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The Changelog

Creating communal computers (Interview)

57 min episode · 2 min read
·
Spencer Chang

Episode

57 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Sales & Revenue, Software Development, Product & Tech Trends

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • NFC-embedded ceramics: Physical objects like fortune cookies and tokens contain RFID chips that trigger smartphone experiences through iOS Shortcuts, creating tangible-digital hybrids without requiring backend infrastructure knowledge or complex programming from creators building interactive web experiences.
  • Play HTML library: Open source JavaScript library enables collaborative web elements by adding single attributes to sync state across all users in real-time, with free infrastructure provided to eliminate backend barriers for non-technical creators building multiplayer experiences.
  • Computing shrines concept: Large-scale public sculptures create location-specific digital experiences accessible only at the physical site, like a phone booth where visitors hear the previous person's voice message and record one for the next visitor in an ephemeral chain.
  • Sustainable creative practice: Transitioned from engineering to independent art-technology work by treating creative output as business, securing commissions from organizations like Internet Archive, selling Internet sculptures through online shop, and applying for public art grants to fund experimental projects.

What It Covers

Spencer Chang creates Internet sculptures and computing shrines that blend physical objects with digital experiences using NFC technology, while promoting the Alive Internet Theory as a counter-narrative to dead Internet pessimism.

Key Questions Answered

  • NFC-embedded ceramics: Physical objects like fortune cookies and tokens contain RFID chips that trigger smartphone experiences through iOS Shortcuts, creating tangible-digital hybrids without requiring backend infrastructure knowledge or complex programming from creators building interactive web experiences.
  • Play HTML library: Open source JavaScript library enables collaborative web elements by adding single attributes to sync state across all users in real-time, with free infrastructure provided to eliminate backend barriers for non-technical creators building multiplayer experiences.
  • Computing shrines concept: Large-scale public sculptures create location-specific digital experiences accessible only at the physical site, like a phone booth where visitors hear the previous person's voice message and record one for the next visitor in an ephemeral chain.
  • Sustainable creative practice: Transitioned from engineering to independent art-technology work by treating creative output as business, securing commissions from organizations like Internet Archive, selling Internet sculptures through online shop, and applying for public art grants to fund experimental projects.

Notable Moment

Spencer reveals his website stamp token originated from wanting a physical object to hand people instead of verbally sharing URLs, discovering that ceramic's earthy materiality created more meaningful connections to digital experiences than isolated screen interactions alone.

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Episode Transcript

Hello again or for the first time. If you are new to us, I'm Jared, and you are listening to the change log, where each week, Adam and I interview the hackers, the leaders, and the innovators of the software world. We pick their brains. We learn from their failures. We get inspired by their accomplishments, and we have a lot of fun along the way. On this episode, I'm joined by Spencer Chang who caught our attention with the Alive Internet Theory website. But Spencer creates all kinds of computery things to bring people together around play, connection, and creation. His experiments with computing infused objects inspired him to create an entire line of Internet sculptures and real world computing shrines that will hopefully inspire all of us to keep the Internet alive and flourishing for years to come. But first, a big thank you to our partners at fly.io. That's the public cloud built for developers who ship. We love Fly. You might too. Learn all about it at fly.io. Okay. Spencer Chang creating communal computers on the change log. Let's do it. Well, friends, Agentic Postgres is here, and from our friends over at Tiger Data. This is the very first database built for agents and is built to let you build faster. You know, a fun side note is 80% of Claude was built with AI. Over a year ago, 25% of Google's code was AI generated. It's safe to say that now it's probably close to a 100%. Most people I talk to, most developers I talk to right now, almost all their code is being generated. That's a different world. Here's the deal. Agents are the new developers. They don't click. They don't scroll. They call. They retrieve. They parallelize. They plug in your infrastructure to places you need it to perform, but your database is probably still thinking about humans only because that's kinda where Postgres is at. Tiger Data's philosophy is that when your agents need to spin up sandboxes where migrations query huge volumes of vector and takes data. Well, normal Postgres, it might choke, and so they fix that. Here's where we're at right now. Agentic Postgres delivers these three big leaps, native search and retrieval, instant zero copy forks, and MCP server plus your CLI plus a cool free tier. Now if this is intriguing at all, head over to tigerdata.com. Install the CLI, just three commands, spin up an agent to Postgres service, and let your agents work at the speed they expect, not the speed of the old way. The new way, agent Postgres, it's built for agents, is designed to elevate your developer experience, and build the next big thing. Again, go to tigerdata.com to learn more. Today, I'm joined by Spencer Chang, who made my day earlier this week. Spencer, you made my day with your alive Very nice. Internet theory. I emailed you Even before I, I think, put it in Change of News, …

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  • Play HTML library: Open source JavaScript library enables collaborative web elements by adding single attributes to sync state across all users in real-time, with free infrastructure provided to eliminate backend barriers for non-technical creators building multiplayer experiences.

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