Earth objects and systems. Let's look at data centres and Google Glass, a new consumable device. Are they built on science alone, or are they built and used in a wider frame?
Object 1: Data Centres
Let's look at the technical and environmental.
The Internet, Cloud, Web 2.0 etc - they all rely on Data Centres, large and small. Technical innovation and explanations focus on server racks, networking, information architecture, how data is packaged and transmitted from internet hubs to data centres and back to enterprise and web 2.0 users. Supernova X3 researchers Zhang, Cheng and Boutaba highlight ongoing technical requirements for improving cloud computing and data centres.
The data centre industry has its own Oscars, with 14 awards ranging from New Data Centre of the Year to Young Data Centre Talent of the Year. However, there is only one award regarding environmental sustainability and none regarding data centres effects on local populations. Very level 3 frame.
The Internet, Cloud, Web 2.0 etc - they all rely on Data Centres, large and small. Technical innovation and explanations focus on server racks, networking, information architecture, how data is packaged and transmitted from internet hubs to data centres and back to enterprise and web 2.0 users. Supernova X3 researchers Zhang, Cheng and Boutaba highlight ongoing technical requirements for improving cloud computing and data centres.
The data centre industry has its own Oscars, with 14 awards ranging from New Data Centre of the Year to Young Data Centre Talent of the Year. However, there is only one award regarding environmental sustainability and none regarding data centres effects on local populations. Very level 3 frame.
As your journalist argues in this fine article, when these internet factories come to earth towns, “they can feel a bit more like old time manufacturing than modern magic”. Think smog, dirt and pollution. Think back to when you entered Level 3.
The data centre pollution and low energy efficiency standards are drawing more attention. Here is a quote from a second article on data centres:
" ... they were using only 6 percent of the electricity powering their servers ... The rest was used to keep the servers idling ... ready in case of a surge in activity ... "
Evidently, efficiency, pollution, technical construction, network management - these are all necessary and draw on the discipline towers we discussed in the earlier post.
We can conclude that if you wish to build and deploy a data centre, you apply knowledge from information technology. If you wish to fund and make profit from a data centre, you apply business strategy and accounting methods. If you wish to see the impact on a site or community you apply environmental and social forms of analysis. Your goals affect your explanation and your knowledge. You choose the question.
Data centres are no longer buildings. They are socio-technical, poly discipline objects. This is a hybrid, an assemblage, or a runaway object. They are not cement and silicon technology alone, and not labour force, privacy or society concerns alone. They are all, and more.
Object 2: Google Glass
Now let's look at the technical and social.
These bloooooggers report that Goooogle Glass is now “… being worn out and about among ordinary people …”. Oh, break out the Vossk brandy ....
But if our data centre mini-analysis encompasses environmental perspectives, then our analysis of Google Glass critique highlights design framing during production, via an anthropological lens. The Interactivist, my friend from the future, tells the story of how Google Glass failed, didn’t catch on and actually lead to people being beaten up on the street. It turns out, looking at people, the Gaze, is part of human patterns of social interaction, and Google Glass offended this ancient social interaction script.
Google Glass made people stare through each other, phase out of conversations. There was no social cue that is evident when people reach down for their mobile phone. Google Glass was made with a focus on the technically possible rather than the socially possible.
Building stuff: a wider frame than pure science
Technical analysis cannot breath by itself, neither can social. It all depends on your production and consumption frame. If you narrow your vision, you miss the data centre environmental effects and the social misfit design space. Reproducing your world requires expansive frames, or you stack and compound side effects for later.
The last question for my post today, before I get some Pan Galactic wasabi on earth salmon sunny side up, is … which side are you on? The technical, the social, or an expansive centre that does not expunge the technical, social, environmental and ethical for personal advancement or ideology? For NAPSTA Level 4, you will need social and environmental (although not yet ethical mercilessly).
Are you ready for a wider frame?
... Salmon, earth salmon …. I am getting passionate ... We need earth salmon ….
Are you ready for a wider frame?
... Salmon, earth salmon …. I am getting passionate ... We need earth salmon ….
|—————Technical————?——-——Social————-—|
... I will return.
We am Puhg.
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