https://folk.computer/ 2026-06-04T04:17:22+00:00 https://folk.computer/ https://folk.computer/_media/logo.png text/html 2023-11-01T23:01:24+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2023-10?rev=1698879684&do=diff October 2023 newsletter What we've been up to Applications and demos * Andrés: New guide on how to make a paper button: button * Really want to do more of these very specific technical/physical guides -- that's kind of what's nice about this newsletter, it can be very concrete and not explicitly philosophical but still communicate the underlying philosophical points text/html 2023-11-30T22:48:35+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2023-11?rev=1701384515&do=diff November 2023 newsletter What we've been up to Applications and demos * Naveen Michaud-Agrawal has been playing with the new shader system that we introduced last month to draw various complex things that were impossible (or at least very slow) before. 3D bunny that Naveen rotates by rotating his cardboard dial: * * (Omar: “it would be cool if instead of a planar dial you had some kind of text/html 2023-12-30T23:20:11+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2023-12?rev=1703978411&do=diff December 2023 newsletter It's been a big year. Hard to believe that a year ago, there was exactly 1 Folk system in the world (the original one, folk0 at Hex House) & it ran about ten times slower than what we have now and could barely do anything besides display text and outlines. But there's still an enormous amount to do text/html 2024-02-01T21:44:19+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-01?rev=1706823859&do=diff January 2024 newsletter What we've been up to In-system editor We're really happy to announce that the tabletop editor has been merged. We've been working on it on and off since early last year, and although there's still a lot to do, we think it makes Folk feel like an entirely different kind of system now that it's in place. Folk is now a 'real' computer, in the sense that it can be text/html 2024-02-29T22:22:45+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-02?rev=1709245365&do=diff February 2024 newsletter What we've been up to Demos * Vedran Budimcic made a train set demo at home: * Vedran is also starting work on a Scratch-like environment: * Forrest O. has a nice reel on Instagram emphasizing “craft computing” and the hand-made element of interacting with Folk, he makes these individual hexagon tiles text/html 2024-04-02T02:48:08+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-03?rev=1712026088&do=diff March 2024 newsletter What we've been up to Demos * Andrés: Progress on the template matching games demo * Continuing from the work I was doing last month I started by making the tracking more accurate by adjusting the algorithm OpenCV uses to find the images. There's still noise in some lighting conditions but it's generally much more reliable now. text/html 2024-05-02T02:07:21+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-04?rev=1714615641&do=diff April 2024 newsletter What we've been up to Demos * Jacob Haip has been doing microcontroller integrations with Folk, so you can press a physical button or slide a real slider or light up real LEDs: he wrote a great note about these integrations and his use of the MQTT protocol * Omar: I really liked this example of 4 buttons that can play different songs on Spotify: text/html 2024-06-03T00:45:32+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-05?rev=1717375532&do=diff May 2024 newsletter What we've been up to Demos * Cristóbal Sciutto has been working on a demo that uses Folk to display book covers from a digital library -- under the hood, it's doing some fun new things with calibre-server: * * * Omar: Two observations about Cristóbal's library system: text/html 2024-07-01T08:37:59+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-06?rev=1719823079&do=diff June 2024 newsletter What we've been up to Demos * We printed the 1000th program on folk0 at Hex House! * * Our friend Kevin Kwok came by and reprogrammed his crank gadget to display Folk program AprilTags; we cranked through a lot of the history on folk0, which was fun text/html 2024-08-01T02:56:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-07?rev=1722480993&do=diff July 2024 newsletter What we've been up to Demos * Jessie Grosen made a SuperCollider-based audio system using Folk, over at Recurse Center in Downtown Brooklyn: * * (Jessie has been building on some of the work that Ian Clester did on music in Folk last year) * (also building on Cristóbal Sciutto's hands!) * Andrés made a “container text/html 2024-09-04T02:36:09+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-08?rev=1725417369&do=diff August 2024 newsletter (If you enjoy following our progress and want us to continue, definitely consider sponsoring Folk on GitHub Sponsors.) Some links, especially if you're new to Folk: * Our next Folk open house is on the night of Saturday, September 28, 7-9PM, at our studio in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. * Pilot page * Meet with Andrés (virtually, 10 minutes) about setting up your own Folk instance What we've been up to text/html 2024-10-01T03:47:10+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-09?rev=1727754430&do=diff September 2024 newsletter What we've been up to * Andrés will be giving the opening keynote at Causal Islands Berlin on this Friday, October 4. * The talk will use a Folk gadget to control slides, demonstrate Folk, and explain the technology and vision behind Folk. We'll link the recording of the talk in the newsletter next month. text/html 2024-10-31T10:04:36+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-10?rev=1730369076&do=diff October 2024 newsletter (Our next Folk open house is on the evening of Wednesday, November 20, at our studio in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.) What we've been up to Talks and presentations Multiple talks and presentations this month: * Andrés gave a keynote talk at Causal Islands in Berlin on October 4; they brought a portable gadget to Berlin and demoed it during the talk text/html 2024-12-01T04:09:42+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-11?rev=1733026182&do=diff November 2024 newsletter (Our next Folk open house is at noon on Sunday, December 15, at our studio in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.) What we've been up to Small system improvements * Andrés added: * Print notice when you hit Print, both on web and tabletop editor * text/html 2024-12-31T22:24:55+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2024-12?rev=1735683895&do=diff December 2024 newsletter Thanks for following along so far! We've been working on a lot of big projects in 2024 -- many still under way (parallel evaluator, gadget design, RFID tag localization, video playback) -- but we've gotten a decent amount done this year: text/html 2025-02-03T03:46:11+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-01?rev=1738554371&do=diff January 2025 newsletter What we've been up to General Folk system improvements * Andrés and Mason Jones improved calibration instructions: clarified wording to be more explicit about lifting the board above the table and added an example video of calibration; a lot of people have been really confused by calibration and have reported that it doesn't work (when actually they aren't calibrating it right; usually they're only training on the table plane so it's degenerate), so we've been meanin… text/html 2025-03-31T12:18:04+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-02?rev=1743423484&do=diff February 2025 newsletter * Andrés’s talk from October of last year, at Causal Islands in Berlin, is now up on YouTube: * Omar has been promising people a Folk links/related-work/bibliography page and finally started on it * Our next Folk open house is in the evening on Wednesday, March 26, at our studio in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. text/html 2025-04-01T20:40:31+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-03?rev=1743540031&do=diff March 2025 newsletter (Our next Folk open house is in the evening on Sunday, April 27, at our studio in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Come by!) What we've been up to Demos and applications * (Andrés) Animation binder * I took the animation programs that Cristóbal Sciutto made and put them in a binder, added a binder clip for stacks of paper, and added a wheel for people to adjust the number of frames text/html 2025-05-01T01:57:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-04?rev=1746064653&do=diff April 2025 newsletter We've had a funding shortfall recently -- we'd really appreciate it if you sponsor Folk on GitHub Sponsors if you can, so that we can keep doing this free and open work :-) We’ll be setting up at Rhizome World this Sunday, May 4 (at 161 Water Street in the Financial District). Feel free to say hello; we’ll also be running text/html 2025-06-04T02:25:53+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-05?rev=1749003953&do=diff May 2025 newsletter If you want to stop by the studio, our next Folk open house is in the evening on Monday, June 30, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What we've been up to This has been a less eventful month for the system, aside from folk2 work; we've been spending a lot of time on fundraising and associated paperwork lately (let us know text/html 2025-07-07T11:43:27+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-06?rev=1751888607&do=diff June 2025 newsletter If you want to stop by the studio, our next Folk open house is in the evening on Thursday, July 31, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Workshop interest form If you’d be interested in attending some experimental in-person workshops we’re planning, please fill out this form. We’ll post more updates on workshops on text/html 2025-08-09T07:02:38+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-07?rev=1754722958&do=diff July 2025 newsletter This past month, we gave a talk about the Folk gadget as part of Recurse Center's Localhost series (): (If you want to see the latest gadget yourself, our next Folk open house is in the afternoon on Saturday, August 30, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.) Workshop interest form If you’d be interested in attending some experimental in-person workshops we’re planning, text/html 2025-09-01T01:46:59+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-08?rev=1756691219&do=diff August 2025 newsletter If you'd like to see the latest updates on Folk in person, our next Folk open house is all afternoon (1pm-7pm) on Friday, September 26, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. You're welcome to come just to cowork, or use the afternoon to hack on your own project on our Folk system. text/html 2025-10-02T23:06:12+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-09?rev=1759446372&do=diff September 2025 newsletter If you'd like to see the latest (much more responsive) folk2 and gadget in person, our next Folk open house is in the evening on Thursday, October 30, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What we've been up to Internals notes Mason Jones has been writing overview notes on the internals of the new parallel folk2 evaluator (a lot of it applies to folk1 also): text/html 2025-11-06T21:33:03+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-10?rev=1762464783&do=diff October 2025 newsletter If you'd like to see the latest (much more responsive) folk2 and gadget in person, our next Folk open house is in the evening on Monday, November 24th, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What we've been up to * Andrés has been helping Brian write and add default programs for an introductory booklet to make it easy for new users of Folk systems to get oriented to the language text/html 2025-12-08T20:37:07+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-11?rev=1765226227&do=diff November 2025 newsletter Instead of an open house, we'll be having a Folk Computer v2 Launch Party on Friday, December 12, from 6:30pm to 10pm. There will be snacks and beverages, multiple folk2 systems, a short presentation at 8:30pm showcasing what's new in folk2, and we'll officially hit the Merge button at some point during the night! text/html 2026-01-17T23:48:26+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2025-12?rev=1768693706&do=diff December 2025 newsletter Our next Folk open house is in the evening on Thursday, January 29th, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What we've been up to Nonprofit 501(c)3 Daniel Pipkin: We are now officially a 501c3 nonprofit. This means we can accept tax-deductible donations and are eligible to apply for grants. Folk is a long-term project. Many people want to work on it and even more people want to support its growth and development. When thinking of the possible organizational structures tha… text/html 2026-02-11T04:19:01+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2026-01?rev=1770783541&do=diff January 2026 newsletter Our next Folk open house will be on the evening on Thursday, February 26th, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. RSVP here: ptzbza54 Last month, we officially formed a nonprofit for Folk. We’re trying to get more serious about fundraising — we'd love for you to sponsor us so we can keep doing this work: text/html 2026-03-11T19:14:05+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2026-02?rev=1773256445&do=diff February 2026 newsletter Our next Folk open house will be on Monday, March 30, in our new studio (not Hex House) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. RSVP here: 6jf9czgw We're a nonprofit doing unique open-source research on physical computing and programming -- please consider sponsoring us: text/html 2026-04-23T01:39:27+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2026-03?rev=1776908367&do=diff March 2026 newsletter Our next Folk open house will be on next Monday, April 27, in our new studio (not Hex House) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. RSVP here: toq7zpc7 We're a nonprofit doing unique open-source research on physical computing and programming -- we'd appreciate it if you sponsored us on GitHub: text/html 2026-05-05T20:08:44+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2026-04?rev=1778011724&do=diff April 2026 newsletter Our next Folk open house will be on Thursday, May 28, at our new studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. RSVP here: gmcw2fhy We'll also be giving a talk at School of Visual Arts in Manhattan on this coming Friday, May 8: a93vdm38 What we've been up to text/html 2026-06-03T22:29:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2026-05?rev=1780525773&do=diff May 2026 newsletter Our next Folk open house will be on Tuesday, June 30th, 2026. What we've been up to General system improvements * Added column numbers to Jim Tcl stack traces, so we can get the exact position of an expression like [Field ___] in both x and y (until now, Jim only recorded line numbers, so this change pervades the whole interpreter) text/html 2026-06-01T16:45:38+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://folk.computer/newsletters/2026-06?rev=1780332338&do=diff June 2026 newsletter * Our next Folk open house will be on TODO What we've been up to General system improvements * TODO Outreach Visitors * Andrew Le Clair visited on June 1st: * Andrés walked Andrew through making his first program in Folk using the table editor: