permacomputing

Permacomputing

Permacomputing is a term originating from the demoscene, known for squeezing the most out of very restricted computing resources, such as the 4k intro with a maximum executable file size of 4096 bytes. Artist programmer Ville-Matias Heikkilä, aka Viznut, coined the term in a text he published on his website in 2020 1. What stands out in this writing is the holistic approach to computing and sustainability by taking inspiration from permaculture. In both computing and agriculture, problems are usually solved by increasing control over a process, which often goes hand in hand with an increase in resource use. Permaculture uses methods that lets nature do the work, minimizing the reliance on artificial energy. Heikkilä sees similarities between how both permaculture practitioners and hackers find clever solutions to problems. He writes that the existence of computers can only be justified by their ability to augment the potential of humans to have a strengthening effect on ecosystems.

Permacomputing | viznut

This is a collection of random thoughts regarding the application of permacultural ideas to the computer world.

Permacomputing Update 2021 | viznut

It is now more than a year since I wrote my "early notes" about Permacomputing. At that time, I was not yet aware of anyone else having similar ideas, so I've now decided to write an update that connects my ideas with the existing discussions and activities. I also want to share some new ideas I have been pondering about. This text is about 33K characters / 4900 words long, so allocate your time accordingly.

principles

Contemporary permaculture is founded on three core ethics: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. These ethics serve as a guiding compass for its design principles, co-creating a holistic framework for regenerative living. Similarly, permacomputing is built upon 10 principles that encourage and raise awareness about more sustainable digital practices.

Introducing Hubble: A Public Mirror for the Whole Atmosphere - microcosm

New atproto infrastructure for network resilience, supported by a grant from Bluesky

Perkeep

Perkeep (née Camlistore) is a set of open source formats, protocols, and software for modeling, storing, searching, sharing and synchronizing data in the post-PC era. Data may be files or objects, tweets or 5TB videos, and you can access it via a phone, browser or FUSE filesystem.

Perplexity on Twitter / X

Introducing Perplexity Computer.Computer unifies every current AI capability into one system.It can research, design, code, deploy, and manage any project end-to-end. pic.twitter.com/dZUybl6VkY— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) February 25, 2026

Regenerative Software - The Phoenix Architecture

Perplexity on Twitter / X

New research: Portable Computer is a local-first agent for private and cost-effective work.With an on-device 27B model, our harness scores 82.6% on real knowledge work, beating open-source harnesses Pi and Hermes. Our post-trained PPLX 27B reaches 85.4%. pic.twitter.com/Rb6d47clCI— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) August 25, 2026

Restate - Build innately resilient distributed apps

Restate is a lightweight runtime that lets developers build innately resilient distributed apps without the complexity tax.

Building More Resilient Local-First Software with atproto | jakelazaroff.com

atproto has the potential to become a rock-solid replacement for the most fragile part of any local-first app: the sync server.

Backfilling the Network | Bluesky

Backfilling is the process of syncing all the data in the network from scratch.

The Trace and the Artifact | shishyko!

Our system of research is going through a phase transition. What exactly is wrong, and are there resilience engineering lessons from other systems we can borrow?

Resilient Data Futures — Discourse Graph

A living, content-addressed, contributable form of the SciOS Resilient Data Futures whitepaper.