Holos — macOS-first, modular, "built out of utility and spite" against rent-seeking micro-apps.
Arcadia — same DNA (free, open, yours), different chassis: Rust core, cross-platform surfaces, explicit LAN routing, surface.* mirror channel, and agent-enforced registry patterns so the codebase stays honest as it grows.
I'm a twenty-something British developer.
Moved to the US in 2016 chasing family — it didn't pan out how you'd hope. Along the way I fell hard into electricity, then hardware, then software. Spent years in demanding jobs (including Disney and government work): solid craft, solid burnout, and a growing dislike of systems that optimize rent over agency.
Eventually I hit a wall, stepped back, and landed back in the UK to rebuild — tired, broke, and dealing with chronic insomnia.
Turns out insomnia leaves a lot of hours for building.
Holos was one outlet — macOS-first, modular, angry at menu-bar subscriptions.
Arcadia is the next chapter: Rust, multi-platform, one honest core, LAN-aware surfaces, and the same underlying attitude — tools you own, not dashboards that invoice you.
There is a donation link (when I've remembered to wire it somewhere sensible — check the GitHub profile, repo Sponsors, or releases if it's live).
You probably shouldn't use it.
Any money would realistically help with boring friction — Apple Developer fees, hardware for iOS builds — which sits in tension with the "don't feed the rent-seekers" ethos of these projects. It would still help Arcadia and Holos reach their technical potential.
If you donate anyway and you'd rather that money not go toward licenses or anything in that vein, say so — I'd rather put it toward something human. I'm saving toward a cat; until that's sorted, that's the soft default. After that — or if you explicitly ask that I not keep any of it — donations marked "don't support the system" can go to my local animal shelter.
No obligation. Code and issues beat coffee money every time.
Arcadia is meant to be yours: fork it, break it, fix it, route it across your LAN, disable half the modules, wire something weird into surface.patch.
If it helps you replace a pile of tiny apps or own your automation stack, feed that back as code or docs — not hype.
Make something useful. Make something weird. Make something only you care about.
That's still the point — just with one Rust core keeping the story straight.