Permacomputing Linkdump

The following is a link dump of resources, sites, social media comments, and “stuff” linked to the subject of permacomputing. It originally started life as a .txt file, before turning up in a Mastodon Thread.

What is permacomputing? In short, it’s a community of practice based on permaculture that envisions and promotes a more sustainable tech culture. As far as I’m aware, the term has its origins in a 2020 essay by one Ville-Matias “Viznut” Heikkilä

Permacomputing is one of those subjects that interested me before I knew this was a subject to be interested in.

Call me frugal or “minimalist” but the idea that our tech devices should have lifespans shorter than a pet hamster has always baffled me.

So, when I stumbled across a post by a Johnny Hankins summarising this concept known as “permacomputing” some time ago, you betcha I was instantly fascinated.

By the way, in terms of good permacomputing primers (beside my own, of course), this post on the xxiicc wiki is also a decent read.

Why does any of this permacomputing stuff matter beyond promoting aesthetically pleasing software for tech nerds?

Well, the following piece by Wim Vanderbauwhede offers perhaps the best breakdown of the scale of the issues facing computer science at large from a climate-based perspective. I highly recommend it:

Frugal Computing by Wim Vanderbauwhede

Neil Selwyn has produced, and (last I checked) continues to produce, a variety of texts in the field, including a fascinating essay on degrowth tech and the education sector

I’d be remiss not to link the following essay by Robert Engels on vernacular computing. It’s on Medium, but it’s free to read.

And here’s an academic paper by Tomlinson, Blevis, and co, which brings ‘collapse informatics’ to the discussion.

Is current consumer culture too stubborn for the kind of change permacomputing seeks? Perhaps. However, we do actually have a historical precedent that shows it might stand a chance in the form of the American auto industry.

Back in the 70/80s, that industry was, like today’s tech industry, built on planned obsolescence. However, it was forced to change when more reliable Japanese competitors arrived on the scene:

Point being, sustainable products do have a market advantage over their less sustainable counterparts.

https://hbr.org/2020/02/why-de-growth-shouldnt-scare-businesses

Of course, faced with our current problems, the lack of time to deal with them, and the power currently held by massive tech companies (and their political bedfellows) there’s a good argument that we need more significant systematic change…

Anyway, here’s some more links to interesting projects in the permacomputing space, starting with Branch magazine - an online magazine by and for people who envision a sustainable and liberating internet:

Also check out compudanzas.net which describes itself as “a research project exploring alternative modes of learning and creating computation,” featuring “explorations of joyful and human-scale computing.”

Modding Fridays is “an online community of people interested to learn together about the maintenance, repurposing, and re-appropriation of supposedly obsolete consumer electronics, for fun and profit.” The site also has a wiki with some useful #hacking tutorials for older devices.

Computing Within Limits offers is a series of workshops and papers on the subjects of permacomputing and frugal computing that are well worth looking into.

Finally, (for the moment) there’s the Small File Media Festival - an annual celebration of creativity and sustainable alternatives to current streaming services: