iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 01/09/2026

Kind of you - I've long been inspired by the creativity in your own work. Excited to get your copy to you, Ivy!

Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 01/09/2026

Not to my knowledge; this was an idea designed specifically around the content of this book. (Ada hoped for such a construction, a quote from these Notes is in the second image!) The original was a standard codex - we got to review a copy at MIT Libraries' Distinctive Collections.

"Our diagram ought in reality to be placed side by side with M. Menabrea’s corresponding table, so as to be compared with it, line for line belonging to each operation. But it was unfortunately inconvenient to print them in this desirable form." -Ada Lovelace, Note D

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 01/09/2026

Too kind of you, Martin. Excited to get your copy to you!

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Martin Kleppmann @martin.kleppmann.com · 01/09/2026

Oh this looks amazing. Instant impulse purchase

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 01/09/2026

We're releasing the first printing of a handmade book with a unique construction that celebrates this storied and layered piece of computing history. You can pick up your copy here! And, as always, thank you for supporting our indie press & bindery. buddybindery.com/products/ada...

buddybindery.com

Ada Lovelace's Notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine

Made by hand, one at a time. Ships in 3 - 4 weeks. This book is a new typesetting and construction of Ada Lovelace’s extensive notes on, along with her translation of, L. F. Menabrea’s Sketch of the A...

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 01/09/2026

A century before we would move from fixed-program computers to reprogrammable ones, Ada Lovelace realized that the Analytical Engine was capable of universal computation. Reading her Notes is thrilling for her awestruck articulation of these ideas. Available now; link in reply.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 31/08/2026

We will leave it open so folks can get their submissions in any time / any time zone. So: no pressure on a particular time!

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Axel Möllerberg @axeberg.dev · 24/08/2026

Oh joy, this gem by @alexanderobenauer.com finally landed in my mailbox today. 😍

A photograph of the paperback cover of Bootstrapping Computing - How computing works, from bits to browsers by Alexander D. Obenauer.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 19/08/2026

Over the last several months, we've been working on a new, physical version of Ada Lovelace’s notes. This project was a lot of work, and a lot of fun.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 18/08/2026

Our friend Andy Milburn had the idea for this unique construction. Funnily enough, Lovelace wanted something similar herself. May printers inconvenience you no more, Ada.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 18/08/2026

A few cool things: We got to spend some time with one of the original copies at MIT Libraries. This helped us make the fold-out accurate, and clear the air on some other questions. We also built our own in-house typesetting and publishing software, "Pigment", to make this book.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 18/08/2026

The book is a diptych with Lovelace’s translation of Menabrea’s 1843 Sketch of the Analytical Engine on the left, and her extensive Notes A – G on the right, held in place by bronze Chicago screws. Lovelace's writing is set in black, everything else in red.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 18/08/2026

Friends! Our next release: Ada Lovelace's Notes on the Analytical Engine, in a unique construction, with a new typesetting, and a facsimile of Note G's fold-out. Available in September. Sign up for an email notification at the link. More details below! buddybindery.com/products/ada...

buddybindery.com

Ada Lovelace's Notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine

This book is a new typesetting and construction of Ada Lovelace’s extensive notes on, along with her translation of, L. F. Menabrea’s Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, Esq. ...

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 03/08/2026

...Followed closely by new Library of Congress Control Number day!

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 31/07/2026

Hopefully grandpa doesn't mind this expense. Had to be done.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 26/07/2026

Happy new ISBN day! Always a happy day when a project reaches this point.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 20/07/2026

Something I haven't gotten to say in a while... new lab note today! It's on a kind of user interface that pops up only occasionally: the extemporaneous UI that allows users to 'wave their wand' & get the interface they need through direct interaction. Read on: alexanderobenauer.com/labnotes/041/

alexanderobenauer.com

LN 041: Extemporaneous UIs

Tear-off menus, quantized semantic zoom, and spatial computational canvases show us one approach to frictionless malleable interfaces.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 10/07/2026

- We hope that submissions move into concrete, actionable visions. To quote John, my coeditor, from a recent email to a potential contributor:

With this new book we are trying with equal enthusiasm & sincerity to curate a collection of essays that not only put forward sharp ideological positions (which are undeniably important to synthesize and articulate) but then also to extrapolate forward from those positions past the merely abstract to offer concrete prescriptions for building actual new things to move the world out of its present surly quagmire. Our field is notably bad at the former (though naturally with scattered exceptions); doing the first and then the second in a continuous gesture is a feat in any field. But to some extent doing that very thing right -- pulling off that feat and plenty of it -- now has a kind of lest-we-slip-into-a-metaphoric-but-maybe-also-literal-dark-ages feel to it, so here we go.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 10/07/2026

... Even from within the field, we're hoping for discussion across many topics. - Submissions can be bespoke typesets / layouts; they do not have to be plain text. - Contributors need no qualifications. Come as you are.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 10/07/2026

Submissions are open until August 31! Answering some frequently asked questions: - Submissions should be complete, but do not have to be final drafts. - Submissions do not have to be about one particular topic. We're looking for expertise from many domains beyond CS. [...]

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 24/06/2026

Thanks Ady! Looks like it was an issue with Shopify, but should be resolved now. If it still isn't loading for you, let me know!

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 17/06/2026

We have extended the submission deadline to Monday, August 31! We wanted to make sure folks have enough time to explore their wildest ideas. Take some time this summer to write a chapter submission for Augment!

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 16/06/2026

Beware the plan! It doesn't know what you know.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 03/06/2026

We also have a "proposals" form if you'd like to get feedback on your idea before a full submission. Some wonderful submissions have already filtered in that way! And we have a "nominations" form if you'd like to submit a prompt for someone - a good prompt can be a wonderful gift.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 03/06/2026

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Pete Millspaugh @petemillspaugh.com · 18/05/2026

excited about this! more good writing on the internet should make its way to print (especially if Sarah and Alex are the ones printing!)

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 15/05/2026

Very excited to be a part of this, and to be writing about the things we want to see and experience and build, rather than responding to the avalanche of badness that's happening around us.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 15/05/2026

For Augment, we turned to our good friend and prolific creator of novel user interfaces, John Underkoffler, who will be coeditor. Confirmed authors include Alan Kay, Alex McDowell, and Ben Fry. We're excited to put what we've learned to use publishing new work by many thinkers & authors in Augment!

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 15/05/2026

When we started our small press, we set out to learn how to make great books - enduring in both content and construction - and we hoped we’d get the chance to bring others’ works to life within them.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 15/05/2026

There’s so much wonderful writing and idea-sharing happening online in the field right now. Augment is meant to be an enduring artifact putting a spotlight on this kind of work, and offering some guidance for its future.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 15/05/2026

We’re opening a call for submissions today: buddybindery.com/pages/augment We hope you’ll share it with those you think might write great essays for Augment, and even consider writing one yourself.

buddybindery.com

Augment

A collection of essays on the future of personal computing — specifically, on the kind we’d like to see more of in the future, and the ideas that might help us get there.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 15/05/2026

Today, I'm excited to announce our next title! "Augment" is a forthcoming book featuring a collection of essays on the future of personal computing — specifically, on the kind we’d like to see more of in the future, and the ideas that might help us get there.

Augment is a forthcoming collection of essays on the future of personal computing: specifically, on the kind we as a species need in order to move beyond our stuck present, and on the ideas that will help us get there. This book is meant to serve as guidance and inspiration as we build a next generation of hardware, software, and systems.

We hope you’ll share this page with those you think might write great essays for Augment, and even consider writing one yourself. Submissions are due by July 31.

The technology field is today in a precarious state. A tsunamic tide of commercial thinking has managed the wholesale capture of practitioners, institutions, and dialogue. This capture has drained all imagination from our surround, and so actual invention has slid likewise near to zero. Along the way, the systems meant first to extend human reach have instead become dull and clanking manacles.

Yet the same quality that makes technology easy to hijack — that massless, abstract ductility — leaves it as easy to re-form. The opportunity is still with us, undimmed, to build anew the beautiful thing, the powerful thing, the luminous thing, the human thing. This then is the invitation: to trawl a net through waters that, far enough down, remain idea-rich and that, with care, might still teem.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 15/05/2026

I'll write more about this later on, but for my early-morning and other-continent friends, details are up now!

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 12/05/2026

This Friday, I'm excited to share details on an upcoming title we're working on at Buddy Bindery & Press, plus how you can help us make it great. Stay tuned for more.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 08/04/2026

If you read Bootstrapping Computing, what questions did you walk away from it with? Did you look anything up while reading it? Anything in it you could do without, or that served only to confuse?

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 11/04/2026

We had to say goodbye to my grandpa this week. (He had a big influence on me. Least importantly, but most tangibly, if it weren't for him I might not be in software.) My sister wrote a beautiful article about him, it's a lovely exploration of a person: britobenauer.substack.com/p/my-grandpa...

britobenauer.substack.com

my grandpa's charm

unlike any other

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 11/04/2026

britobenauer.substack.com

my grandpa's charm

unlike any other

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 09/04/2026

I had no preparation for the phase of life during which loved ones are passing away regularly. I'm not sure what that preparation might have been, but I still feel utterly unequipped.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 08/04/2026

If you read Bootstrapping Computing, what questions did you walk away from it with? Did you look anything up while reading it? Anything in it you could do without, or that served only to confuse?

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 20/03/2026

Some personal news: Sarah and I (and Cheesesteak) moved to Boston earlier this year. We've fallen more in love with the city since Sarah started grad school here a couple years back. Looking for a space for Buddy Bindery & Press; and looking forward to meeting who's around!

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 21/01/2026

Here it is, your moment of zen.

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Alexander Obenauer @alexanderobenauer.com · 20/01/2026

It’s surprisingly easy to get started, particularly in comparison to other “making things” hobbies (woodworking, homebrewing, etc.)

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