The rate at which hardware and software are produced and discarded is dizzying. As if planned obsolescence breaking devices physically wasn't annoying enough: Requirements change, compatibility is broken, and completely functional devices are rendered barely usable after increasingly short lifespans. What about the work done to mine the minerals? What about the waste, what about the emissions? It's easiest not to worry about it, to just go for the vibes of infinite cloud auto-scaling and sparkling AI buttons.

But what could it look like to take these externalities seriously? What would a computing look like that tries to keep things running instead of moving fast and breaking things?

Permacomputing is a small loosely-coupled community that tries to answer these questions in performing research, publishing analyses and creating art.

It inspired us to take a broken phone and turn it into a web server – running on solar power only, re-using our existing home cable and wifi connection. We will be talking about maintenance, about embracing failure and fragility, and about the social weirdness and fun of keeping it running.