Community MicroClouds
Reflections on the 2024 AWS AI Summit in LA
One of my AWS IQ contract employers offered to fly me to LA for the AWS AI Summit. I struggled over whether it was a distraction or an opening door. I have been praying for support for our Mission, and wanted to be open to opportunities I could never predict. So I went. Here are my thoughts, and my dreams for how we can do better.
AWS AI SUMMIT
There is so much money here. I was invited to a CxO dinner at a fancy restaurant, bombarded with alcohol and fancy food. A few blocks away, people are wallowing in poverty.
They’ve made some impressive tools. AWS Bedrock has made generative AI very approachable for integration into any application.
I made some good connections. Lots of cool people building cool things. Nobody that’s super aligned, but the connections could come in handy eventually as I get better at selling what we’re doing.
AWS is doing something about sustainability. I got to talk to their “sustainability” team. They are utilizing their scale to invest in sustainable energy sources and drastically reduce E-waste. There is also a nifty tool in the AWS console that automatically calculates your carbon footprint (including offsets from their renewable energy programs). Is it enough? Hard to say, but it is something, which I wasn’t expecting from a tech giant like AWS.
Ultimately, AWS is not a part of the OpenSource Regenerative future I am building towards. Not near enough OpenSource, way too big and centralized, and too much focus on profits.
OpenSource Alternatives
AnythingLLM is a pretty awesome alternative to AWS Bedrock. It has similar abstractions to swap out underlying foundational models and add your own data to a RAG vector database.
OpenStack is a very mature OpenSource Cloud Software project. Pretty useful for building highly specialized applications.
So many of the tools that work in/on AWS are OpenSource. There are too many to list, but here are some of my favorites: Linux, Docker, Git, Postgres, Python, and JavaScript.
SolarPunk Regenerative Cloud
Since I don’t see AWS as part of our SolarPunk Regenerative future, what do I see covering our modern need for computing?
SolarPunk is about appropriate tech, and finding a better balance, encouraging the use of our many amazing tools for things that truly improve life for all. It doesn’t shun high-tech completely, but questions what we’re building with that tech. It focuses on circular economies with solid recycling practices.
With all that in mind, here is what I see:
BioRegional Tech Centers
I’m a big fan of BioRegionalism. I think it is a much more appropriate scale to organize ourselves than states/countries.
I see BioRegional EcoCenters that can recycle most, if not all, of our “e-waste.” Right now, the biggest thing holding this back is the dominant economic paradigm. It is currently cheaper to trash the old thing and buy a new thing than it is to repair or recycle the old thing. But this is only possible because of the extortion (of the earth, miners, factory workers, etc) we have allowed to thrive.
I also see these EcoCenters acting as a backup host and HoloChain server for community cloud applications. This helps with the distributed and decentralized nature of a truly useful and trustworthy internet.
We will be researching/experimenting/implementing all of this at the Ozarks BioRegional EcoCenter — “economic feasibility” be damned.
Community MicroClouds
At the community level, I see earth-bermed shipping containers, covered in plants and solar panels, stocked with scrappy computers running docker, serving applications just for their community.
Applications like a security server, the residents' blogs, a community chat server, data-collection from various sensors and automations, etc. All of which have OpenSource platforms, and are easily hosted via docker.
I want it to be simple enough for just a couple techs in the community to be able to maintain, only having to reach out to experts in the BioRegion for uncommon problems. And I’m pretty sure we have enough OpenSource abstraction layers to do that already. If not, we’ll help build them.
We’ll stay connected to the outside world too, for software patches/upgrades, sending backups to the BioRegional hub, sharing research, etc. Wired if you’re close to the gird, and something like StarLink for remote communities.
We can keep all the best parts of technology and the internet, leaving behind all of the extortion and negativity.
Gratitude
Thank you so much for reading. Just being here on this journey with me is encouraging.
Shout out to our latest paid subscriber. Thank you,
! Your support (monetary and comment discussions) means so much. It is an honor to have you along for the ride!
Right now I have a truckbox camper, but it's on a trailer so I can grip it and rip it!
At this point I'm not too fussy. I've been to some rickity farms :) if I could even call um that. OSE has this mud hut community centre for example... It wasn't high end but it has a big common room and rooms all along each side. So like a community centre I think would be a a good start. And leave room to grow it. I'm envisioning a jam room/studio , def community kitchen , a sewing/clothe fixing room (fashion shows anyone!!!) a theatre of sorts would go hand n hand... I guess depends on what community wants and. Priorities. I'm sort of an Art is the point of points kind of guy.
Ya actually some kind of awning or whatever from rain n Snow would be great.
I feel like a mobile tiny home shop could be a staple - build um, sell um, rent um out.. some are very pricey.. but old gym sets ans many other "waste" products could be used I think , like old gym gear - is light metal and rugged enough! I paid $500 for camper and $500 for trailer. Canadian! Over time I think it be fair to have some uptown hussy , dollhouse of a tiny home neighborhood. I have rickity aesthetic taste.
Also a computer lab/office would be cool. My grandiose project is a TUI. Tangible user interface. Basically QR code stickers on anything mapped to a spread sheet as a particular uuid and then however we'd connect patterns to other "aspects" or developments. So I'm actually wanting a place to park it to develop that tbh. I'd want a team to work with as well and for people to be interested in the use would be preferred... Hopefully I'll have requirements presentation soon. It's definitely a solar punk of a database and computer system. Imagine salt shakers representing salt! Haha. Or anything for that matter. A staple language set is P-A-M-M; perspective aspect meaning maker . Kind of like that old board game clue : colonel mustard, using a dinky car to represent his car mechanics plans : ERP: inventory, sop's , safety, however mustard wants to organize info. But i would think he might want to get on a common community category structure. Say what we want about colonialism : the baby is the admin system sharing. It's a brilliant idea - but I want to accommodate not assimilate...the later makes for dirty dirty bath water.
I really like the bio region division. I haven't put a lot on thought on that yet, tbh. Nomadic urban professionals - nuppies - will be like the solar punk masons! Traveling around fixing leaks and helping to set up bioregional services from templates/forms. Bioregional libraries and directories. Supply chains. Imagine super imposing Nodal networks over different types of maps/atlas's. Nodal paths/circuits. Mushroom picker routes, animal routes, even trash stratum routes - to industrial processes - there is a lot of useful waste thrown out for sure by mills, mines, etc. Having land being ready for cheap deals is half the battle.. A transition economy might be setup to rent out some of this stuff - aerial lift machines, etc. perhaps blue collar white collar shism could be sewn. Make American F#¢k Again :) MAFA. Society's upper management/workers divide is a major problem. The communication is too often unilateral , aka one direction.... Anyways I'm hoping AI models could be inclusive proper , not fist forcing langauge down peoples throats by upper management!... Ya sorry disgruntled blue collar tweaker over here! Not so interested in moral coercions by uninterested Other.... Diy choose your own adventures, but social contracts "as it happens" for sharing resources is sort of a socialist realism... contracts could be case by case and often are necessarily public - by proxy. So there is that complication. The bio region maps could compile a certian etiquette or rules of engagement would unfold respective of the region (nature) and stewards (humans)!
More land stewards - land owners and local guides. I think would be a big part of kicking this off! Get RV zoning lands and get plug ins for mobile tiny homes - nipple-in/nipple-out designs! Let me park there for a few months! 😜 #master_woofer