Over here at the Permaweb Journal, Pierre and I have been going down rabbit holes. We've been pulled into new directions diving into topics that we both felt were under explored. We both started a series: Pierre's on internet infrastructure, mine on cybernetics.

His are a little more dense, technical reads but for someone interested in technology infrastructure, these three articles (shards) introduce new ways to look at running permaweb infrastructure that is truly decentralized all the way down to the wires in the ground and in the ocean.

Hyperscalers massively overcharge for compute. But there's not many other options, besides running hardware on our own which has a steep learning curve and upfront cost to set up. Pierre is on a journey to create a hardware setup that can rival performance of large providers but have more control over price.

Decentralized protocols are on one hand more resilient but on the other hand still inherit the constraints of the traditional web. A fragile network path creates vulnerabilities for any type of web solution, decentralized or not. The recent Cloudflare and AWS outages affected decentralized and centralized web solutions alike.

"Decentralisation doesn't save you from the Internet - it ties you to it"

There is not enough permaweb jargon so here is one more. Permastructure is a term Pierre coined for the hardware, networking, and infrastructure underpinning the Permaweb. His third piece introduces the Decentralized Infrastructure Mesh (DIM), a more radical approach to reshaping performance, resilience, and developer experience across the ecosystem.

Everything is computer nowadays. But everything computer is also built on human-machine relationships. The shape of our devices, how social feeds prey on our dopamine reward mechanisms, and how we interact with artificial intelligence can be explored through a cybernetics lens.

This first piece introduces simple cybernetic concepts such as feedback loops and how feedback loops affect both our mental and physical beings and what that means for humans as we move further into the online world.

This one is a little more out there but is heavily influenced by cybernetics studies. Permanent data is neither living nor dead. It just exists perpetually. In a sense, permanent data is gothic. Removing the supernatural characteristics of gothic aesthetics, there is something uncanny about permanent data.

This article analyzes the concept of gothic materialism in relation to permanent data storage and uses Blade Runner (1982) as a reference point for the uncanny nature of technology, especially in the age of artificial intelligence.

"With permanent data, we essentially become ghosts in the machine."

Both Pierre and I are working on additional pieces in these series. I'm exploring how AI systems and permanent data storage create new feedback loops between humans and machines, while Pierre is diving deeper into mesh networking and sovereignty at the protocol level. We also have a number of collaborations and community spotlights in the process.

We faced technical and distribution delays, but the first print journal will be available to purchase soon. It will be worth the wait. You will get to hold a fine piece of physical media and hear from the builders and thinkers shaping the permanent web. This first edition features interviews with community members, technical deep dives from ecosystem builders, founder essays, and beautiful visual work from Saint Blue Studios. More to come.

-Alex

Founder & Editor

@afmedia_

If you liked this, share it with friends. I won't use this as a spammy marketing or boring weekly recap newsletter but as a place to share thoughts directly from the team. There's something intimate about newsletters. Messages don't get lost in the ether of social feeds (unless your inbox is as chaotic as mine).

Over here at the Permaweb Journal, Pierre and I have been going down rabbit holes. We've been pulled into new directions diving into topics that we both felt were under explored. We both started a series: Pierre's on internet infrastructure, mine on cybernetics.

His are a little more dense, technical reads but for someone interested in technology infrastructure, these three articles (shards) introduce new ways to look at running permaweb infrastructure that is truly decentralized all the way down to the wires in the ground and in the ocean.

Hyperscalers massively overcharge for compute. But there's not many other options, besides running hardware on our own which has a steep learning curve and upfront cost to set up. Pierre is on a journey to create a hardware setup that can rival performance of large providers but have more control over price.

Decentralized protocols are on one hand more resilient but on the other hand still inherit the constraints of the traditional web. A fragile network path creates vulnerabilities for any type of web solution, decentralized or not. The recent Cloudflare and AWS outages affected decentralized and centralized web solutions alike.

"Decentralisation doesn't save you from the Internet - it ties you to it"

There is not enough permaweb jargon so here is one more. Permastructure is a term Pierre coined for the hardware, networking, and infrastructure underpinning the Permaweb. His third piece introduces the Decentralized Infrastructure Mesh (DIM), a more radical approach to reshaping performance, resilience, and developer experience across the ecosystem.

Everything is computer nowadays. But everything computer is also built on human-machine relationships. The shape of our devices, how social feeds prey on our dopamine reward mechanisms, and how we interact with artificial intelligence can be explored through a cybernetics lens.

This first piece introduces simple cybernetic concepts such as feedback loops and how feedback loops affect both our mental and physical beings and what that means for humans as we move further into the online world.

This one is a little more out there but is heavily influenced by cybernetics studies. Permanent data is neither living nor dead. It just exists perpetually. In a sense, permanent data is gothic. Removing the supernatural characteristics of gothic aesthetics, there is something uncanny about permanent data.

This article analyzes the concept of gothic materialism in relation to permanent data storage and uses Blade Runner (1982) as a reference point for the uncanny nature of technology, especially in the age of artificial intelligence.

"With permanent data, we essentially become ghosts in the machine."

Both Pierre and I are working on additional pieces in these series. I'm exploring how AI systems and permanent data storage create new feedback loops between humans and machines, while Pierre is diving deeper into mesh networking and sovereignty at the protocol level. We also have a number of collaborations and community spotlights in the process.

We faced technical and distribution delays, but the first print journal will be available to purchase soon. It will be worth the wait. You will get to hold a fine piece of physical media and hear from the builders and thinkers shaping the permanent web. This first edition features interviews with community members, technical deep dives from ecosystem builders, founder essays, and beautiful visual work from Saint Blue Studios. More to come.

-Alex

Founder & Editor

@afmedia_

If you liked this, share it with friends. I won't use this as a spammy marketing or boring weekly recap newsletter but as a place to share thoughts directly from the team. There's something intimate about newsletters. Messages don't get lost in the ether of social feeds (unless your inbox is as chaotic as mine).