commit 496a171604433fcdc6073ed6161a910f780f8a45
parent 7aebdfac7b36898720a0b5e3bb2bf9cc38c496d1
Author: marloes <marloes@kuri.mu>
Date: Wed Jun 8 20:45:15 +0200
supping the footnotes
Diffstat:5 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Collapse_Informatics.mdwn b/Collapse_Informatics.mdwn
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ The last term from the LIMITS archive which is important to mention is collapse
There are some software and hardware projects that could be considered collapse informatics, even though they do not use the term themselves and might not apply all characteristics described by Penzenstadler et al <sup>1</sup>. Collapse OS is a Forth operating system and collection of tools to preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse <sup>3</sup>. Collapse OS, as the name suggests, is only an OS and requires very creative post-collapse coding in order to become useful. On the other side of the spectrum is disaster.radio, that promises a disaster-resilient off-grid, solar-powered, long-range mesh network built on free, open source software and affordable, open hardware <sup>4</sup>. It offers a fully functional communication system, but relies on a substantial amount of custom hardware and even 3D printed casing and contains patented and proprietary components, which might not only prove counterproductive in case of an actual disaster, but also begs the question for who this project is affordable. Whatever the shape of the system, what is most interesting is to consider the current state of our planet as one of collapse already, so we can make use of the more radical methods and tools described by Penzenstadler et al. today.
-<sup>1 Birgit Penzenstadler, Ankita Raturi, Debra J. Richardson, M Six Silberman, and Bill Tomlinson. 2015. Collapse (& Other Futures) Software Engineering. In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Computing within Limits. ACM, Irvine California, 1-3.</sup>
-<sup>2 Barath Raghavan and Justin Ma. 2011. Networking in the Long Emergency. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Green Netowrking (GreenNets '11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 37-42. https://doi.org/10.1145/2018536.2018545</sup>
-<sup>3 Collapse OS. 2021. <https://collapseos.org></sup>
-<sup>4 Disaster.radio. 2020. <https://disaster.radio></sup>
+<sup>1 Birgit Penzenstadler, Ankita Raturi, Debra J. Richardson, M Six Silberman, and Bill Tomlinson. 2015. Collapse (& Other Futures) Software Engineering. In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Computing within Limits. ACM, Irvine California, 1-3.</sup><br>
+<sup>2 Barath Raghavan and Justin Ma. 2011. Networking in the Long Emergency. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Green Netowrking (GreenNets '11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 37-42. https://doi.org/10.1145/2018536.2018545</sup>
+<sup>3 Collapse OS. 2021. <https://collapseos.org></sup><br>
+<sup>4 Disaster.radio. 2020. <https://disaster.radio></sup>
diff --git a/Liberatory_Technology.mdwn b/Liberatory_Technology.mdwn
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
#Liberatory Technology
-Liberatory technology was described by Murray Bookchin in his 1965 essay Towards a Liberatory Technology [1]. Bookchin describes the possibility of an environmentally-friendly technology, which would "make man’s dependence upon the natural world a visible and living part of his culture". Bookchin envisaged small communities integrated into the natural environment and using small-scale technologies which permit decentralisation and autonomy. His article succinctly expresses the vision of a utopian ecological lifestyle, which later became associated with the term "alternative technology" and the Undercurrents magazine in the UK. The main characteristic of liberatory technology, in line with Bookchin’s anarchist politics, is decentralisation, in order to avoid centralised economic and administrative control. It is powered by renewable energy, non-coercive, adapted to specific local needs, small scale, multipurpose in order to avoid underuse and shared among communities. In Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, Bookchin points to the value of organic differentiation, not mechanical standardization, for balance in society and nature alike. His view of technology reflects this, and resonates with current philosophies on sustainable design, such as that of Arturo Escobar as expressed in Designs for the Pluriverse [2], and resonates with the characteristics of [[Benign Computing]] and [[Permacomputing]].
+Liberatory technology was described by Murray Bookchin in his 1965 essay Towards a Liberatory Technology <sup>1</sup>. Bookchin describes the possibility of an environmentally-friendly technology, which would "make man’s dependence upon the natural world a visible and living part of his culture". Bookchin envisaged small communities integrated into the natural environment and using small-scale technologies which permit decentralisation and autonomy. His article succinctly expresses the vision of a utopian ecological lifestyle, which later became associated with the term "alternative technology" and the Undercurrents magazine in the UK. The main characteristic of liberatory technology, in line with Bookchin’s anarchist politics, is decentralisation, in order to avoid centralised economic and administrative control. It is powered by renewable energy, non-coercive, adapted to specific local needs, small scale, multipurpose in order to avoid underuse and shared among communities. In Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, Bookchin points to the value of organic differentiation, not mechanical standardization, for balance in society and nature alike. His view of technology reflects this, and resonates with current philosophies on sustainable design, such as that of Arturo Escobar as expressed in Designs for the Pluriverse <sup>2</sup>, and resonates with the characteristics of [[Benign Computing]] and [[Permacomputing]].
-[1] Murray Bookchin. 1986. Towards a Liberatory Technology. In Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Black Rose Books, Montreal, 105–162.<br>
-[2] Arturo Escobar. 2018. Designs for the Pluriverse. Duke University Press, Durham.
+<sup>1 Murray Bookchin. 1986. Towards a Liberatory Technology. In Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Black Rose Books, Montreal, 105–162.<br></sup>
+<sup>2 Arturo Escobar. 2018. Designs for the Pluriverse. Duke University Press, Durham.</sup>
diff --git a/Permacomputing.mdwn b/Permacomputing.mdwn
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
#Permacomputing
-Permacomputing is a term originating from the demoscene, known for squeezing the most out of very restricted computing resources, such as the 4k intro with a maximum executable file size of 4096 bytes. Artist programmer Ville-Matias Heikkilä, aka Viznut, coined the term in a text he published on his website in 2020 [1]. What stands out in this writing is the holistic approach to computing and sustainability by taking inspiration from permaculture. In both computing and agriculture, problems are usually solved by increasing control over a process, which often goes hand in hand with an increase in resource use. Permaculture uses methods that lets nature do the work, minimizing the reliance on artificial energy. Heikkilä sees similarities between how both permaculture practitioners and hackers find clever solutions to problems. He writes that the existence of computers can only be justified by their ability to augment the potential of humans to have a strengthening effect on ecosystems.
+Permacomputing is a term originating from the demoscene, known for squeezing the most out of very restricted computing resources, such as the 4k intro with a maximum executable file size of 4096 bytes. Artist programmer Ville-Matias Heikkilä, aka Viznut, coined the term in a text he published on his website in 2020 <sup>1</sup>. What stands out in this writing is the holistic approach to computing and sustainability by taking inspiration from permaculture. In both computing and agriculture, problems are usually solved by increasing control over a process, which often goes hand in hand with an increase in resource use. Permaculture uses methods that lets nature do the work, minimizing the reliance on artificial energy. Heikkilä sees similarities between how both permaculture practitioners and hackers find clever solutions to problems. He writes that the existence of computers can only be justified by their ability to augment the potential of humans to have a strengthening effect on ecosystems.
-The text is incredibly rich and detailed, so we’ll only highlight a few characteristics. Instead of one dominant technology and linear progress, permacomputing aims at a diversity of approaches developing at all levels. It is enmeshed in culture, because people have a deep connection to technology, beyond the tool, as part of art, ecology, philosophy and history. Permacomputing is accountable, it only does heavy computation if this saves resources elsewhere and uses automation to save humans from repetitive and time consuming tasks when it requires little energy from computers. It values maintenance and encourages programmers to refactor and rewrite programs to keep them small and efficient, instead of counting on Moore’s law to compensate for software bloat, something also covered by Barath Raghavan and Daniel Pargman in Refactoring Society: Systems Complexity in an Age of Limits [2]. Instead of planned obsolescence, permacomputing practices planned longevity, reuse and repair of existing technology and approaches waste as a resource. Just like all other terms, it points to decentralisation and modularity so that it can be adapted to suit local community needs. Permacomputing contributes to a commons by placing technology in the public domain and promotes the sharing of resources. The term got picked up by other artists, programmers and activists, such as by the programmer of Ariane, a Gemini protocol browser for Android, and by the maker of the solar powered Leaf server, but has yet to become more widely used. Similar to [[Liberatory Technology]] and Illich’s Tools for Conviviality [3], the term encompasses political ideas on the role of technology in society, but next to that describes how these ideas might be applied in contemporary design and practice.
+The text is incredibly rich and detailed, so we’ll only highlight a few characteristics. Instead of one dominant technology and linear progress, permacomputing aims at a diversity of approaches developing at all levels. It is enmeshed in culture, because people have a deep connection to technology, beyond the tool, as part of art, ecology, philosophy and history. Permacomputing is accountable, it only does heavy computation if this saves resources elsewhere and uses automation to save humans from repetitive and time consuming tasks when it requires little energy from computers. It values maintenance and encourages programmers to refactor and rewrite programs to keep them small and efficient, instead of counting on Moore’s law to compensate for software bloat, something also covered by Barath Raghavan and Daniel Pargman in Refactoring Society: Systems Complexity in an Age of Limits <sup>2</sup>. Instead of planned obsolescence, permacomputing practices planned longevity, reuse and repair of existing technology and approaches waste as a resource. Just like all other terms, it points to decentralisation and modularity so that it can be adapted to suit local community needs. Permacomputing contributes to a commons by placing technology in the public domain and promotes the sharing of resources. The term got picked up by other artists, programmers and activists, such as by the programmer of Ariane, a Gemini protocol browser for Android, and by the maker of the solar powered Leaf server, but has yet to become more widely used. Similar to [[Liberatory Technology]] and Illich’s Tools for Conviviality <sup>3</sup>, the term encompasses political ideas on the role of technology in society, but next to that describes how these ideas might be applied in contemporary design and practice.
-[1] Ville-Matias Heikkilä. 2020. Permacomputing. <http://viznut.fi/texts-en/permacomputing.html><br>
-[2] Barath Raghavan and Daniel Pargman. 2016. Refactoring Society: Systems Complexity in an Age of Limits. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computing within Limits. ACM, Irvine California, 1–7. <https://doi.org/10.1145/2926676.2926677><br>
-[3] Ivan Illich. 1973. Tools for Conviviality. Harper & Row, New York.
+<sup>1 Ville-Matias Heikkilä. 2020. Permacomputing. <http://viznut.fi/texts-en/permacomputing.html><br></sup>
+<sup>2 Barath Raghavan and Daniel Pargman. 2016. Refactoring Society: Systems Complexity in an Age of Limits. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computing within Limits. ACM, Irvine California, 1–7. <https://doi.org/10.1145/2926676.2926677><br></sup>
+<sup>3] Ivan Illich. 1973. Tools for Conviviality. Harper & Row, New York.</sup>
diff --git a/Salvage_Computing.mdwn b/Salvage_Computing.mdwn
@@ -1,14 +1,13 @@
#Salvage Computing
-Something a lot of the terms have in common is an emphasis on resource minimalism and repair, yet many communities trying to lower their environmental footprint are currently seeking this minimalism in hardware that is very hard to repair and is newly produced. Salvage computing is a response to this hype of small low-power single-board computers, aware of the resulting production of yet more electronics while the world is swimming in e-waste. Devine Lu Linvega, one of the voices of the solarpunk merveilles.town Mastodon instance, proposes that creating software targeting old hardware might be a better approach [1]. Gemini creator Solderpunk thinks along similar lines when writing "the real long-term future of computing consists of figuring out how to make the best possible use we can out of the literal millions of devices which already exist" [2]. Scholar Jennifer Gabrys describes salvage as a practice of engaging with the discarded "with an eye to transforming what is exhausted and wasted into renewed resources" [3]. She adds the important observation that this process also means engaging with the conditions that led to disrepair.
+Something a lot of the terms have in common is an emphasis on resource minimalism and repair, yet many communities trying to lower their environmental footprint are currently seeking this minimalism in hardware that is very hard to repair and is newly produced. Salvage computing is a response to this hype of small low-power single-board computers, aware of the resulting production of yet more electronics while the world is swimming in e-waste. Devine Lu Linvega, one of the voices of the solarpunk merveilles.town Mastodon instance, proposes that creating software targeting old hardware might be a better approach <sup>1</sup>. Gemini creator Solderpunk thinks along similar lines when writing "the real long-term future of computing consists of figuring out how to make the best possible use we can out of the literal millions of devices which already exist" <sup>2</sup>]. Scholar Jennifer Gabrys describes salvage as a practice of engaging with the discarded "with an eye to transforming what is exhausted and wasted into renewed resources" <sup>3</sup>]. She adds the important observation that this process also means engaging with the conditions that led to disrepair.
-The Right to Repair movement, the Restart project, repair cafes, iFixit and U-Fix-It are all targeted at making devices last longer but with the exception of the Right to Repair movement, do not focus on the conditions that led to disrepair: planned obsolescence, the rapid upgrade-or-die cycle of the tech industry and consumer capitalism in general, not to mention the impact of this on the Global South, which is receiving the West’s e-waste and suffers the pollution caused by the production of the Global North’s technology. Out of precarity, and because of the ongoing impact of colonialism, there are very rich and creative repair practices in existence—Jugaad, Gambiarra, Resolver, Shanzhai. Because of the sudden attention in the West to e-waste and supply chains, these practices of improvisation are appropriated and fetishized, yet as Ginger Nolan argues, the romanticizing of the inventiveness of these practices can function as an excuse to keep economic instability and precarity in place [4].
+The Right to Repair movement, the Restart project, repair cafes, iFixit and U-Fix-It are all targeted at making devices last longer but with the exception of the Right to Repair movement, do not focus on the conditions that led to disrepair: planned obsolescence, the rapid upgrade-or-die cycle of the tech industry and consumer capitalism in general, not to mention the impact of this on the Global South, which is receiving the West’s e-waste and suffers the pollution caused by the production of the Global North’s technology. Out of precarity, and because of the ongoing impact of colonialism, there are very rich and creative repair practices in existence—Jugaad, Gambiarra, Resolver, Shanzhai. Because of the sudden attention in the West to e-waste and supply chains, these practices of improvisation are appropriated and fetishized, yet as Ginger Nolan argues, the romanticizing of the inventiveness of these practices can function as an excuse to keep economic instability and precarity in place <sup>4</sup>.
-Without romanticizing these practices or ignoring the conditions leading to disrepair, making do with existing and already produced technology saves a lot of resources simply because nothing new needs producing and no e-waste needs processing. As Barath Raghavan and Shaddi Hasan point out in their paper Macroscopically Sustainable Networking: On Internet Quines, a salvage Internet is one way to drastically decrease the Internet’s dependencies, removing the need for manufacturing and transportation as it uses only common, locally available components. They acknowledge it cannot be sustained in the long-term [5]. Still, considering today’s urgent need to shrink consumption of resources, it is surprising to see that from the list—reduce, reuse, repair and recycle the last one is the most wasteful, yet has gotten most attention. This emphasis on recycling can only be explained because the other three point to economic degrowth, an unpopular topic in mainstream politics to date. This, again, shows the importance of a political agenda, next to design and praxis. Thanks to the successes of the Right to Repair movement in Europe, repair practices are gaining momentum there. Next to lobbying policy makers, the two most important characteristics of salvage computing are skill sharing and the use and development of open source software that runs on older devices, allowing people to keep using hardware even though the manufacturer has stopped maintaining their product.
+Without romanticizing these practices or ignoring the conditions leading to disrepair, making do with existing and already produced technology saves a lot of resources simply because nothing new needs producing and no e-waste needs processing. As Barath Raghavan and Shaddi Hasan point out in their paper Macroscopically Sustainable Networking: On Internet Quines, a salvage Internet is one way to drastically decrease the Internet’s dependencies, removing the need for manufacturing and transportation as it uses only common, locally available components. They acknowledge it cannot be sustained in the long-term <sup>5</sup>. Still, considering today’s urgent need to shrink consumption of resources, it is surprising to see that from the list—reduce, reuse, repair and recycle the last one is the most wasteful, yet has gotten most attention. This emphasis on recycling can only be explained because the other three point to economic degrowth, an unpopular topic in mainstream politics to date. This, again, shows the importance of a political agenda, next to design and praxis. Thanks to the successes of the Right to Repair movement in Europe, repair practices are gaining momentum there. Next to lobbying policy makers, the two most important characteristics of salvage computing are skill sharing and the use and development of open source software that runs on older devices, allowing people to keep using hardware even though the manufacturer has stopped maintaining their product.
-[1] Devine Lu Linvega. 2021. Notes on Longtermism and Sustainability. <https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/longtermism.html>
-[2] Solderpunk. 2020. The Standard Salvaged Computing Platform. [gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/the-standard-salvaged-computing-platform.txt](gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/the-standard-salvaged-computing-platform.txt)
-[3] Jennifer Gabrys. 2012. Salvage. In Depletion Design: A Glossary of Network
-Ecologies. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 137–140.
-[4] Ginger Nolan. 2016. Bricolage. . . or the Impossibility of Pollution. <https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/structural-instability/208705/bricolage-or-the-impossibility-of-pollution/>
-[5] Barath Raghavan and Shaddi Hasan. 2016. Macroscopically Sustainable Networking: On Internet Quines. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computing within Limits (LIMITS ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/2926676.2926685
+<sup>1 Devine Lu Linvega. 2021. Notes on Longtermism and Sustainability. <https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/longtermism.html></sup>
+<sup>2 Solderpunk. 2020. The Standard Salvaged Computing Platform. [gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/the-standard-salvaged-computing-platform.txt](gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/the-standard-salvaged-computing-platform.txt)</sup>
+<sup>3 Jennifer Gabrys. 2012. Salvage. In Depletion Design: A Glossary of Network Ecologies. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 137–140.</sup>
+<sup>4 Ginger Nolan. 2016. Bricolage. . . or the Impossibility of Pollution. <https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/structural-instability/208705/bricolage-or-the-impossibility-of-pollution/></sup>
+<sup>5 Barath Raghavan and Shaddi Hasan. 2016. Macroscopically Sustainable Networking: On Internet Quines. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computing within Limits (LIMITS ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/2926676.2926685</sup>
diff --git a/Small_Technology.mdwn b/Small_Technology.mdwn
@@ -2,8 +2,8 @@
Small technology, smallnet and smolnet are associated with communities using alternative network infrastructures, delinking from the commercial Internet. They are using alternative networking protocols such as Gopher and Gemini or communicate on a server itself when logged in, instead of through publishing, like on a Public Access Unix System (PAUS or pubnix). Gopher and pubnixes have been around since the late 80s and early 90s, and are currently experiencing a revival due to an increasing amount of people feeling frustrated with the state of the commercial Internet, both for privacy and environmental reasons. Even though Gopher fans, pubnix and tildeserver visitors are not necessarily the same crowd, they have some common goals and practices that align with many of the terms mentioned in this Catalog.
-The smallnet crowd is DIY-minded, they self-host community-run servers and community-built services, often using limited CPU, memory, disk space and bandwidth by choice, using simple protocols, formats and tools. The smallnet uses cohesive and modular tools in classic Unix style and is home to small communities that engage in close communication instead of broadcasting to an anonymous mass [1]. A Gopher enthusiast who goes by the name of Solderpunk has created a protocol called Gemini, that expands Gopher with TLS encryption but is leaner than the web [2]. His protocol makes additional network transactions impossible in order to avoid bloat. The protocol is free of in-line images, external style sheets, fonts, scripts, iframes and more. It is attracting a growing number of people looking for more privacy, a smaller environmental footprint and a more close-knit community. Resource minimalism and the decentralised nature of the smallnet, and the awareness within the community of the links between privacy and environmental impact of technology makes it worth paying attention to within the context of Computing within Limits. This community approaches everyday (network) practice as a site of political struggle. Something Silvia Federici puts forward in Re-enchanting the World: Technology, the Body, and the Construction of the Commons: "we are beginning to recognize that the new paradigms may come from those who in fields, kitchens, and fishing villages across the planet struggle to disentangle their reproduction from the hold of corporate power and preserve our common wealth" [3].
+The smallnet crowd is DIY-minded, they self-host community-run servers and community-built services, often using limited CPU, memory, disk space and bandwidth by choice, using simple protocols, formats and tools. The smallnet uses cohesive and modular tools in classic Unix style and is home to small communities that engage in close communication instead of broadcasting to an anonymous mass <sup>1</sup>. A Gopher enthusiast who goes by the name of Solderpunk has created a protocol called Gemini, that expands Gopher with TLS encryption but is leaner than the web <sup>2</sup>. His protocol makes additional network transactions impossible in order to avoid bloat. The protocol is free of in-line images, external style sheets, fonts, scripts, iframes and more. It is attracting a growing number of people looking for more privacy, a smaller environmental footprint and a more close-knit community. Resource minimalism and the decentralised nature of the smallnet, and the awareness within the community of the links between privacy and environmental impact of technology makes it worth paying attention to within the context of Computing within Limits. This community approaches everyday (network) practice as a site of political struggle. Something Silvia Federici puts forward in Re-enchanting the World: Technology, the Body, and the Construction of the Commons: "we are beginning to recognize that the new paradigms may come from those who in fields, kitchens, and fishing villages across the planet struggle to disentangle their reproduction from the hold of corporate power and preserve our common wealth" <sup>3</sup>.
-[1] spring. 2019. Small Internet Manifesto. [gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/0/~spring/phlog/2019-01-18__Small_Internet_Manifesto.txt](gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/0/~spring/phlog/2019-01-18__Small_Internet_Manifesto.txt)
-[2] Solderpunk. 2019. Project Gemini. <https://gemini.circumlunar.space>
-[3] Silvia Federici and Peter Linebaugh. 2019. Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. PM Press, Oakland.
+<sup>1 spring. 2019. Small Internet Manifesto. [gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/0/~spring/phlog/2019-01-18__Small_Internet_Manifesto.txt](gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/0/~spring/phlog/2019-01-18__Small_Internet_Manifesto.txt)</sup>
+<sup>2 Solderpunk. 2019. Project Gemini. <https://gemini.circumlunar.space></sup>
+<sup>3 Silvia Federici and Peter Linebaugh. 2019. Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. PM Press, Oakland.</sup>
