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# Guide Description:

As part of the Techno-Galactic Software Observatory, we will collectively produce a Software Observation Guide [[ so, not survival ... Software REVIVAL Guide -- think important to insist on observation ]]. The guide will lay out ways to achieve critical distances from the seemingly endless software systems that surround us and will offer practical tools for the tactical (mis)use of software, empowering/enabling users to resist embedded paradigms and assumptions . The guide will include a description of the myths and realities of software, a list of currently available methods for approaching software including their risks and benefits , and a glossary of terms . Participants will contribute to the guide by naming and describing methods of observing software, by nominating and defining terms for the glossary, and by sharing personal stories of close encounters with software .  


Saturday afternoon:
    
A document that can support the clinic with the work we have been doing so that you can know where the exercises came from

Printed menu/program?

People are interested in what we have done

For Group 0
For Monday - how will we get this produced? ie. naming convention or protocol for getting contributions from groups 
  [[falling apart while/through being observed]]
  #include as way to copy/paste from pads for output
  sub-typing of .chapter.md or .section.md
What do you want to do during the clinic? (searches through system for vocabulary?)
What tools they know about, want to use, what they want to include


## Introduction on Observation will be transcription of conversation tomorrow morning [which maybe then gets a light edit]]

## Definitions of Software (collected from last few days, from online searches, relation betweens, from software studies)
## On Expertise?

\NEWPAGE

## Intake - How to you address/approach observation
### Questionairre
### Different relationship to expertise
### Reflexivity (how will we observe ourselves)

## Menu of Services 
### Elevator Performance
### reverse engineering to flow chart
### Agile Yoga
### Renaming
### Zenit interface analysis
### pdftk
<!-- this is an example of how an include might work -->
! http://etherbox.lan:9001/p/zenit.md
! http://etherbox.lan:9001/p/part2.md
! http://etherbox.lan/page/part2.pdf#page=21

# ## Time conversion

!include time_conversion.md


## Bestiary of Tools
pdftk
--- look at etherbox.md - look for apt-get install

## Deeper questions/conversations that produced the exercises and that will be carried forward 
### Time Essay, written and visual essay
### File/Data/Hardware/Software
### What is Software/Becoming Software discussion notes
### Research report from Flow Chart Ideology -what is it like to be an elevator?

## Materials from the reader (or elsewhere) that have been touchstones 
### Kittler: There is no software
### Neubert
### ... 
### Haraway

## Close Encounters
### Jean Heuns
### Thomas
### Selection of pictures from Computer Museum in Namur with captions

## Vocabulary
### Inoperations
### Removal of Vocabulary



-- --

excersise:
1-reverse engineering of flow chart
1-zenith-modelinganalysis?
1-cultural symbol analisis?

2-sitting in the middle of a room

3- time converter? synchronizations?

4-vocabolary operations.. as a service?
6-agile yoga


tools:
1-flowchart
2-simmtm
3-unix-timebomb
4-aquinas?

xx-intake scripts?

other elemets:
time-text
aquinas man page
zenithed flowcharts

# Friday afternoon proposal for Guide structure and contributions


## Table of Contents

## Introduction
### Reflecting on/performing observation and frameworks
### Related Readings

## Bare Necessities
### Related Readings

## Becoming Software , different ways of doing software history

### D efinitions of software : Origin stories, multiple births of software (when, where)
* Jean Heuns, Thomas C, ...
* http://etherbox.local:9001/p/multiple-software-axes
* http://etherbox.local/home/pi/etherdump/axis-matrix.diff.html

### Doing software
* http://etherbox.local:9001/p/ssogy.md
* http://etherbox.local/home/pi/etherdump/problematization_of_definitions.md.diff.html

### Software environments
* How to transform a sip-well into a fountain
* Files http://etherbox.local/home/pi/etherdump/files.md
* Time http://etherbox.local/home/pi/etherdump/xxxxxx

###Related Readings


##Techniques of Observation

## # Methodologies
* http://etherbox.local/home/pi/etherdump/side-channel-analysis.diff.html

###Tools
* wireshark
* oscilloscopes
* em probes
* something in the middle maybe (luis' tool, which could observe the software making requests instead of observing the people?)  
* ...

###Related Readings


## Close Encounters with Software

### P ersonal S tories, A necdotes, J ournals, written R eports from C linic
* http://etherbox.local:9001/p/jans_heuns

### Related Readings

## Test Environments
* http://etherbox.local/home/pi/etherdump/templatestyleguide.md.diff.html
* http://etherbox.local:9001/p/etherboxmanual.md

### Negotiating Time - Sundial Time Computer

### Related Readings

## Vocabulary
* http://etherbox.local:9001/p/vocabulary.md


[[notes and reflections on friday afternoon work on structure of guide. it feels a little rigid right now. in the desire to leave things open for what will happen in the next few days and to be responsive to what is currently emerging, we are letting go of many references to the survival guide, which is in turn leaving things a little general. what are the qualifying adjectives that we want to use? throughlines that are less obviously topical but have repeatedly emerged are ANIMALS, DIFFERENT TYPES OF TIME, ]]




# Discussion on Thursday afternoon

turning observation sideways
invasive observation
one minute it is about self-tracking, another on knowledge production
attention to the unequal power relation observing software would set up

situated observation

## why this focus observation? (so what is our agenda / what are our agendas)
* linked to politics of   technology and power struggle
* interested in methods for feeling and granting agency and authorization to talk about and engage with software and technology
* stop using software as a user , to be able to annotate, to have a different relation. breaking routine
* interest in the act of observing itself, to debug and its politics
* stopping and observing, time to watch the software unfold 
* the no distance: observation without distancing. 
  [[ two-slit experiment model of observation impacting system being observed ??]]
* ways to understand how the world works and be involved or extend the ways of being involved (not just the guys doing the brilliant work) but all of us
* the guide is important for having a wider range of tools that are available to be able to work with different software with different agencies (not just CS, hackers, programmers)
* different definitions of software providing possibilities for methodologies/techniques for observing
* our methods for observation, like mapping, come with their luggage. output from observation seems to require some relationship to representation...
* tool clinics: using observation as a tool for reflection and transformation. difference to design-crit. Care for not losing playfulness
The idea that this person will not defend is that the propose intimacy and trust. The act of observation has a coincidence.

## observation and speculation becoming ? 
* how do you bring speculation to the present?
* thomas and his references to the real world: claustraphobic, here is where we are, the good guys and bad guys, let's expose these categories
* speculation in the sense of confusing and mixing who speaks who ask and about what
* SOFTWARE IS NOT A READY MADE THING
* becoming, and how, who
* does it help to bring fiction?
* Karen Barad , Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning https://library.memoryoftheworld.org/b/wZAfhaCuiCv_eMO_m8kIKwsUGSxuT4ezhTfaOlEmDaSB0LFf

## ... and what about critique?
* how to make sure it is affirmative critique
* different spectra of critique (so task is to open up the spectrum of critique)
* every community has different norms of critique which come with a set of ground truth assumptions they will not question)
* reparative vs paranoid forms of critique ((Eve Sedgewick - https://www.dropbox.com/personal?preview=Teaching%2FNMRS%2FReadings%2FSedgwick_paranoid+and+reparative+reading.pdf_)
* many channels to give input and feedback in free software but if it doesn't fit into a certain range / template there's no place to send it to

## observation and critique:
* affirmative, reparative and not paranoid
* observation becomes a way to formulate the critique from understanding what is put infront of you
* you engage through observation, and not as an aliean coming in

## is it the difference between passive and active observation
* which one is the reperative?
## how about kinds of action:
* actively not doing, passive, is also doing
## who is the audience for this work of observation?
for us, and who are we  
non experts
and experts
keeping the conversation flowing instead of a one-way channel of communication
patience and generosity
respectful and disrespectful accessibility


 (depends on what you are looking at)
confusion

what are our core values and ground truths? bringing our concerns and issues in the debate 
patience and generousity
theory of power
attention and care
agency, choices
take the time, time to observe
confusion
play
situated observation and knowledge http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/Haraway,%20Situated%20Knowledges.pdf


What to do with observations?
immediate/intended/unintended consequences
---------------------------------------


nice to have:
    what are the tools that we currently use


Mapping (?) observations

Collection

Observation can be captured by devices

- A collection of software definitions
Is it the scale of the observation? 

"to make a system that allows observation only, it seems rather impossible"

Techniques of the observer
- note taking
-command line
-debugging
-browser dev tools
- poking around
-sniffing
- conversation 


distancing \ no distancing 
critique 

Enactments/Forms of Observations
Representations
Simulations (Models?)
Reparative Critique (Eve Sedgewick - https://www.dropbox.com/personal?preview=Teaching%2FNMRS%2FReadings%2FSedgwick_paranoid+and+reparative+reading.pdf_)



Table of Contents:
==================================


Inspiring section from the SAS survival handbook ;
strategy (strategy to study software...)
camp craft (tools, set up our observatory, finding our research site...)
reading the signs (signs of problems,  traces of solutions, hidden paths of inquiry...)
disasters (software breakdowns, reading the ruins, tactical pratices of provoquing a breakdown  )


Myths and Realities
------------------------------------

## Paradigms and Assumptions (ex: user vs programmer. hardware vs software, ...)

What are the paradigms of software ? Kittler basically said : "there is no software, it is only text manipulation", it is a call to study the materiality of tech.
Software is a construction in this sense. The paradigm is : softwares are intermediaries, interfaces, layers ? 
Delegating blame and responsibility to software (how it migrates to the system, the machine, etc)

## Origin Stories - The Multiple Births of Software (and the consequences of each of these definitions, for how they can be observed, the perspectives they produce, with what agendas they are proposed)
Materiality, abstraction and the different axis
- legal
- professional
- as language, different from data
- in hardware
- etymology
- personal histories
- as a configuration
- as a signal
- through tools

## Tools and concepts
* reverse engineering
* clean room implementation
* follow the money (political economic analysis)
## Translation (and or as conversion)

A list of tools
- wireshark
- oscilloscopes (very cool ones)
- em probes (antennas)
- 

## Recognizing software
### How does software emerge and spread?
### Detecting traces of software (on other surfaces, materials, physical spaces?)
### Exercises for experiencing software (performing it, re-enacting, sensing, making it tangible)
### Close encounters with software (journals for/from walk-in clinic ... or before? after?)

## Methods for interfering with software (recipes ? ) , 'tactical (mis)use' (draw it boundaries, count the layers inside)
### Detournement of security tools for observation -- conventional tools for observation used/applied/appropriated in a different way

##On Contexts and Movements Between 

## Appendix



# # # Reader (= edited/updated/completed reader?) http://etherbox.local:9001/p/reader.md
a map somehow, in time and space, of software observations

Topics



A list of existing tools for observing software
The menagerie of tools including the Zebra and the Giraffe, wearing magnify glasses , software called Zookeeper . Why a giraffe? Because of the big neck? Why not birds?


Reporting strategy

Delegating blame and responsibilities to software
"Computer said no"
How to blame software (?) in different situations?

ways to critique systemic issues in software
forms of critique

Some way to discover/see what are the boundaries of the software system?

A list of programming manifestos
-- ways developers re-invent the writing of software
(Luis cringing when agile manifesto comes up. It is too hard to get out of because it never ends!)
what is made agile ... moving targets

Testing and reporting are now included in the software development process, and more difficult to take seperately.

task analysis
how to (re) define tasks
and other software design process stages: flowcharts, wireframes, scenarios - this may be only applicable on 
conventional software, wonder how this way of observation may be applied in experimenatl and conceptual software 
(there were some interesting flowchart-"sjabloon" in the museum)

"agile in a narrow space"

Observation methods/tools related to toolchains and pipelines
"the house of cards of software" and "when you update your system, one of the cards might fall"
repositories and where things come from.

Observation methods/tools related to package management
automated process that takes care of everything you need
dependencies , checking dependencies
(so also the opposite boxing/containerization)
multi-platform, a way of putting the program next to your ... 

reverse engineering : you have insight into the methods
clean-room implementations: if a company wants to reproduce a product, but the people involved cannot be tainted by having seen the original one
[so: methods for knowing it was really "from scratch". how do you know the room is clean]

Lets do an exercise using axis metaphors instead of line metaphors and see when and where things start blurring

MANUAL TO ETHERBOX MOVED HERE http://etherbox.local:9001/p/etherboxmanual.md
---------------------------------------
NOTES ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON SESSION http://etherbox.local:9001/p/files.md !!!!
---------------------------------------
NOTES ON THURSDAY SESSION http://etherbox.local:9001/p/thursday and on SIDE CHANNEL ANALYSIS http://etherbox.local:9001/p/side-channel-analysis