f00 .sh

f00 · who

The world is a projection.

We are a collective of people who build with machines and with hands — code, print, sound, film, whatever cuts. Not a company. Not a page that loads. A throw of light through imperfect things onto a surface that was never flat. Come unfinished.

A collective, not a vendor

No product roadmap theater. No brand deck. No shopfront. A room of people who make things that refuse to lie about the world. Some of those things are programs. Some are not. All of them are projects we can put next to each other without sanding the soul off. This is done for love.

Projects on the table

The face of f00 is projects — not a membership club. What sits on the hub is the work. People still decide what sits there next. If you steward at least one released project under f00, you hold a vote. One person, one vote — no matter how many projects you already carry. Having one in does not mean the next one walks in.

No gods. No masters. No owners, heads, or leads — only stewards of the work they put down. Titles that rank people over projects do not live here.

How a project gets in

Anyone may propose a project — something that could live on the hub without lying: tool, zine, film, score, show, page. Stewards may also propose their own next work. Every proposal faces a vote of the current voters. Simple majority of votes cast. No weighted ballots. No “I shipped five so I count five.”

A yes is for that project, that time — not a lifetime pass. A no is not exile. Bring it again when it is sharper, or make something else.

Open to the world

Every f00 project is MIT-licensed where it is code, and open to the world either way. Free to read, copy, change, and share. No payments to use the work. Digital drops stay free. Physical things (vinyl, books, zines) may exist only to cover cost and feed the collective pool so more work can ship — not so anyone gets rich. No closed editions dressed as freedom. No “owners” — only stewards of what they put down.

Submission & vote

Propose. Send the scar — outline or work in progress — to tj@f00.sh or @lameserver on X. What it is, why it fits, who would steward it if it lands.

Open. The proposal is written into the open record (a public thread the voters can all see). Stewards get a clear window to vote yes or no. Votes are by person, recorded in the open. Majority of votes cast decides.

Land or not. Yes → the project may take a seat on the hub when it has a real release. No → the idea is free; try again later or elsewhere. Chat rooms may exist for talk. They are not the ledger. The vote lives where anyone can read it later.

Perfection is a math problem

Uniformity only lives in equations. Outside mathematics, nothing is 100% straight, 100% crisp, 100% the same as last time. Snowflakes, fingerprints, zebra stripes, the drip of a brush: pattern without clones. Species you recognize; specimens you never confuse. The only absolute is mathematics.

Order lives inside disorder

Chaos is not a flat smear. A body under skin is organs, not noise. Emulsion can be nearly straight on the film and still arrive bent by light. Some edges stay sharp. Some dissolve. Straightness can survive in places — never everywhere at once, and never by force of a single soft filter.

Every object is a throw

Logo, card, rule, letter, field: each is light through a thing, through a lens, onto a screen. Each has its own seat in the tray — its own gate, keystone, focus, lamp. Not one shared wind moving petals. Not layout jitter dressed up as life. A view of a natural thing, projected onto the display.

Letterpress, not laser

Hand-set type knows the spacer’s hand: kerning that wanders, word spaces that breathe, ink that is almost solid, sorts that sit a hair off square. Close to a line. Never a CAD baseline. Readable first. Alive second. Both required. Design culture chases the pixel until the vision bleeds out. We pull the skin open. We show the organs. Perfect anti-uniformity — natural, organic, entropic — because that is the world.

Usable zen

Entropy is not an excuse for mess. The band is narrow on purpose: enough variation that the eye believes the world, never so much that you cannot read, aim, or rest. Beauty that works. Work that looks like it grew. Cutting edge without the costume.

This is not just coding

Code is one tool. So is ink. So is a camera. So is a zine folded wrong on purpose. So is a song that almost holds together. Software. Print. Sound. Film. Installation. Artists. Coders. Visionaries. Musicians. Bands. Filmmakers. Whatever cuts — if it is a project you can stand next to.

For love, not rent

We do not monetize this directly. No paywall on the work. No funnel. No cup on the sidewalk. We do not beg. We do not panhandle. The practice is quiet: make the thing, put it down, keep walking.

If someone chooses to give, that is allowed — one collective pool only, never per project — and it is split evenly. Not a tip jar for a founder. Shared like bread. Optional support lives at f00.sh/donate. Every coin is on the open ledger — no payroll, no private books. We are not a registered non-profit yet; we are working toward a formal public-benefit shell and will not claim that status until it is true. Until then, and after, the work stands on love alone.

Bring a project

Have an idea that belongs here? Bring the work — or the sharp outline of it. Not a pitch deck. What you want to open, and what you refuse to close. Stewards of released f00 projects vote it in or leave it out.

@lameserver on X · tj@f00.sh

What we refuse

Manufactured perfection. Identical throws. Razor edges as religion. Metronome motion. Flat blur as “organic.” Anything that pretends the screen is more pure than the room it sits in. Company cosplay. Membership ladders. Selling the lifestyle. Owners. Heads. Leads. Masters. Gods.

Project the real world onto the display.
Leave the math for the math.
Come unfinished. Do it for love.