@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

stefanlaser

@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de

Social scientist ✒ on 🚯🚆🐮💾. #sts #sociology #ecology #waste #energy

Navigating material politics: vital digital infrastructures, political experiments, and precarious social relations.

I use qualitative ethnographic methods but also turn to digital methods and coding to enrich the analysis. Currently following the value chain of data centres. Based in #Bochum, GER, trips to #Hanoi, #Vietnam, #SEA.

I'm also into sports, #running #cycling, #photography, and Vietnamese. #tfr

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

rwg, to fediverse
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

Latest post: Researching the fediverse from the perspective of individual or instances. In which I draw on an article Christina Dunbar-Hester to talk about researchers' perspectives on the , including my own.

https://fossacademic.tech/2024/03/14/Instances-and-Individuals.html

[replies to this post will appear as comments on my blog, unless set to followers-only or more private. CWs will work]

stefanlaser,
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@rwg @inquiline @mel_hogan @luis_in_brief @ntnsndr @signalapp @rra @Aepasek Thanks for the call out!

I'm not sure if storage is the main trouble maker. (It could be.) We're currently arranging a data sprint event with data centre professionals where we want to push them, among other things, on the always-on nature of data centres. That's where the magic is. Like, shutting things down/slowing things down so that a network is good enough

stefanlaser,
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@rra @rwg @inquiline @mel_hogan @luis_in_brief @ntnsndr @Aepasek This is remarkable, thank you very much. Do you think switching to , , etc would change anything? Or turning off certain media? Sounds like you already do a lot.

inquiline, to random
@inquiline@union.place avatar

“Is it cake” for the STS set: Is it infrastructure?

(had a slightly more academic convo about this w the grad class yesterday) (and i do mean slightly)

stefanlaser,
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@davidthewid @inquiline @richpuchalsky It's just a methodology, once a provocative one, so this has to be the case.

But then...is there a limit to what social scientists will call "just a lens"? 😄

stefanlaser, to fediverse
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

I might be interested in moving to another Maston instance, or even Calckey. Any experiences? More federated interaction would be neat. And perhaps longer posts.

I like waste, energy, climate and technopolitics, and a bit of social sciences on top. Science & Technology Studies might be the key reference. But it is quite narrow.

How is https://assemblag.es/home doing these days? Scholar.social, sciences.social? @ecologies @sts

(Reddit-alternatives like and are next, I guess.)

CatherineFlick, to random
@CatherineFlick@mastodon.me.uk avatar

I’m once again asking my 20 month old to go to sleep, it’s 4am and you’ve been awake for 90 min

stefanlaser,
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@CatherineFlick Feel you! Very much.

24 months

stefanlaser, to random
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@cheeaun Hi, as indicated, I'm a huge fan of your work. So what is your preferred way to receive monetary support? 👋

stefanlaser, to random
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

I have an unhealthy relationship towards , it seems. We're back in Germany for two weeks, and I brought my indoor air quality monitor.

Be careful when people tell you that village air is always super fresh. To my surprise, I've just measured merely "moderate" AQI numbers between 60 and 90 in a very villag-y place in the East of Germany. In contrast, my office at the campus in the Ruhr-Valley, , has good air quality.

That's not dangerous. But it should not be normal either.

stefanlaser, to Trains
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

"Fieldnotes on FlyingLess Conferencing:" Our reflection on European conferencing via is published in the EASST review. This is an intervention to think about less energy-intensive forms for conferences.

have potential. Yet we inquire what's possible for whom. @sociology

This text is a collective endeavor. I'm happy to be part of a diverse crowd of authors with different routes and experiences.

🔗https://www.easst.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/review_2022_10.pdf

stefanlaser, (edited ) to Sociology
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

I've created a new key memo in our Obsidian vault. It synthesises many existing notes and describes how our studied data centre site in Germany is related to production networks in Asia-Pacific. In fact, the network view helped me explore and theorise relations.

But it's a real danger that such a view indicates finished research or fixed notions. It's worth reflecting on the performativity of such a tool. Reminds me of Gephi issues. @sociology @sts

stefanlaser, to fediverse
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Is anyone using @bookwyrm for academic ?

Bookwyrm might be a good place to collect all kinds of academic reviews in an open space aka the . One could even automate things, or invite for review texts through Mastodon or email (with a Python script translating the different categories). Maybe the academic instance would need a slightly different design, without ratings, and cover images being less prominent. Yet there's potential.

stefanlaser, to IT
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Subsurface surfing. With the help of the maintenance staff, we went underground, following the maintenance track that connects all buildings on our Ruhr campus.

In total, it’s more than 8 km, we walked 2.5 km, from the uni datacentre to our faculty building.

A ladder teaching upwards. Again, dark, grey, concrete, dead
A man walks along a narrow concrete path. He wears blue maintenance staff clothing. He walks quickly. You see the concrete wall on the right with red paint fainting. Eerie

stefanlaser, to Podcast
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

I need to seriously reduce my time looking at screens, my eyes are virtually hurting.

What are your favourite podcasts? A bit nerdy, informative, deep dives, tech, ecology, queerfeminist discussions, Asia-Pacific.

I'm thinking in the lines of Cultures of Energy, @mel_hogan Data Fix, @parismarx Tech won't Safe Us, @emergencemagazine, Wohlstand für Alle, You're Wrong About, ... but also some format I do not have on my radar. @sts @academicchatter

inquiline, to random
@inquiline@union.place avatar

TFW you just can't stop censuring Jewish intellectuals for <checks notes> antisemitism

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/10/nancy-fraser-cologne-university-germany-job-offer-palestine

stefanlaser,
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@inquiline That case is quite a hot topic in Germany, rightly so. It may boil down, in this case at least, to awkward decisions at one particular institution though.

stefanlaser, to Sociology
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Follow @StefanAykut and his updates from @COP28 for an insightful sociological analysis and exclusive reports.

Like the recent one on the matter of (mentioning) . Dropping like it's hot. 📜 https://mstdn.social/@StefanAykut/111551816147720348

@ecologies @sts @sociology

stefanlaser, to sts
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

@stsing is live with the general assembly 2023. https://stsing.org

We just finished a discussion on the state of STS in Germany, w/Gisela Welz, Jörg Niewöhner and myself on a humble panel. This was fruitful and let to a collective exploration with the audience on careers, collaborative ways of publishing, and more.

And now for something completely different. Infrastructuring an organisation. No, we of course translate the needs into improving the infrastructure. True STS work 🤝 @sts

stefanlaser, to tech
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

“The making of critical data center studies,” Dustin Edwards, Zane Griffin Talley Cooper and Mél Hogan have finally published their piece in Convergence. Countering Truth made by Big Tech.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13548565231224157

@sts #sts #tech #mediastudies #datastudies #datacenter

stefanlaser, to Energy
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Tomorrow, I will play around with the notion of stand-ins, a project that might become my habilitation and a book. But I still feel it's a risky bet. Well, let's see. 👇

> I will draw on multi-sited ethnographic research to explore what it means to stay in limbo or move forward to becoming more or less relevant in global economies, amid energy transitions.

https://rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/lecture-by-stefan-laser-on-stand-in-a-political-economy-of-energy-reserves/

stefanlaser, to random
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Hey, look at this.

Rubin features our data centre project and my research in ❤️

https://wisskomm.social/@sfb1567/112404801149510318

https://news.rub.de/english/2024-05-08-social-sciences-chip-factory-nail-salon

stefanlaser, to random
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Open Access PDF: Unser Buch über artenübergreifende Fürsorge ist freigeschaltet. Es handelt von der Fleischindustrie und den Lehren anhand einer Analyse öffentlicher Medien.

https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6341-9/artenuebergreifende-fuersorge/?number=978-3-8394-6341-3

stefanlaser, to books
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

"The Discarded interweaves stories about imaginary with reflections on libraries, both real and dreamt. In an age of decreasing literacy, disposable content, and banned books, what do we preserve and discard?"

https://www.unboundedition.com/product/the-discarded-colin-hamilton-short-fiction/

stefanlaser, to random
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

in Arizona: a concrete monster hungry for water, in the middle of the desert, driving a culture shock. A debacle? That’s quite a story by Rest of the World.

I wonder how this will play out in Dresden, when the new chip facility comes.

https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/

stefanlaser, to Sociology
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

Ever used Zoom? Googled? Discussed numbers and their implications?

We have a new article out and ask how online data is endowed with worth in virtual collaboration workshops.

https://valuationstudies.liu.se/article/view/3598

A RUSTlab and Uni Dresden collab. 🫶

stefanlaser, to streetphotography
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

“Exotic animal,” mobile application.

stefanlaser, to random
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

A wild read with many interesting graphs. The lack of social theory is part of the argument, but it really shows.

"efficiency is a catalyst for technological sprawl [everywhere]"

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/05/18/a-tour-of-the-jevons-paradox-how-energy-efficiency-backfires/

stefanlaser, to ai
@stefanlaser@social.tchncs.de avatar

art is eerie because it sends you and comes from a peculiar kind of nothingness. No intention to be found, but it acts as if has a lot.

Great read shared by @pluralistic

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112435397240569685

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