Alexander Obenauer
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alexanderobenauer.com
Alexander Obenauer
@alexanderobenauer.com
1.2K followers 100 following 140 posts
I'm exploring the interfaces with which we think & the future of personal computing

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alexanderobenauer.com
11 years ago, we launched a product that let you use random, unique email addresses for each sender (now common!)

We signed up for tons of big co's newsletters to see who we'd catch selling your email address.

Only one truly big co did it, and they did it nonstop: NYT.
openai.zpravobot.news.ap.brid.gy OpenAI :bot: @openai.zpravobot.news.ap.brid.gy · 5h
A letter from our CISO: "Fighting the New York Times’ invasion of user privacy"
https://openai.com/index/fighting-nyt-user-privacy-invasion/
November 12, 2025 at 2:46 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
This week:

Making books and tending the fire.
November 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
Part 2 is out now.

It’s about why the work we do in pursuit of composable systems and malleable software matters a great deal.

Link in reply & background in thread!
alexanderobenauer.com Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 23d
Part 2 of my 2024 essay, hitting the 'net this week;

On the moral imperative for composable systems & malleable software.
October 23, 2025 at 3:27 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
It can be hard to discern and communicate why you're so drawn to some work. You're circling around something, but you're not sure what.

By your nature, you hold some principle that is in conflict with reality; you can see yourself circling around it.
October 23, 2025 at 2:26 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
If you have access to a dark sky, tonight’s a great night to spend outside!

Orionid meteor shower, and Comet Lemmon, all under a new moon.
October 21, 2025 at 4:21 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
"A knife can cut an avocado, and much more."

These kinds of sentences show up in the most fundamental papers that I return to year after year.

They sound silly out of place, but in my favorite works, they're used to build up to essential guiding ideas and insights!
October 21, 2025 at 1:28 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
Part 2 of my 2024 essay, hitting the 'net this week;

On the moral imperative for composable systems & malleable software.
October 20, 2025 at 3:28 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
An AI coding approach I've liked using, which I first used on this project:

Vibe code the first version. Investigate the code for its shape, complexities, needs, failure points.

Then scrap all that and engineer a new version.
alexanderobenauer.com Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 28d
This article is now public! Link in reply.

I recreated Jef Raskin's 1987 'Canon Cat' user environment and observed myself as I lived in it for a week.

Implementation details, surprises, and more in the essay.

(Why touch grass when you can read 3.2k words on user environments?)
October 20, 2025 at 3:01 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
This article is now public! Link in reply.

I recreated Jef Raskin's 1987 'Canon Cat' user environment and observed myself as I lived in it for a week.

Implementation details, surprises, and more in the essay.

(Why touch grass when you can read 3.2k words on user environments?)
October 15, 2025 at 2:35 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
I’m going to an event that Tim Berners-Lee will be at for his latest book.

We can submit questions for TBL in advance, so I’ve been considering what I’d ask.

What would you ask?
September 28, 2025 at 9:18 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
Shipped a little refresh to the little lab site.

Also added some graphics made for the User Environments zine to the Canon Cat / Jasper essay 🙂
September 19, 2025 at 1:30 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
One syntax sugar I’ve enjoyed using in the language:

It will match on unlabeled first params for dot calls on any expression of the right type.
One other interesting feature of Wonderful is how it handles certain kinds of dot calls. If a function has an unlabeled first parameter, that function can be used in a dot call on matching types: ```Swift func square(_ num: Int) -> Int { return num * num; } let a = 10; var b: Int; b = square(a); // standard function call b = a.square(); // same result as standard call ``` This matches on any expression of the right type, so you can even use it with literals or more complex expressions: ```Swift func square(_ num: Int) -> Int { return num * num; } var a = 10.square(); var b = (5 * 2).square(); ``` This lets us add member functions to types in the current scope with little formality. And by flipping calls around this way, we can chain the use of functions together which read from left to right: ```Swift func square(_ num: Int) -> Int { return num * num } func double(_ num: Int) -> Int { return num * 2 } func abs(_ num: Int) -> Int { return num < 0 ? -num : num } print((-3).abs().double().square()) // abs(-3)=3, double(3)=6, square(6)=36 ```
September 18, 2025 at 2:45 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
Last month, I started a series diving into the implementation of a user environment for personal computing that I've been working on this year.

The second lab report is out now, on the environment's programming language.
DESIGNING A LANGUAGE FOR THE ITEMIZED ENVIRONMENT September 17 In this lab report, we look at Wonderful, the language purpose-built for handling items and interfaces in the itemized operator environment. I’m in the midst of building a new user environment with the kinds of ideas that I’ve been exploring for personal computing’s future. Over the course of several lab reports, we’re looking at how this user environment works, inside and out. In the last lab report, we explored the Item Store, a database of chronological facts that serves as our persistent storage layer in the itemized environment. Now, we’re going to take a look at the programming language purpose-built for handling items and interfaces in this environment. It has several features that help interfaces connect to the item store, and for users to iterate on their interfaces and programs from within their normal operating spaces, interacting with code items with the same benefits they gain from the rest of their things existing in an itemized environment. First, we’ll look at the basics of the language, then dive into some ways it serves the particulars of an itemized environment. Finally, we will look at how it is internally architected to allow the itemization of its own code — so that it can be further developed in-environment, with the benefits of an itemized IDE interface.
September 17, 2025 at 4:58 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
This week:

Making books and watching turkeys.
September 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Alexander Obenauer
alexanderobenauer.com
This year, I’ve been building a user environment that reifies personal computing of the kind I’ve explored for the last several years — something I can fully live in.

I'm kicking off a series of lab reports that take a deep dive into this environment's implementation.
Building an Item Store for the itemized environment *In this lab report, we look at the _Item Store_, a database of chronological facts that serves as the itemized environment's persistent storage.* This year, I've been hard at work building a user environment that reifies personal computing of the kind I've explored for the last several years — something I can fully live in. Over the next several lab reports, we're going to take a deep dive into this environment and its implementation, as well as a bit of the project's philosophy. This first report is on the environment's storage mechanism. The next one will cover the environment's programming language. After that, we'll move toward the environment's interface. First, we will look at the kinds of ideas the Item Store was built to support. Then we will look at how the Item Store works, highlighting some key implementation details. "Deleting" in the item store is not the same as "erasing". Here's the implementation for a function that deletes a fact: ```Swift func deleteFact(_ fact: Fact) { insert(fact: Fact( factId: fact.factId, itemId: fact.itemId, attribute: fact.attribute, value: fact.value, numericalValue: fact.numericalValue, type: fact.type, flags: fact.flags ^ 1, timestamp: Date() )) } ``` When we delete a fact, we are actually inserting a new fact describing the earlier one as deleted. This means that the item store can be a complete chronology of the items it describes. We can also mark an entire item as deleted, and when we do so, we can name a successor item: ```Swift ItemStore.shared.deleteItem(itemId: "1", successorItemId: "2") ``` This creates a reference between the deleted item and the successor item, helping to describe your item graph's connections more completely. For example, when you send an email, a "draft" email item is deleted, but can be referenced by the "sent" message that succeeds it. When you view that sent message later, it can be easy to jump into its draft, to view earlier variations, this way.
August 28, 2025 at 1:44 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
This year, I’ve been building a user environment that reifies personal computing of the kind I’ve explored for the last several years — something I can fully live in.

I'm kicking off a series of lab reports that take a deep dive into this environment's implementation.
Building an Item Store for the itemized environment *In this lab report, we look at the _Item Store_, a database of chronological facts that serves as the itemized environment's persistent storage.* This year, I've been hard at work building a user environment that reifies personal computing of the kind I've explored for the last several years — something I can fully live in. Over the next several lab reports, we're going to take a deep dive into this environment and its implementation, as well as a bit of the project's philosophy. This first report is on the environment's storage mechanism. The next one will cover the environment's programming language. After that, we'll move toward the environment's interface. First, we will look at the kinds of ideas the Item Store was built to support. Then we will look at how the Item Store works, highlighting some key implementation details. "Deleting" in the item store is not the same as "erasing". Here's the implementation for a function that deletes a fact: ```Swift func deleteFact(_ fact: Fact) { insert(fact: Fact( factId: fact.factId, itemId: fact.itemId, attribute: fact.attribute, value: fact.value, numericalValue: fact.numericalValue, type: fact.type, flags: fact.flags ^ 1, timestamp: Date() )) } ``` When we delete a fact, we are actually inserting a new fact describing the earlier one as deleted. This means that the item store can be a complete chronology of the items it describes. We can also mark an entire item as deleted, and when we do so, we can name a successor item: ```Swift ItemStore.shared.deleteItem(itemId: "1", successorItemId: "2") ``` This creates a reference between the deleted item and the successor item, helping to describe your item graph's connections more completely. For example, when you send an email, a "draft" email item is deleted, but can be referenced by the "sent" message that succeeds it. When you view that sent message later, it can be easy to jump into its draft, to view earlier variations, this way.
August 28, 2025 at 1:44 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
Roughly a quarter of the first ten years of Sarah and my marriage was spent on (very) long road trips.

This had the delightful effect of slowing down time, and the associations of places with times improved my (typically poor) recall: the years on the road are filled with inseparable memories.
It’s funny to have such a strong association of times with places. Lots of specific times in our lives were spent in distinct places, so my recall of memories often starts at this association. It’s also interesting to note that time slowed down when we were on the road. Particularly for the longer-than-a-year trips, when the year was packed with so many different places, each week or month holds distinct memories that don’t blur together. The gradual acceleration of life’s time was put on hold.
August 26, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Alexander Obenauer
alexanderobenauer.com
Prototyping zines
August 22, 2025 at 4:50 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
Prototyping zines
August 22, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Alexander Obenauer
alexanderobenauer.com
carpe noctem
August 18, 2025 at 6:46 AM
alexanderobenauer.com
carpe noctem
August 18, 2025 at 6:46 AM
alexanderobenauer.com
I have enjoyed my work at the computer significantly more since starting to bind books daily.

Not that I didn’t enjoy it before, but there’s some kind of forced balance that I think I needed.
alexanderobenauer.com Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · Jul 30
This week:

Making books and watching deer.
August 15, 2025 at 5:42 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
This week:

Making books and watching deer.
July 30, 2025 at 4:29 PM
alexanderobenauer.com
I gave Claude Code access to my Obsidian vault and asked it to give me some questions / prompts. It asked things like:

- What forces preserve mediocre interfaces?
- How do we escape vendor-imposed constraints on our thinking?

Here's a small taste:
July 28, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Alexander Obenauer
narphorium.com
Excited to pore over this new book from Buddy Bindery. Thank you @alexanderobenauer.com for sharing your artistry with the world
July 25, 2025 at 1:51 AM