(Roughly) Daily

Posts Tagged ‘factory

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance”*…

Employees at the BMIT data centre in SmartCity Malta, 22 June 2017.

Hot, strenuous and unsung. As Steven Gonzalez Monserrate explains, there is nothing soft and fluffy about the caretaking work that enables our digital lives…

The ‘cloud’ is not an intangible monolith. It’s a messy, swelling tangle of data centres, fibre optic cables, cellular towers and networked devices that spans the globe. From the tropical megalopolis of Singapore to the remote Atacama Desert, or the glacial extremes of Antarctica, the material infrastructure of the cloud is becoming ubiquitous and expanding as more users come online and the digital divide closes. Much has been written about the ecological impact of the cloud’s ongoing expansion: its titanic electricity requirements, the staggering water footprint required to cool its equipment, the metric tonnes of electronic waste it proliferates, and the noise pollution emitted by the diesel generators, churning servers and cooling systems required to keep data centres – the heart of the cloud – operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

But less has been written about those who work inside the machinery of the cloud. Though often forgotten, this community of technicians, engineers and executives is integral to the functioning of our increasingly digitised society. They are the caretakers of the digital, the wardens of our data, and the unsung heroes working tirelessly to sustain an ever-expanding array of digital objects, including our emails, cat videos, maps, non-fungible tokens, metaverse avatars, digital twins and more. The idea of digital caretakers might conjure science fiction images of empty, towering warehouses stacked with racks of automated machines. But these workers are very much flesh and blood. The silicon milieu they’re part of is as human as it is mechanical. From their vantage, the cloud is not merely an infrastructure they maintain, but a way of life, an identity, a culture of stewardship – replete with its own norms, rituals and language…

Explore that fascinating culture: “The people of the cloud,” from @cloudAnthro in @aeonmag.

Apposite: “The Maintenance Race,” from Stewart Brand (@stewartbrand)

* Kurt Vonnegut

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As we contemplate continuity, we might spare a thought for Richard Arkwright; he died on this date in 1792. An inventor and entrepreneur, he was a leader in the early stage of the Industrial Revolution. Arkwright was the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as the water frame after it was adapted to use water power; he patented a rotary carding engine to convert raw cotton to ‘cotton lap’ prior to spinning; and he was the first to develop factories housing both mechanized carding and spinning operations, combining power, machinery, semi-skilled labor and the (then-new to England) raw material of cotton to create mass-produced yarn. Indeed, His organizational skills earned him the honorific title “father of the modern industrial factory system.”

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“Nothing scares me more than people with some doll collection…”*

 

Seigel & Stockman was founded in Paris in 1867 and began trading in London in the nineteen-twenties, manufacturing paper maché dummies for couture houses and dressmakers’ showrooms, and benefitting from the rise of department stores. When Peter [Ferstendik, the owner] acquired the company, it was independent of the parent and operating with fifteen employees from a factory on Old St, still making mannequins in the traditional manner as it had done for one hundred and thirty years.

Today, with five times the staff, Proportion>London produces fibreglass models alongside the original paper maché and has diversified into a wide range of display mannequins for retail and museum use that are continually redesigned and updated. “Our competitors copy our mannequins,” admitted Peter, with more than a hint of swagger,“but we are always a year ahead. The only time we should worry is if they stop copying us!”…

Join Spitalfields Life and photographer Patricia NivenAt the Mannequin Factory.”

* Karl Lagerfeld

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As we check for Chucky, we might recall that it was on this date in 1978 that Donna Summer reached the top of the Billboard pop chart for the first time.  Already famous on the disco scene for Georgio Moroder’s “Love To Love You, Baby,”  Summer needed material to fill out a double album (released as Live and More).  She latched onto a piece written in the late 60s by Jim Webb (who had penned hits like “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” and “Up, Up and Away”; originally intended as a 22-minute cantata, it was first recorded in 1967 by actor Richard Harris as a 7 minute single– “MacArthur Park” (which, while Dave Barry’s readers voted it “Worst Song Ever,” reached #2 on the charts).  A decade later Summer recorded a 9-minute album version of the tune that was edited down to 3:45 for release as a single…  which sold millions of copies, and earned Summer a Grammy nomination for “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.”

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Written by (Roughly) Daily

November 11, 2013 at 1:01 am

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