Programmable Infrastructures Wiki - User contributions [en]

Sources and Inspirations

2025-05-02T09:56:55Z

Thijmen: Added descriptions, made formatting consistent, made public

We follow a wide and varied assortment of sources for current events related to computational infrastructures. Here, we provide a non-exhaustive list that serve as inspiration. While most of these are critical in nature, we do not necessarily endorse all their views.

== Newspapers and Magazines ==

=== Business ===
* Financial Times: both the [https://www.ft.com/ US], and the [https://fd.nl/ NL] edition
* [https://www.nytimes.com/ New York Times]
* [https://www.cnbc.com/technology/ CNBC's Technology section]
* [https://www.forbes.com/enterprise-tech/ Forbes' Enterprise Tech section/]

=== Political ===
* [https://theintercept.com/ The Intercept]: "investigate powerful individuals and institutions to expose corruption and injustice"
* [https://netzpolitik.org/ Netzpolitik]: "a medium for digital freedoms" (in German)

=== General ===
* [https://www.wired.com Wired]: "leads the conversation on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives—from business and politics to culture and science."
* [https://www.404media.co 404media]: "exploring the ways technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world"
* [https://www.theverge.com The Verge]"about technology and how it makes us feel [...] from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations"

== Newsletters and Blogs ==
The below newsletters usually 1) compile (references to) articles, analyses, current events, and announcements related to the topic or network of the newsletter and their author; 2) long-form analyses of current events; or both. Some of the listed newsletters also publish other content than their newsletters.

=== Outside the Netherlands ===
* [https://www.thenerdreich.com Nerdreich]: for US government and Silicon Valley; "about the tech authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley plutocrats"
* [https://internet.exchangepoint.tech/ Internet Exchange]: newsletter by Mallory Knodel "dedicated to exploring Internet governance, digital rights, and the intersection of technology and society"
* [https://edri.org/take-action/edri-gram/ EDRI-gram]: newsletter that "collects and summarises the most important digital rights news"; run by European Digital Rights (EDRi), "the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online"
* [https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Where's Your Ed At]: critical long-form write-ups on technical and business developments in AI, mostly on AI; by Ed Zitron
* [https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/ The Pragmatic Engineer]: "Big tech and startups, from the inside. Relevant for software engineers and managers, interesting for those working at tech", by Gergely Orosz
* [https://www.TechPolicy.Press Tech Policy Press] : critical opinion pieces on technology meeting power, ethics, economy, (geo)politics, racism, election integrity, and more
* [https://euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/ EU AI Industrial Policy Monitor]: "newsletter on industrial policy and AI in Europe, i.e. public investment, regulatory, spending, and procurement strategies designed to promote the EU’s AI economy" by the AI Now Institute
* [https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/ The Corner Newsletter]: on using competition policy for democracy, justice, equitable, innovation; by the Open Markets Institute
* [https://www.somo.nl/our-work/sectors/big-tech/ SOMO's newsletter] and specifically their work on [https://www.somo.nl/newsletter-signup/ Challenging Big Tech]: Dutch knowledge and research organisation that "hold corporate power to account"
* [https://www.the-syllabus.com/subscribe The Syllabus]: curation of current high-quality articles and reports. Founded by Evgeny Morozov. Free and paid version.
* [https://www.ben-evans.com/newsletter Benedict Evans' newsletter]: tries "to work out what’s really happening, what matters, and what it might mean" in the sea of tech hypoe. Usually from a US perspective. Free and paid version.

=== From the Netherlands ===

* [https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/ Bert Hubert]: leading Dutch tech expert following cloud, telecom, and Dutch politics (with occasional posts in English); featuring a newsletter in Dutch and English
* [https://dinl.nl/politieke-updates/ DINL Factsheet]: reports on Dutch political developments concerning ICT; mostly without opinion

== Podcasts and Video Channels ==

=== Political and Economic Analysis ===
* [https://www.techwontsave.us/ Tech Won’t Save Us]: "A healthy counter dose to the nauseating tech utopia idealism that usually surrounds Silicon Valley and enthusiast tech press coverage"; by Paris Marx and Eric Wickham
* [https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily New York Times' The Daily]: (almost-)daily podcast; transcriptions available
* [https://open.spotify.com/show/3fBA9eNkGliCzp3Xuy1GVd Screaming in the cloud Screaming in the Cloud]: "conversations with domain experts in the world of Cloud Computing"; by Corey Quinn
* [https://www.ft.com/ft-news-briefing FT News Briefing]: "a rundown of the most important global business stories" every weekday morning; transcripts available
*[https://open.spotify.com/show/4ln6H9peIXhq19yv3CdOvE Big Technology Podcast]: "takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators"; by Alex Kantrowitz, a Silicon Valley journalist

=== Tech Talk & Product News ===

* [https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd MKBHD]: on new tech products and services, for a broad audience; by Marques Brownlee
* [https://www.youtube.com/@GamersNexus Gamers Nexus]: computing hardware reviews
* [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqQNt9DP_BNBKa8ss5ROk2wLYl9JUdeYS The Economics Of]: "unpacks innovative businesses, brands and products that have revolutionized modern life"; by the Wall Street Journal
* [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqQNt9DP_BNCFg5mhCFhTqF7iPspVtK1T Tech Behind]: "explores the amazing engineering, computing, science and algorithms that power our favorite tech"; by the Wall Street Journal

== Other resources ==

* Company earnings calls and annual reports
* Industry magazines and conferences
* Interviews with experts
* Building, running and maintaining our own infrastructure

== Dealing with paywalls and changing websites ==
Note that not all websites will remain eternally available. Archiving websites, such as [https://www.archive.is archive.is], can be helpful to get a more persistent copy. Prepending <code>archive.is/</code> to any URL will yield an archived version or let you create one on the spot. These archived versions will bypass most paywalls. For instance, [https://archive.is/https://www.ft.com/content/c148d46f-8c6f-487e-b8d7-8e7b9eddc324 archive.is/https://www.ft.com/content/c148d46f-8c6f-487e-b8d7-8e7b9eddc324] provides the persistent webpage capture https://archive.is/ZLYm9.

This may require you to [[wikipedia:UTM_parameters|clean up the URL]] first (e.g. in [https://www.example.com/page?utm_content=buffercf3b2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=snapchat.com&utm_campaign=buffer https://www.example.com/page?utm_content=buffer12345&utm_medium=social&utm_source=coolwebsite.com&utm_campaign=buffer], remove everything after the question mark).

Main Page

2025-04-25T15:39:32Z

Thijmen: Add link to Inspiration and sources

<strong>Welcome to the programmable infrastructures project (PIP) wiki!</strong>

This is the public PIP wiki. It will contain pages for concepts we use in the project, with references to papers, images, videos, etc

== Programmable Infrastructures Project ==

* [[Team Activities and Moments We Celebrate]]
* [https://www.programmableinfrastructures.info/ Project website]
* [https://syllabus.programmableinfrastructures.info/ Project syllabus]
* [[Concepts]]
* [[Methodologies]]
* [[Resources for Visitors and New Employees]]
* [[History Of Computing Videos]]

== Internal documentation ==

* [[Syllabus documentation]]
* [[Research infrastructure documentation]]
* [[Guidelines on when to use which service]]
* [[Inspiration and sources]]

Web 4.0

2025-03-02T14:07:35Z

Thijmen:

"The European Commission and the 2025 Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU are organising a Global Multistakeholder High Level Conference on the governance of Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds, on 31 March and 1 April 2025", reads an announcement by the Commission<ref>https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/event-web-4-governance</ref>. Below is a brief exploration of who uses the term Web 4.0 and in what context.

== Defining Web 4.0 ==
The conference follows the EU initiative on web 4.0 and virtual worlds from mid 2023<ref>https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/eu-initiative-virtual-worlds-head-start-next-technological-transition</ref>. Herein, the EC defines '''Web 4.0''' as "''the expected fourth generation of the World Wide Web. Using advanced artificial and ambient intelligence, the internet of things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds and XR capabilities, digital and real objects and environments are fully integrated and communicate with each other, enabling truly intuitive, immersive experiences, seamlessly blending the physical and digital worlds''"<ref>https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/97337</ref>.

It follows on '''Web 3.0''', which has 2 definitions according to Wikipedia<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3</ref>: one envisioning the web as a based on public blockchains, the other using the term "''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web semantic web]''" to make all data on the web machine-readable. The Commission seems to combine these two notions in their definition of Web 3.0 in the same document: "''Its main features are openness, decentralisation, and users’ full empowerment enabling them to control and realise the economic value of their data, manage their online identities and participate in governing the web. Semantic web capabilities allow linking data across webpages, applications and files. Decentralised technologies and digital twins enable peer-to-peer transactions, transparency, data democracy and innovation along entire value chains''".

== The envisioned benefits of Web 4.0 ==
This EU Initiative dedicates one subsection to a broad array of "''societal benefits''", and one to "''economic benefits''". For the latter, they cite a paywalled metaverse market research report that projects the "global market of virtual worlds [...] to grow from €27bln in 2022 to >€800bln by 2030", and a paper by the VR/AR industrial coalition (yet authored by consultancy firm Ecorys) that estimates 860.000 new XR-related jobs in Europe by 2025.
This coalition is "a platform for structured dialogue between the European VR/AR ecosystem and policymakers" with EU-based businesses and research organisations<ref>https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/112250</ref>. Not all of these names are familiar, but the list includes research organisations as well as companies in the following domains: metaverse/AR/VR, telecom, manufacturing, high-tech, optics/lenses, entertainment and a theme park, consultancy, health, Ikea, semiconductor/chips, defense, and mobility/trucks.

== Organisations involved ==
As for the initiative's history and legitimacy: it follows the Communication on the long-term competitiveness of the EU beyond 2030 that calls Web 4.0 "''groundbreaking''" but does not list references for this claim.
The European Council also advocates to "''foster the take-up of digital tools across the economy and increase support for businesses and administrations in the EU to stay at the forefront in [...] web 4.0''"<ref>https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/03/23/european-council-conclusions-23-march-2023/</ref>.
I did not go deeper to find out where these beliefs come from, but I suspect that this VR/AR industrial coalition played a role. The Coalition published multiple deliverables that informed the aforementioned EU initiative on web 4.0 and virtual worlds (see [https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/virtual-and-augmented-reality-coalition here]), so possibly they played a role in these other forums, too.

== References ==

Web 4.0

2025-03-02T14:06:13Z

Thijmen: Add page about Web 4.0 as shared in Signal

Playground

2023-10-13T16:44:40Z

Thijmen: Test

= This is an Example Playground =
Test Test

* Addition by Thijmen. Seems to work real neat-o