Hello – I'm Omar. I'm interested in new computer interfaces and new ways of programming (aren't these the same thing?). I live in New York City.

• I am mostly hacking on Folk Computer, a new open-source physical computing system.

• I made Screenotate, a tool for macOS and Windows which captures the text and origin (URL, window title, and so on) every time you take a screenshot. (I continue to use it every day!)

• I also made TabFS, a browser extension that exposes your browser tabs as virtual 'files' on your computer, so you can manipulate them like any other files.

• In previous lives, I have worked at Dynamicland – see my Geokit project – and at Stripe and Khan Academy.

If you want to contact me (including if you want to help with any of this):

e-mail | osnr on GitHub | @rsnous on Twitter | @omar@social.omar.website

I'm in the process of reworking this site; please excuse any mess :-) I'm inspired by my friend Leslie Liu, who is constantly adjusting and rewriting her website.

(commonplace)

'tweets'

I have 'tweeted' a fair amount about computers over the last few years, on topics including:

• wanting provenance everywhere, throughout the computer, whether you're programming or looking at data or typing or taking a screenshot or whatever; knowing how the thing was made / the soil that it grew in / the context in which it's actually valid

• getting functionality 'for free' from the architecture of the computer system

• same energy between chip design / games / modern art

• how end-user programming can simplify & improve systems, empower users, remove the need for 'configuration'

• against separating 'content' and 'presentation' / what does "serving a function" really mean?

• the role of dread in computing; weird, intense, consequential feelings that are produced by seemingly-incidental details in how the software works

• how we should lean into existing user 'folk practices' like taking photos, taking screenshots, and using hacked-together spreadsheets

• programming environments as culture; knowledge (of programming, of reading and writing, etc) as something that exists in a community, not a property of one person's head; how the social (imitation) drives what people want to learn and make

  • computing being about controlling I/O devices and producing side effects, the ability to put pictures on the screen and make them move, rather than being about 'computation'

• how the grain of materials and the tractability of doing certain things ends up silently guiding what people do (not necessarily a bad thing -- it can be a source that you can learn from!)

• speculation on how software could have more physicality, spatiality (1, 2, etc), vitality, how a 'toy' might be better than an 'app' or a 'game'

• the 'personal computer'

wrote 🖋 (rss)

'Skew' in the history of computer systems

October 12, 2021

Against recognition

June 28, 2021

Notes from Dynamicland: programming Raspberry Pis

December 7, 2018

⭐ Notes from Dynamicland: Geokit

August 6, 2018

Pinhole: a falling ball demo

August 7, 2014

My favorite regional transit maps

July 18, 2014

Functional reactive Twitter bots

March 18, 2014

Micropolis/SimCity Classic Mac download and build guide

August 31, 2012

talks and podcasts