Research
- tweaking network traffic in various ways
- media options: off, auto compression, auto delete
- monitoring server metrics, energy flow, sharing data through a bot
- auto-off when battery low, sad emoji
- Setting up the Pi with a static Wifi IP
- Installing Akkoma (with the most efficient solution, perhaps Docker, however that works)
- Document the process
- Using the solar-power of lovely Vietnam in front ouf our appartment
- Vietnam tech firm FPT produces country’s first semiconductor chips | Reuters
- Manufacturing chips, semiconductors improves Vietnam’s role and position (vietnaminsider.vn)
- Opportunity for Vietnam to become global center of semiconductor production - Vietnam Economic Times | VnEconomy
Publication formats: Maybe you need do decide what side you're on, GenAI or Zine?
As part of digital infrastructure research, we are exploring alternative forms to publish academic work. Currently and in different iterations: zines (from “magazine”). It really makes a difference to think about knowledge production in an open, playful format. Just make things.
For me, zines represent the internet culture of the 1990s and early 2000s. It’s hacky, a bit weird, but above all accessible to everyone. People use simple formats and dare to do something, especially design-wise.
Here are two examples. A zine within a zine collection that we were privileged to contribute from the RUSTlab and our data centre research project. In the “Liminal excavations” we contribute a piece on data centers, specifically: the different perspectives that gather around the infrastructure of a data center, it folks, designers, builders, scientists, you name it (they want to be named).
The second zine is part of the 2024 annual conference of the collaborative research center “Virtual Lifeworlds”. During the conference, I organized an “infrastructure wlk” with Estrid, which took us around the campus in Bochum and through various manifestations of virtuality. Three parts. We asked what the strange knowledge form of the lecture is all about (guiding us to a Hörsaal), how you can explore a data center using an AR app (servers fall from the sky and diesel generators rattle) and why a strange water stream was built in the middle of the brutalist campus (a stream which has now been shut down but still looks magnificient).
This is SO much fun, I can tell you, and it was a very material practice completing the zines. Designing, cutting, folding, glueing, sharing. Writing project proposals, books, papers and stuff is great. But we need to lighten things up, once in a while.
On another publication front, I have been very active in exploring collective writing. I’ve co-edited two speculative volumes: a situated lexicon on virtuality and a sci-fi-ish volume on writing uneasy predictions. www.virtuelle-lebenswelten.de/blog-post…
A situated lexicon of #virtuality: We have written a volume on an underappreciated term
It was a lot of fun (and work) to get this ready as a co-editor. It was also a risky adventure, a different way of representing knowledge. Get the open access version very soon (download incoming).
www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-837…
We’ll be sharing the concept and some artwork during today’s evening event,you can grab the Zoom link here. Later we will also publish videos of the exhibition.
We we also freakish enough to write (and review) this volume entirely through Markdown (#Obsidian) text files, leaving Microsoft Office and others behind. That’s been somewhat of a success.
Trouble through a lexicon
The form of the lexicon allows us to juxtapose terms, objects and trains of thought and leave them to stand on their own without immediately assuming a connecting dramaturgy or coherence. Beyond conventional essay structures and argumentation chains, the concise form of the lexicon article allows us to address phenomena and concepts via lemmas and present them in a pointed manner. At the same time, a lexicon invites you to stroll around, to suddenly get stuck on a term or image, to gain insights into other perspectives on familiar terms or objects, to be surprised by special cases and curiosities. The reference structure of a lexicon provokes non-linear reading practices, jumping between texts and different reading and reception paths through the book. The alphabetically sorted juxtaposition of articles fans out the diversity of virtuality. However, encyclopaedias are not infrequently instruments that carry out standardizing settlements with a claim to universality and completeness. In order to problematize such movements of closure, our lexicon breaks with conventional claims in two ways: through the selection of objects and the positioning of their presentation.
On the one hand, the claim to completeness can be thwarted by not systematically going through the supposedly central concepts and contextualizing them historically. Instead, our articles deal with particular phenomena and details that gain relevance against the background of virtuality… On the other hand, and as a consequence of this, we understand our lexicon as situated, insofar as it aims neither at completeness nor objectivity in the classical sense, but recognizes the multiplicity and fluidity of experiences and practices. We follow Donna Haraway’s (1995) proposal to produce situated knowledge that subverts the panoptic gesture and the “conquering gaze from nowhere” (ibid.: 80) of classical lexicons.
Here’s the final stage of my solar-powered #Fediverse experiment. This is the story of my failure and infrastructural limitations. I tell it through the lens of an #energy stack, a battery. #sts #Mastodon
Awesome audience. This morning at #easst4s2024, I discussed our upcoming book (series) on “Predictions” (Mattering Press, w/ Mél Hogan and Edward Ongweso Jr).
We’re inviting #sts authors to experiment with the format of predictions. A troubling format. But it offers room to imagine and intervene. To show up differently. To learn from sf.
It requires careful editing though, so the comments about where and how to be critical were essential. Attentive folks
Liminal Excavations
A zine that explores alternative visions, ideas and critiques on the topic of #sustainability and #ICT
We’re proud to be of this project. Our 6 pages discuss the Good Data Centre w/ interview material. Graphic novel-style.
We, the @rustlab@assemblag.es, have written about reading. Academia as reading culture. #academicchatter@a.gup.pe
Please Go Away…We’re Reading. A Practice Approach to a Taken-for-Granted Academic Craft 🤳On.Culture
Bei Soziopolis bespreche ich das für den Sachbuchpreis nominierte Buch „#Müll. Eine schmutzige Geschichte der Menschheit“ von Roman Köster. Mit kritischer Notiz zum Begriff des mismanaged waste, der sich in das Buch eingeschlichen hat.
#soziologie
#Deutschlandfunk Kultur hatte mich zugeschaltet. Wir sprachen über #Elektroschrott: Geräte, Mengen und vor allem #Verantwortung.
www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/zu-viel-e…
#Nachhaltigkeit #Abfall
The #technofix is under scrutiny in #sts. But for a somewhat surprising reason: because of its conceptual weakness. So here is the #infrastructure fix. And thoughts from #LeakageSTS in Dresden
This is a hot take that Lee Vinsel has been trying to drive home for a couple of weeks already. “Hot”, as in, a lively idea, something he grapples with. I find the idea puzzling and compelling. So here are a few thoughts, experiences, and links to follow.
Describing something as a #technofix has become a staple of critical commentary on technology, and perhaps global capitalism per se. A technofix is not really a fix, rather, it distracts from the actual issues. Mostly, these are social ones. Think all of what Silicon Valley is doing, like AI solving something. It’s delusional.
Yet Lee and others ask: Is this really a pressing issue? What exactly are technofixes? It appears like this is a slippery term applied to anything vaguely. Sounds familiar to me. More importantly, however, technofixes might not be the most pressing things to discuss. STS devotes too much attention to problematic technologies. (Perhaps technologies and innovations more generally.)
Check out Lee’s recent podcast Peoples & Things where he discusses the matter together with the engineer Guru Madhawhan, who wrote a book on wicked problems.
This also relates to the discussion around “solutionism,” a term that, I agree, remains rather vague yet very strong and often ignores materialities, impasses, and virtualities.
Leakage Experience
Moving on to our recent #stsing conference in Dresden. I was taking part in a panel on waste and discards, hosted by a research network that we, as waste scholars, have received funding for. Check the links for info on both the event and the network.
sts-leakage.org waste-in-motion.org
Some presenters and commentators mentioned the notion of a technofix. It is indeed a recurring theme in all things discard. When you encounter marine plastics, there are gigantic projects around ocean cleanup that spread hope and call for a solution. With a lot of funding. Easy rollout of the technofix critique. I’ve research electronic waste in detail, and through recycling technologies, the technofix is ever-present. Well, digital devices themselves are technofix devices to a certain degree, promising easier lifes, more efficient work, less paper, less stress, whatnot.
Where to go from here? First, I was reminded of the critical discussion around this critique (a criti-hype).
(Citing Cory although this is also a term introduced by Lee)
sts-news.medium.com/youre-doi…
Technofixes might not be that big of a problem, empirically speaking. Thus, this analytic would have outlived itself. It might be us scholars bathing in our on conceptual pool. Still, we had a fruitful conversation in Dresden around this very notion. The critique of the critique was resonating, but staying with the technofix as a genuine problem remained of high value.
Excessive systems of industrialism, capitalism and colonialism turn to seemingly novel technologies to turn the tides and stay focused on growth, no matter what. This is hot the oil industries turn to plastic materials in times of crises.
www.fastcompany.com/90771524/…
In Dresden, we also had the pleasure of enjoying Nerea Calvillo’s keynote on air pollution. Nerea argued that technologies of remedy are part of the problem of containing air pollution. Well, even the notion of “containment” is problematic, because no container holds tight. What has to be done instead is tackle the upstream pollution; to cut off the gas, and oil, and move away from coal. To stop the pollution instead of adapting to it.
As a daily user of air purification technologies and face masks (#Vietnam, #Hanoi), I was puzzled. Is there no value in maintenance, care, even for moments, even if this is not helpful in a systematic sense – because it saves lives, here and now. But Nerea doubled down and made this into an argument of against repair.
I am not sure whether I like this twist, turning against maintenance and repair, even if only for strategic reasons. Narea has published on the troubles of living in a permanently polluted world, so this is not really an argument against care and its conceptual siblings, I suppose.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.11… www.arch.columbia.edu/books/cat…
Max Liboiron offers a related argument, although with a different focus. Similarly vast in consequences, perhaps. Think threshold limits and pollution. The dose is the problem; you know the deal. Sounds reasonable. Keep pollution below the limits.
But because of the very invention of threshold values, pollution is here to stay. Because of the fixation on threshold values, it is here to say. Threshold values pushed Ulrich Beck into mad mode in his Risk Society book, a paragraph that is hardly cited. And Max writes,
Instead of changing systems that allowed industrial effluents to begin with, governance could turn to technical efforts to locate and manage allowable limits. This is the foundation of [what Max calls] the permission-to-pollute system." (p. 51 in Pollution is Colonialism)
The Infrastructure Fix
Instead of juggling with technofixes, it is worth exploring “infrastructural fixes”. When systems set up and embrace infrastructures that make sociotechnical change an impossible task, then the infrastructure fixes people, things, and lives. Investing in the brutal nature of these infrastructures becomes deeply problematic. Slow violence is bound to happen. This is demonstrated well in energy thinking, say, when the After Oil collective posits:
“Then there are the enduring powers of infrastructure: pipelines, refineries, highways that push us to replicate behaviours and cultural forms. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, for the social majority to imagine and embrace a society that is not dependent on carbon energy.” (After Oil 2015: 39)
So, when you and I and the affected communities just cannot move away from daily struggles, deadly troubles, then it’s worth rolling out a “fix” critique. A critique that turns to infrastructural harm.
It sounds like a good idea to stop using notions when you hardly know what they are about anymore. Sure, uttering “technofix” might get people engaged and find an initial common ground. But it’s trajectory is puzzling. So, here’s the infrastructure fix as a rough sketch.
The snapshot attached is from the Leakage conference, with a zoom on materials dug up in a panel on coal landscapes and imaginaries. Imaginge fixing that mix of contaminated and probably clean matter.
The chip rush of #Vietnam is in trouble.
As explained by Mike, energy shortages will hit the country this spring. Again. Investors might move on. Some already did
#tech
We produced controversy maps on the chip rush in #Vietnam.
26th floor.
A timeline representing corporate, legal and public activities. A timelapse of rural change. A bit artsy.
To be translated into a digital format.
#semiconductors #sts #tech
The #Taiwan election finishes with a call for stability, in a way.
“It may be that the DPP managed to retain power because it is still viewed as the party that defends Taiwanese sovereignty, with backlash against its inability to resolve socioeconomic inequality in Taiwan still not managing to oust it from the presidency.” It comes at a cost, as outlined by @brian_hioe@mastodon.online of New Bloom magazine. Kicking out youth progressives.
#China
Comparing Fediverse software for hosting: Ease of use, efficiency, waste
Here’s a blog post on #hosting a microblogging instance on the #Fediverse with ecological concerns in mind. It’s a longer one. And unfinished, since it’s messy tinkering in progress, not least due to my #Vietnam routing. 👇
Following our Mastodon article, I am exploring options to host a Fediverse instance with a Raspberry Pi and solar power, testing limits. The goal is to host one or multiple bots and report on data. Users later. Perhaps this could also be an offer for others to host bots. On another level, this is an effort to compare different fediverse setups and their Ease of use, efficiency, and waste. Other users have already created helpful reports that I can built on, see e.g. Deploying a piece of the Fediverse (dragas.net)
It boils down to choosing the software. As a start, I have asked people on Mastodon and Lemmy for tips on what software to use.
Moving beyond Mastodon: The heavy elephant
Users reported Mastodon is resource-heavy, and media caching is an issue, because it caches all media by default without any options to delete. It is not a light system; quite the contrary. Admins, it seems, need experience to manage the potential overload, regardless of their instance’s size. At the same time, it lacks features like rich Markdown and Quote Tweets. Install seems to work, but many users report it took multiple hours.
I never used Mastodon because my servers would never handle it. I started with Friendica, moved to pleroma, and ended up ultimately with rebased (and obviously lemmy and lotide and peertube)
As a follow-up, that user reported:
My first server had an outdated CPU, very little memory and a spinning hard drive, so that turned out to be a huge limitation for a lot of software. I needed stuff that hardly used any memory and also didn’t have a lot of extra services running at once. When I started adding some services, lots of stuff started grinding to a halt.
On linux, the glances application is really useful. Besides just showing you what programs are using memory and CPU time, it also shows IOWait times and throughput so if you’re being bottlenecked by something or other it’s a lot easier to see.
There’s also a service called tuned that does some automatic tuning, and if you’re using postgres databases, there’s another tool called pg_repack that’ll pack your database while running. It maxes out your CPU and uses a lot of disk while running, but if you don’t do something routinely then your postgresql database slowly gets sloppier and it’ll start using more and more resources until your server appears to be useless.
Misskey or Calckey (now: FireFish) are slightly lighter options and much feature richer, but too heavy for a single instance. This is more of a personal project.
Three options appear appropriate. Two of them were suggested in my original online post:
Original post on Mastodon and Lemmy asking for help
I’m looking for a customisable, resource-efficient Mastodon fork. Bonfire? Rebased? Or go non-Ruby, like Pleroma (nah), Misskey Calckey, indeed, Lemmy (hui)? Any experiences?
This is part of an endeavour to host w/ a RaspberryPi & solar power. It will be a device to mess around, test, and share experiences.
Potential features:
I am re-posting this from Mastodon w/ minor edits because of the Fediverse and potential cross-interaction. I probably should have posted here first and then shared the link on Mastodon, but it’s a Mastodon question, so I did it the other way around. Still not sure what’s the best way to do this, though.
Preface: static IP on the Pi
The Pi needs a static IP. Since the machine will be close to the solar battery system, I need a wifi option, as described here: Set up a static IP-address | The Raspberry Pi Guide (raspberrypi-guide.github.io)
And, to make it open to the web: Open up your router’s admin page and find a section titled either Port Forwarding, Port Mapping, or Port Management, then create two new entries.
The first is for HTTP (insecure) traffic. Set both the local and public port to 80, and the local IP address to the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.
The second is for HTTPS (secure) traffic. Set both the local and public port to 443, while keeping the local IP address to the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.
Potential platforms
GoToSocial
it’s still in alpha, but if it’s just for messing around maybe try GoToSocial!
I think you’d have a much better time with something lighter than Mastodon if it’s running on a limited system. If you are really looking to minimise requirements, Pleroma and its derivatives are unfortunately about the best for it afaik, though I certainly have plenty of misgivings. I’m personally partial to GoToSocial, and it’d be my go-to recommendation for any self-host atm unless they had specific requirements that made it unsuitable.
GoToSocial is the most-like Mastodon option, seeking connections with many Mastodon frontend apps, although with different features and a lighter backend. Crucially, it is built using Golang, a speedy language. This is how they pitch their project: “GoToSocial provides a lightweight, customisable, and safety-focused entryway into the Fediverse, and is comparable to (but distinct from) existing projects such as Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, and PixelFed.”
The docs offer a docker image, and it seems doable. Container - GoToSocial Documentation
Akkoma
I quite like the Akkoma fork of Pleroma.
Pleroma has a few development lags and seems to host many right-wing servers (similar to the fork Rebased), so the Akkoma fork is highly welcome. It also has more features. This is why, as one dev emphasises, Akkoma is recommended by key members of the AcitivityPub working group.
These are the docs. AkkomaGang/akkoma: Magically expressive social media - akkoma - Akkoma Development
But, magically, there is an explanation on how to install this on a Pi. www.makeuseof.com/raspberry…
Honk
If you only want a single-user instance you can go with honk.
Right now I host it on my rpi3 under a vlan connection (1000kbps/125kbps). No struggle, 120mb in ram for an uptime of 80 days. Following nearly 40 accounts on 15 instances.
honk sounds like a joke, and it is funny to a certain degree. As explained in their docs, it is a ridiculously simple setup: “Take control of your honks and join the federation. An ActivityPub server with minimal setup and support costs. Spend more time using the software and less time operating it.” This sounds great.
The docs are from another world. Joining the Fediverse with honk - Suffix
Comparing the three options
The conclusion is as follows: Start with Akkoma and see how it works; perhaps install GoToSocial and honk afterwards. It could be interesting to move forward with a maximum contrast, as in: Akkoma, honk, GoToSocial.
This is my qualitative assessment based on the information above.
| Assessment | GoToSocial | Akkoma | honk | Mastodon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | + | ++ | +++ | - |
| Features | +++ | ++ | + | ++ |
| Docs | ++ | +++ | + | +++ |
| Interop | ++ | ++ | + | ++ |
| Install | ++ | +++ | ++ | + |
| Sum | 10 | 12 | 8 | 7 |
Prior and next steps
The above assessment is from the 19th of July. Before this, I explored and expanded the hardware setup. We started setting up the software in Bochum, but many things happened. And the university’s network infrastructure is not made for static IPs, especially in our building. And then folks were busy. It took way too long to publish this, and research in Vietnam lay in between. We started with a solar Panel made for a Pi. But it does not produce enough power. So a proper 100w solar panel feeding a mobile battery is the solution. That’s at least what I thought it was.
So the next steps:
I already completed this process, almost. It’s worth another article. The text is planned for February of 2024 to be published in our collaborative research centre’s Virtual Object of the Month series.
#Mastodon #solarpunk
Patchy value chains
With this post, I want to bring a color to the blog, show how I experience my daily life as a researcher in Vietnam, and how I follow material infrastructures. It’s going on in bits and pieces, and some is a patchwork. Last not least, this is also a means of sharing links and snapshots.
Bits & Trees of Data Centres
What does it actually mean to trace and traverse the infrastructure and production networks of a very specific building? That in itself is a difficult question, and in our research project in Bochum we are playing out this problem on a data center on top of that.
Estrid and I recently published a first article on this in the sustainability-oriented Bits & Bäume issue, see for the full book here and in this post.
When it comes to on-the-ground arrangements, it’s often very concrete. We see flashing servers, smoking heads, convivial interlocutors, but also cables hidden on the minus sixth floor in a tunnel. My role in this research is less direct though, as leads are quickly lost. Where does the path lead if we take the computers and materials seriously, if semiconductors and atoms guide the way?
From Anatomy to patches?
With the Anatomy of AI project, researchers have impressively shown how an incredible number of connections are attached to such a small device as an Amazon Speaker. There are also lives hanging on it, due to the precarious working conditions, from the dark mine to the orange laser to the gray-dusty assembly area.
Check out the Anatomy of AI project of Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, it’s a magnificient beauty: anatomyof.ai/img/ai-an…
Moving on.
Computer chips are, at their core, plates of sand with carvings that are only a few atoms in size. They make data centres what they are, high-performances clusters in particular, which is what our “building” is also aiming for. Innovations on an ultra-small scale have led to large-scale shifts in the last century. And this is currently happening again, according to my research. The chip industry has its centers, much is concentrated in China and non-China aka Taiwan. But thanks to Corona, the US-China trade war and other political-economic reasons, things are currently changing. It’s a hot topic.
Thinking SEA
Countries like Vietnam are leaving their mark on the world map of IT production networks.
I am in contact with the first stakeholders, but I have to take it slowly. Growth via IT is welcome in Vietnam. Questions rather less. There is a lot at stake. A lot is in the news. I say little.
And so for the first weeks and months in the so-called Far East, in the Asia-Pacific, I am concerned with understanding moods and pleasant tones. Of many impressions. In the process, the first patches and speculations come together.
As the above links show, something like a new high-tech industry is growing in Vietnam. There are massive tech parks, even here in my immediate vicinity in Hanoi. I have not arrived there yet. FPT Software manufactures Make in Vietnam chips | Science and technology (diendandoanhnghiep.vn)
Energy driving
Energy drives me, not only as a topic of my habilitation. What happens if I’m in an elevator and the power goes out? As of June 2023, this is a real danger; we are plagued by “planned blackouts,” the planning for which unfortunately escapes us and our neighbors. Renewable energies are to be advanced in a new program, after a long period of standstill, but only more coal can provide for more stability in the short and medium term.
To cite the Vietnam Weekly newsletter:
Hydro and coal account for nearly 95% of northern Vietnam’s energy supply (split almost evenly), but the former is running at 24% of capacity and the latter is at 76.6%. Vietnam Weekly: Power Outages Hammer the North
I also have coal in mind mind on a daily basis, travelling across the city. With masks, as most people do.
Mind how the so-called street ninja tackle this (and sexism) in Vietnam: e.vnexpress.net/projects/…
How do such energy considerations permeate the data center industry? It thinks in terms of efficiency, in terms of the logic of increases, and this is how it interprets the sustainability debate, just like many politicians. For me, it will be a matter of looking more at the inconspicuous costs, that which is needed materially for production.
Social sciences, ecology and careful digital communication
How can social science research address planetary concerns and be designed carefully? Two recent articles in Science & Technology Studies address this question with a view to different cases: Conference Mobility on the one hand and Decentralized Social Media on the other.
Jumping on the bandwagon
In Fieldnotes on FlyingLess Conferencing we discuss our different experiences as train travelers to the EASST conference in Madrid. Some of them were long journeys through Europe, including stops. But it is possible, in Europe the plane is not without alternative, even if the scattered infrastructure does not always make it easy.
A quote from our text (that is, by Vanessa Ashall, Tobias Held, Stefan Laser, Julie Sascia Mewes, Mace Ojala, Nona Schulte-Roemer, Robert Smith, Richard Tutton, Sine Zambach):
Initiatives such as Flying Less and podcasts by the Oxford University Flyingless Group provide information, discussion and practical suggestions on how we as individual academics can alter our practices, but also how to challenge our institutions and professional associations. There are also discussions on how to organise conferences in hybrid or hub-like formats to reduce travel activities. For the recently held EASST 2022 conference in July, some delegates decided to journey by long-distance train across Europe to reach Madrid. As one would expect from a group of STS scholars, this was not done without some appreciation of the sociotechnical challenges involved and of course with that long standing commitment of our field that ‘things could be otherwise’.
Shooting down the bird
Digital communication has become a cornerstone of academic exchange, internally and with media and partners. In the fall and winter of 2022, Twitter and Elon Musk respectively have attracted some attention. The “Birdsite” is no longer the same; now it has become a right-wing agitation platform, with dubious blue-flagged accounts hijacking the discourse. But you can’t do without social media, at least it makes sense to explore other forms of participation. With Fediverse, Mastodon, and other popular apps like PeerTube and Calckey, a veritable alternative is growing that is of utmost relevance to STS researchers.
We used the timing and discussions on Twitter and Mastodon to think about platform design and an “Other.”
A quote from the post by Stefan Laser, Anne Pasek, Estrid Sørensen, Mél Hogan, Mace Ojala, Jens Fehrenbacher, Maximilian Gregor Hepach, Leman Çelik, Koushik Ravi Kumar:
What kinds of worlds are not probable but possible from the ruins of Twitter? Mastodon might not be the next big thing. Yet it is an exciting network that many people are experimenting with and, for STS scholars, offers entry points to learn through practical engagement. Perhaps more important than Mastodon per se is the idea of othernets (Dourish 2017 chapter 7); the internet we have is not a necessity, and might take a very different shape and feel different based on new collectivities. If Mastodon has a less devastating impact on the environment, what else about our internet can we change, or make a case for changing?
In such initiatives, it remains crucial to move away from individual responsibility to discuss structural interdependencies and collective mobilization. This is what the low-carbon research method group does, for example. I will use this blog to discuss my own experiences with research pratices and material infrastructures.