Freeform Computing

Today was the second computer folkraft meetup that I have attended and it is increasingly inspiring to explore the ideas of solving community issues with collective computing skills. We have become increasingly reliant on, or even worse in an inescapable position of being tied to big tech for daily needs. The two questions that arise often from this...How can we cut these ties? Which is often answered with an all or nothing path forward. Use it or don't...

But the second is...How can we build our own alternative means and tools that function similarly, if not better than the ones big tech delivers to us? It is almost a brand of nouveau anarcho-primitivism, but actually cool. There is something exciting about the idea of collective labor, action, and support that goes into the realm of modern technology. When I first began studying and absorbing these ideals as a teenager, I would not have thought this would be part of it, or maybe back then it was just called "hacker culture".

I really love the idea of having a skillset that could simplify or benefit the members of a small community, either by saving money or having a tool or technology more tailored to the needs of that community. The website that this site is housed is part of that, on a community server. Converting my SUNY course slides to accessible HTML, not just for the web but for greater accessibility for those who use screenreaders or just want to use on any device quickly. Tonight we also discussed building a community calendar for events in the surrounding counties. If nothing else, it brings a bunch of like-minded people together to tend to the needs of the community in a special way, since tech is now so intertwined in all of our lives.

I like this idea of freeform computing and simplifying the weight of technolgy through exercising my own skills to make it so. My music making tools are all in-house with Signal Crate, what else is next. Either way, I am excited for these future meetups to see what else can be done!

March 5, 2026 Oneonta, NY

---