How We Got Here

I’ve finally got around to putting together a project page for the server rack, the infrastructure that Otter, and by extension Microcosdom, live within. In proper ADHD fashion, once I finally decided I wanted to make a website, I determined it was also necessary to construct an entire server rack and accompanying router, NAS server, etc. to host it on. However, Microcosdom was presentable and functional a bit before the entire rack had finished, so it took some time to complete the server rack and discuss it in-depth here. Plus I’m extremely lazy.

In honor of the server rack project, I figured it would be a good idea to explain How We Got Here, or more specifically, what character traits of mine led to this website and the server rack being created in the first place.

While there were multitudes of varied inspirations and decisions that led me here, I’ve tried to identify three main categories of thought/inspiration that made Microcosdom exist and take the form it does now, and I’ve gone ahead and boiled it down into an internet-friendly numbered list^[1]:

1. Fixing Everything
2. Cyber Anarchy
3. The Small Web

I kinda shoe-horned in the numbered list joke didn’t I? They’re really just headers…

Fixing Everything

Far before Microcosdom, the server rack, or even my transition using Arch Linux, I was just as obsessed with video games, computers, and technology as I am now. Prior to my more in-depth antics these days, I was considered very tech literate. I wrote code, occasionally used Linux (Mint), and was very familiar with navigating Windows, of course. I was the friend who taught their friends how to mod Minecraft, that sort of thing.

In that time, there was an ever-growing list of annoyances, idiosyncrasies, and inefficiencies I learned to live with. Of course if this specific software freezes I should left-click until the “Not Responding” prompt shows up and select “Wait for the Program” to respond to fix it, it’s just common sense. Yes, your Minecraft world data is located in your Roaming folder, but Terraria’s is located in your ‘MyGames’ folder under Documents, and Valheim’s is located in ‘LocalLow’, it just makes sense. Obviously, some programs get installed to Program Files and some get installed to Program Files x86, and the search function just doesn’t work, so you’ll have to look manually. Don’t get me started on software optimization. Adobe Acrobat DC is a crime against god designed to…

I think you get the idea.

Admittedly, I am deliberately invoking an incurious and brutish tone to belabor my point. I understand there is a mountain of complexity, history, and perverse incentives (it’s mostly capitalism btw, capitalism leads to bad software) at play that result in the way our computers function. There is no right way for a computer to function and every end user has different desires. Still, I felt a strong sense that my needs and desires were not being filled and decided to seek out change. It initially started with pickiness, choosing software that doesn’t suck. Then it progressed into trying to change things, partitioning my drive, editing the registry, etc., but that just led to its own issues.

The natural conclusion of these lingering thoughts and desires was switching to Linux. One day, I said fuck it all and agonized about the “best” OS and spent days reading Usenet arguments older than I am. Only then did I install Arch, then Debian, then Arch. More importantly, I got my Wi-Fi drivers to work and… Point is, I switched to Arch Linux as my primary operating system. Picking that worm out of my brain did not provide respite. Instead, it revealed a burrow of countless more, and unfortunately, they’re delicious. That is to say, being empowered with the ability to customize and tweak anything gave me a near-compulsive need to fix everything.

This exact experience was highlighted in The Curse of Knowing How, or; Fixing Everything, a post by raf (AkA NotAShelf):

You’re just solving tiny problems. Making the machine do what it should have done in the first place. And then something happens. You cross a threshold. You look at your tools, your environment, your operating system—even your editor—and suddenly everything is fair game.

raf goes on to describe how this perception morphs into a compulsory urge to accuse and replace the software you interact with. As raf puts it:

And from that moment forward, the world is broken in new and specific ways that only you can see…

I notice flaws like a good surgeon notices a limp. Why the hell does this site send ten megabytes of JavaScript for a static page? Why is the CLI output not parseable by awk? Why is this config hardcoded when it could be declarative?

Those things are not just questions, they are accusations. And, unfortunately, they do not stop.

In fact, I referenced this post and described a specific manifestation of these feelings in Imprimatura:

Do you ever think about websites? How they work? Why some are fast or slow? How much JavaScript they use? I do; I think about those sorts of things a lot. I subconsciously rate every website I visit, I ask myself why certain decisions were made, collect and stow a list of grievances, and feel bitter or resentful when things are “bad”. Ya know, if I made a website, it would be good, or perfect rather.

raf, correctly in my opinion, identifies this compulsion, as most things are, as a need for control; a compulsion to bring structure to an unstructured life. raf states:

We chase the perfect system because it gives us something to hold onto when everything else is spinning.

In my case, the perfect system I chase after is nearly always defined by simplicity and thus the accusations I make are of unnecessary complexity. Things that do not fit within that mold are lambs to the slaughter; everything, code, tool chain, directory structure, config management, etc., I want these things to be idiomatic and simple, Unix-like, dare I say, often to the point that I am, at best, reluctant and, at worst, unwilling to use a piece of software if it isn’t. Honestly, I struggled to justify if this is even the correct approach to using/developing software, but it certainly feels “right” to me.

Funnily enough, this exact feeling makes everything feel so much more out of control than anything else. Bad software annoys me, neurotically attempting to fix it or identify an alternative, on the other hand, paralyzes me. My neuroticism is not without benefits, however. It has led me to approach software with intentionality and is the backbone of a unique relationship with it, I am often proud of.

I think we lost the plot a little there. How does any of this relate to Microcosdom or the server rack?

Well, Microcosdom exists in the way you’re viewing it now, because of my compulsory need for simplicity and to fix every other website I’ve come across. There’s no JavaScript, because of my experiences with bloated websites that over-rely on it. The font is monospaced, and everything is statically served from Markdown files using a lightweight generator written in Rust (Zola). Microcosdom is constructed just as much from my grievances as it is from my preferences.

Taking it one-step further, the hardware Microcosdom runs on was assembled within the same principles. I modeled the server rack myself because I wasn’t satisfied with other perfectly functional models available online. Otter is an Arch Linux machine running a simple web server (nginx) that I manage over SSH, explicitly in opposition to other more developed and cumbersome solutions. Admittedly, this probably kneecaps my scalability, but do I like… need scalability?

Essentially, what raf was trying to say in their post was this: Maya built an entire server rack and self-hosts her website as a means of control.

Cyber Anarchy

Another major motivating factor behind Microcosdom and the server rack has been my relationship with authority, politics, and grassroots movements. I’m an anarchist and staunchly anti-capitalist, so I find the myriad of massive mega corporations that broadly control the internet bothersome, and I still rely on them in many ways avoid them at all costs. Hell, I begrudgingly gave Cloudflare money to register microcosdom.com, much less am I willing to pay Google for cloud storage.

This capitalistic death-grip on the internet permeates everything: extending to recreation, services, and infrastructure. For most people, myself included, if they wish to engage with the social aspects of the internet they are corralled to one of many platforms owned by billionaires: YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter get deadnamed, idiot, etc. Non-recreational or social aspects of the internet are just as bad. Working on a document for work or school? You’re likely using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Cloud storage is typically relegated to Google Drive or OneDrive. Even at the OS level, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, making up nearly all user devices, graft these tools onto system level features, such as automatically saving your photos to Google Photos. Finally, the barest infrastructure of the internet itself is dependent on corporations. At the bare minimum, to visit Microcosdom, doing everything you can to avoid them, your internet traffic is routed through your ISP, who likely has a monopoly in your area, received through my ISP, who definitely has a monopoly in my area, and I had to give Cloudflare money, so we could even find each other.

It’s maddening.

Obviously, totally eschewing capital’s control over our lives, without political action, is Sisyphean, but it is not without merit. In my eyes, each company, service, and billionaire avoided is valuable for its own sake and the server rack was constructed partially to further this goal. Self-hosting provides a means of engaging with computers and networking without solely relying on mega-corporations: the NAS server replaces Google Drive, Jellyfin replaces streaming platforms, etc. In addition, Microcosdom itself fills a similar purpose, somewhat acting as an alternative outlet to massive social media platforms.

Avoiding the corporatization of my digital life isn’t just politically gratifying, it also provides substantially more control over the way I engage with software. I don’t have to deal with enshittification or removal of services I enjoy. My media cannot be taken away or moved to another platform. The things I use are set up the ways I like them. Admittedly, this isn’t the most convenient way to engage with software, control is typically proportional to effort after all, but it’s a way that I find gratifying, even if it usually manifests as, to quote someone close to me: “[a] constant battle against yourself just to open a 2 GB game on the evil living room computer.”

All of this to say, Microcosdom, and the rest of the server rack, exists as a digital and physical manifestation of my political relationship with capital, modernity, and life. It is an extension of my views and beliefs about humanity and an embodiment of the ways I think digital spaces ought to exist.

The Small Web

One of the most direct inspirations on the creation of Microcosdom is the Small Web movement, a social-movement of people hosting and socializing through typically lightweight personal websites, à la 1990s internet. Principally, the Small Web movement is motivated by similar reasons to what I’ve identified above: Capitalism has colonized the internet and funneled nearly all of its users into one of few mega-platforms that isolate us and continually get worse.

My relationship with the Small Web began with long hours in an office and a desperate clawing attempt to avoid scrolling Twitter to get through it. In the process, I discovered troves of other people’s thoughts, art, projects, etc. via tools such as Marginalia Search and small aggregators such as Lobsters. I learned that across the web there were earnest and lovingly crafted websites made by countless people from all walks of life.

I found the entire prospect attractive, due to the obvious political alignment with my own, but also admittedly, the old internet sounds kinda magical, doesn’t it? I am deeply sorry if anyone older than me ever reads this blog. Discovering each other via word of mouth, websites taking any amount of effort and time to put together, etc. I, embarrassingly, feel pretty intense anemoia^[2] for it all and happily considered taking part in the movement.

Tons of websites, such as these^{[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]}, turned out to be the most meaningful and inspiring things I’ve probably ever found on the internet, and they directly inspired me to start Microcosdom and get to where we are now.

Conclusion

We Got Here via neuroticism, a moral framework, and a variety of influences unique to me, and as an extension both Microcosdom and the server rack possess idiosyncrasies and bespoke inefficiencies derived from those traits.

Above everything, I like it this way. While I love to pretend to have perfect reasoning for my relationship with technology and the creation of this website, I’m sure you can find contradictions all over the place. Fernando Borretti captured this well in his blog post You Can Choose Tools That Make You Happy:

Because people make technical decisions, in part, for affective reasons. They choose a technology because it feels good, or comfortable, or because it’s what they know… But many people can’t admit this to themselves! Because it is contrary to their identity: that they are unfeeling Cartesian rationalist automata. And so they invent rationalizations.

This sentiment extends well past my technical decisions. This blog has been an attempt to rationalize my creation of this page and of the server rack, but in truth at the end of the day, I made it because I liked it.

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