Alexander Obenauer

Want to receive my work as I publish it?


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Become a member of the Little Lab to support unfettered research that explores computing & the interfaces we think with.

Your support helps ensure that more experiments, essays, lab notes, and other work continue to be published for all.

And you’ll get access to members-only exclusives: early demos, experiments, member essays, and more.

Avatar of a Little Lab member
Avatar of a Little Lab member
Avatar of a Little Lab member
Avatar of a Little Lab member
Avatar of a Little Lab member

Join 50+ members of the Little Lab
in helping to push this work forward.

Together, we will explore new and renewed ideas for the future of personal computing, and evolve experiments that tinker with the ideas we want to see personal computing imbued with.

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Enthusiast

$8 / mo

Get access to all members-only essays, demos, and most experiments.

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Or save 9% by paying annually

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Contributor

$20 / mo

Help make more of this work happen by becoming a contributor. More research, more writing, and more experiments.

Plus, you’ll get access to all published and new member essays, demos, and experiments.

Become a Contributor

Or save 9% by paying annually

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Sponsor

$100 / mo

Become a sponsor of this research. For helping to make this work possible, your name will be included in a section on published essays and project pages.

And you’ll get access to all the member perks, all published and new member essays, demos, and experiments.

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Or save 9% by paying annually

I think of my practice as a “little lab” — an indie research lab-of-one. I work on various experiments and projects exploring the interfaces we think with, and publish lab notes, essays, experiments, a newsletter, and member essays.

You can help fund this work by becoming a member of the Little Lab. It’s like an annual membership to your favorite museum: you support its core work, and as a member, you get special access to it.


For the last several years, I've been exploring the operating system of the future. I believe personal computing harbors a lot of untapped potential. My experiments tinker with new and renewed concepts in search of that potential. As I go, my Lab Notes document these concepts and experiments.

This membership program is now in its second year. You can read more about how its first year went in my annual update from the start of 2023.

In member updates, I share demos of works-in-progress, often discussing what I’d like to see improved before I share these projects more publicly. The first explores OLLOS, an itemized environment that organizes your things on the dimension of time.

This work has also produced an open source implementation of an idea from a lab note, and one long-form essay, The Potential Merits of an Itemized OS. The next essay is in the works now, and it should be published this year.

During its first year, the primary member perk was a Member Magazine, of which two issues were published, with around 15k words between the two of them. Members get access to these as PDFs and EPUBs. You can preview these in the member portal, though only members will be able to sign in to follow the download links.


With your support, more of this work becomes possible, as I can dedicate more time to independent research, writing, and collaborations. If this is something you want to see more of in the world, consider supporting my work with a membership. This is an experiment in community-funded research, something I’d love to see more of in the world as well.

Launching the membership program for its first year, this page used to say: “There’s more I can do with this research — exploring more questions, experimenting with more concepts, and publishing more writing and prototypes.” I’m proud to say that has since come to fruition. Thanks for helping make that possible.

If you would like to support my work in another way, check out Sponsorships. If you have any questions, get in touch.

Want to receive my work as I publish it?