Trying to keep personal notes during the Corona outbreak (and links here), and to understand how these times will ping back into my research. I'll be posting some of these notes in this blog, and right now I'm more aware of the fragility of its current form. My blog is hosted in someone else's server on Subutai, and can be taken out if the person providing that server is unable to keep it running for any reason. Subutai has a fairly reliable system (whilst not extensively documented) for automated backups that stores snapshot on IPFS. In any case, these times are bringing my attention even more to the importance of resilient infrastructure, and how human labour is essential in maintaining it. Relying on any one person seems to be too little (but will we reach times when this is common?). The contents of my blog is synced to a GitHub repository, and that feels like something that will survive harsh times. How much, though?
How about my own home connection to the internet... if the fiber is broken somewhere in my neighbourhood and in an extreme scenario the maintenance team is not able to come, what then? I do understand that ISPs are putting an extra effort, pumping up their servers, and so on. But in an extreme scenario of maintenance workers not being healthy to keep things up, what would we do? It may not be this time. Corona will be gone, hopefully. But the next pandemic can be more lethal. And the infrastructure we rely on is resilient only up to a point.
I'm collecting notes to write about waste in this setting. The first post will be ready as soon as I transcribe and edit an interview I did with myself yesterday.
PS.: the usual nod is in place to the amazing work of The Maintainers who first drew my attention to this fundamental aspect of contemporary life some years ago.