Some Background

I used to have a blog a while back, and I never really used it much. I anticipate that this will likely be true here as well. Don't expect frequent updates. That pattern of use (or lack thereof) though means that this blog can be an exercise in very simple old-school webdev. There is no JavaScript here. There are no scripts, no pre-processing, no database. Just html files that I type my thoughts into.

That also means that this blog, and some other services can run on recycled/re-purposed hardware.

Carbon Footprint

For those curious, I performed a calculation using average CO2 kg per kWh in the US, multiplied by the energy use of this machine running 24x7x365. States get their electricity from a number of sources and it so happens that this one skews more towards nuclear and wind, which means that the calculation should be a upper-bound. This machine draws, at full power, about 75W. So, (75*24*365)/1000 = 657kWh. Annoyingly The EPA the gives these values in pounds per megawatt, so converting the average to kg gives us 637kg/MWh, or .637 per kWh; 657*.637 = 418 kg CO2 per year. In practice, it is likely less, probably much closer to 250-300.

I have a long-term goal to move all of my core IT equipment to solar/wind directly. Right now, it only happens for a small subset of equipment (max 250W), for a subset of days, during the summer.

So what else runs here

If you came from the root, then you probably notice that there are a number of services currently running. The two "big ones" are Funkwhale, an open-source federated music sharing application which I use to post my "music" (experimental sound art?) and explore what's been made by other users of that software stack. I also run a Fediverse Compatible service for social-media-like-microblogging which has been a nice change from the past.

I deleted my insta and facebook after a very long time (I had FB for like 20 years or something) which was... honestly not as profound as I thought it might be. Truth is, I've operated on a pub/sub like mentality for a long time. I put stuff out into the aether, and if people want to consume it, they can, but there's no expectation beyond that. Truth is, I used X probably more than FB, and I moved off of that when it was clear that the platform had untrustworthy leadership.

What now?

Like I said, I don't expect to post here much. But from time to time, Key, Important Updates (not really) will appear here.

I think maybe the one message I want to leave folks with is to reflect on their relationship with technology and is desired from it. I feel like the way it has been wielded in the last 15-20 years has become increasingly predatory and harmful, becoming more in service to a select few and less in service to humanity as a whole. Let us look for ways to shift technology to work in the service of all, in harmony with our environment and towards the betterment of all creatures sharing this planet, and this universe.

Happy Browsing.

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