My own personal cloud!
I found both pieces of writing a bit dispiriting, Mark C. Marino’s On Platishing primarily because of the form, it also provoked in me a feeling of drowning in distraction. I did find out a little something about Europeans introducing hogs to the American continent though, which was kind-of interesting!
The piece necessitates a kind of skimming through- my over all sense of deflation may also be in the wider context of the increased focus on the amount of energy being used by data centre’s in Ireland. This is in the context of Bríd Smith putting forward an amendment to her Climate bill in the Dáil this week to ban the granting of any more licences for data centres being given. (Data Centre Moratorium: Motion 29 Sept 2021) A report released during the week also stated that electricity prices are going to go up because the ‘grid’ is under extreme pressure. Data centres will account for about 15% of the country’s total electricity consumption in 2021. It revealed that on a medium-range projection, data centres could be consuming up to 31% of all Ireland’s power by 2030.
This is in the context of a huge amount of energy being used to ‘save’ data on consumers which can be sold into the market for data in the hope that the little extra bit of information you have over your competition which can be used for targeted advertising will mean they buy your crap- sorry product!
The other piece was easier to read but also a bit of a downer- there is an art world joke about your CV being etched on your gravestone, for that ‘exposure’ that might finally lead to getting a paid job, and having your own cloud feels a bit like that to me!
“They would become, in myriad small but important ways, system administrators for their own digital lives.”
The above quote refers to students needing their ‘own cloud ‘to administer, create and care for in college but also going forward through their lives.
Also I find a certain unintended irony of the piece alluding to the title ‘A room of ones own’, which put the case for the necessity of having a space for creation, when actually having a physical room of ones own is getting so much harder for so many people. So basically both pieces were about organising some form of digital space which is your own as opposed to one of the large platforms such as Facebook. But the reaction provoked in reading them lead to a consideration of how this virtual space which can seem so immaterial impacts on our lives.
Texts Referenced;
Mark C. Marino Teaching Writing in the Post-Blogging Era
( https://markcmarino.medium.com/teaching-writing-in-the-post-blogging-era-ab7848247e33 )
Wired Insider A Domain of One’s Own
( https://www.wired.com/insights/2012/07/a-domain-of-ones-own/)
( https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2021-09-29/7/ )
( https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/data-centres-could-use-up-to-31pc-of-power-by2030-study-reveals-40958440.html )
