I’ve been thinking a lot about various creative reactions to the absurdity that we all carry supercomputers in our pocket but have to keep upgrading even to retain functionality because software gets worse and surveillance gets more pervasive
Things like low-power computing (Rpi and friends, microcomputers, retro computing, etc), some of the solarpunk stuff, the “smolnet” (Gopher and Gemini and the like), and so on seem to be interesting ways of highlighting that things could be other than they are
Is there an umbrella term for this? Is someone collecting projects that relate to “computing designed to work well even with low-performance/low-power gear”?
@calcifer This whole thread and this whole idea meshes well with a thread that @ajroach42 posted the other day, and I just like to imagine what computers would look like if they were made *exclusively* for the benefit of the person who'd end up using them, rather than being designed to make them easier to manufacture/transport/store/market/sell/replace.
@calcifer @ajroach42 Anyway I like "permatech" for machines that aren't designed to be thrown away.
@ifixcoinops @calcifer @ajroach42 'convivial technology', is the term used by Ivan Illych in his 1973 book 'Tools for Conviviality.' His intent is to center the needs of people rather than corporations. His work influenced early open source pioneers and should be more widely read by designers, builders, programmers and engineers today. Convivial here means happy or cheerful, but also includes the older sense of 'life together.' https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality
@ewankeep @ifixcoinops @calcifer @ajroach42
Fascinating ideas. Needs a simple term to describe it.
Brainstorming:
PeopleTech
Tech for Humans
It's almost getting at Ubuntu (the word): https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2006/sep/29/features11.g2
I'll throw out some Latin for consideration:
"satis" means "enough", hence "satisfaction" is to make/do enough.
So, "Satisfactory Computing" ?
