?v=DBI8eBMGyYs https://youtube.com/watch?v=mxr8Dtw2R5w https://youtube.com/watch?v=RDZiKYSGsjg

Orca singlehandedly got me out of a multi-year musical rut. It's such an interesting and different way of sequencing than the traditional piano roll experience. Like modular synthesis, it can be easier to just use it like a toy and not make anything "finished", but it really can spark the imagination.

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#28
Occasionally i've stumbled upon some neat tool or beautiful software and i'm like, wow - who's behind this? And then I realize it's these two folks. Their approach is so surprising and inspiring, thanks for putting out some cool stuff into the world!

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my feeling.- PS. Which leads me - tangentially - to think that (maybe) the solution to (at least) some of our problems might someday be found in a cult :) Who knows ... > Absurd: So we ported everything over to the NES. This was grand. The NES as a most effective "baseline" platform. Can totally see humanity sending out an NES emulator on Voyager VI as a last gasp.-

> PS. Which leads me - tangentially - to think that (maybe) the solution to (at least) some of our problems might someday be found in a cult :) The major religions have been beating that dead horse for a long time.

And then resurrecting it.

Re: Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech

#30
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It keeps bouncing between too real and too absurd. Absurd: Not enough power on our sailboat to run Ableton and Photoshop. Real: So we replaced it with open source technology. Absurd: That technology was based on Electron. Real: Electron was too bloated. Absurd: So we ported everything over to the NES. Real: And now you can run our software anywhere you can emulate an NES

Exactly my feeling.- PS. Which leads me - tangentially - to think that (maybe) the solution to (at least) some of our problems might someday be found in a cult :) Who knows ... > Absurd: So we ported everything over to the NES. This was grand. The NES as a most effective "baseline" platform. Can totally see humanity sending out an NES emulator on Voyager VI as a last gasp.-

This is now my headcanon for why the UI of super advanced computers in 80’s sci-fi movies looks the way it does.
Post reply on HN