Queering Bash - workshop 2023

--- tags: Presentation, workshop title: 'Queering Bash' whom: Winnie & Mara link: https://cloud.systerserver.net/index.php/apps/files/?dir=/BASH&openfile=18675 css: https://hackmd.io/XpOKFjF4Ski5lhw2WN_tQQ?both description: View the slide with "Slide Mode" slideOptions: theme: sans transition: 'fade' --- {%hackmd Z7-ZDPlnShK_jnWqKM0Tnw %}  <img src="https://i.imgur.com/PDmVtNh.png" width=400/>  </br> </br> </br> ==Winnie Soon (they/them) + Mara Karayanni (they/them) (6 March 2023)== ==a joint Sussex Humanities Lab & Full Stack Feminism workshop== --- ## Overview/Intro * 10:30 - 12:00 (hybrid talk) * 13:15 - 16:00 (hands-on workshop) ---  ## Subject position <img src="https://media.giphy.com/media/MT5UUV1d4CXE2A37Dg/giphy.gif" width=300> - Mara: System admin (server maintainence) role (e.g [systerserver](https://systerserver.net/)) & software developer - Winnie: Digital literacy (coding otherwise) > how can we better understand our computer systems - both: - language + code aesthetics of the terminal (CLI) -> constraints and challenges vs GUI - Queer feminist pespective in technology - technology x art & culture x politics ---  ## Why Bash? <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Gnu-bash-logo.svg/2560px-Gnu-bash-logo.svg.png" width=350> Bash is a command line interface and a scripting language developed in 1989 as a piece of free software originally for the GNU System (*GNU is not UNIX*) and it is the default shell for Linux. Shell interface are also in Mac OS and Windows) - for system administration, file management, generating reports and automating tasks. ==Anyone have experience with Bash? Do you like bash? and why? what are the functions/syntax you use most?== ---  ## Bash?  <div id="left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/f6AvYev.png" width=350> </div> <div id = "right"> - long history (over 30 years) and is still v. useful nowadays - runs in terminal (text-based instructions) vs GUI - "using commands somehow like a programming language" (Pouzin, 1964); example: `echo "hello world"` - interact/access to the operating system (the concept of shell) - command-line interpreters - Thompson shell (1971) > Bourne Shell (1976) > Bash shell (1989) > GUI shell (1983, Apple - Lisa Computer) </div> ---  ## Computational Culture - Bash <img src="http://www.vintagecomputer.net/att/7300/Networking/Zenith_Z-19_Connected.jpg" width=400> - mundane in corporate culture: automating tasks - ubiquitous: server, system, administrative, and security maintainence - file management, generating reports, data processing and automating tasks/labours (e.g cron jobs, logging). - Concurrency ---  ## Computational Culture - Bash ==interesting object of study (technical and research object) in the area of computational culture== - gender issues around bash <-> free and open source culture <-> tech environments - critique of big tech environments (esp. Dashboard by Amazon and the change of labour practices in the tech landscape) - CLI vs GUI (relate to digital literacy) - Creative works around it (e.g art & design) ---   <h2 style="color:#fff">Bash; background && philosophy</h2> ==bash shell developed by the Bell Labs for the Unix OS, end 70s== ==Unix became popular due its modularity and exportability:== **==less functionality in kernel. move functions to user libraries==** </br> </br> *==Unix was not free distribution like Linux. AT&T the telephone monopoly in US until 1982 Once monopoly was broken they licensed and monetized Unix in 1982.==*  --- * Ritchie & Thomson succeded to run Unix on a cast-off machine, the PDP7. * It was programmed in machine language, transferd with binary paper tape and loaded on PDP7 <img src="https://livingcomputers.org/getattachment/4f157e95-2885-4451-bdfe-16e8fc830f11/attachment.aspx" width=800> <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.fs.quoracdn.net%2Fmain-qimg-72f0e6a3bb94a96336bd04390608e3dc-c&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c04803bbc90a4ef84ca7653b45ade88b41b39526d951b962d75e04fd7ea27eb4&ipo=images" width=800> --- ## Supercomputer in the 1970s Computer wiring > *Cray hired women for this task – ones selected for their patience and precision* <div style="flow:left"> <img src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_20180210_154015289.jpg" width=500> <img src="https://designblog.nzeldes.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/craywiring2.jpg" width=250> </div> <small>https://designblog.nzeldes.com/2009/01/the-opposite-of-human-engineering/</small> --- [Lorinda Cherry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorinda_Cherry) <img src="https://i.imgur.com/UjyB0oV.png" width=500> > Her work focused on graphics, word processing, and language design. Some of her earliest work at the Computing Science Research at Bell consisted of configuring systems to run an early version of Unix written in assembly language. [Video demostration of shell](https://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0?t=938) --- ![](https://i.imgur.com/cZHGH9X.png) <a style="text-align:center" href="https://youtu.be/XuzeagzQwRs?t=124">The Forgotten history of early Unix</a> --- ## Unix philosophy: pipes, redirection > Expect the output of every program to become the input to another. > Design and build software, even operating systems, to be tried early, ideally within weeks. Don’t hesitate to throw away the clumsy parts and rebuild them. *Doug McIlroy in The Art of Unix 2003, p. 34* <div style="flow:left"> <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Version_7_Unix_SIMH_PDP11_Emulation_DMR.png" width=490/> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/SOeVBfM.png" width=460/> </div> --- ## Critique of computational culture - system admin tasks: big tech normalisation Cloud computing & economies of scales: AWS or Google Compute Engine - Oligopoly - Condition how we access, know, organise, systems administration works - Smooth/Seamless dashboard interfaces (APIs behind) - profit-orientation: expansionist - extractivist - Automation vs care for maintenance, resources, environments and people --- <img src="https://t-neumann.github.io/assets/images/posts/AWS-pipeline/Launch_EC2Dashboard.png" width=800> - Abstraction of file system, enforced terminology different to the wider servers ecosystem. e.g elastic IPs, security groups that do not apply outside a specific corporate toolbox, and thus not interoperability --- ## Critique of community aspect of Unix/FLOSS  lack of peer review practices In the late 1980s, Ramey took over from Brian Fox as the lead developer of Bash, and in 2014, he received an email about a serious security hole. > Within hours, hackers had released code that could take over vulnerable machines and turn them into a malicious botnet. > [T]here's a lot of code that doesn't actually get very many eyes at all," he says. "And a lot of open-source projects don't actually have all that many developers involved, even when they are fairly core. <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/09/shellshocked-bash/">The Internet Is Broken, and Shellshock Is Just the Start of Our Woes, Wired</a> --- ## Critique of community & gender aspects of Unix/FLOSS  Gettext decision making and gender bias > In this manual, we use he when speaking of the > programmer or maintainer, she when speaking of the translator a patch that was submitted by a contributor in the GNU community was not accepted by the code maintener > 1) In a specific document or documentation, do we > want gender-neutral speak? > 2) If we want gender-neutral speak, what is the > English grammar element that works best? > Here, it's futile to discuss the second question, since > the answer to the first question is already "no". <small>Bruno Haible skreiv, 2020</small> <small> <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gettext/2020-09/msg00012.html">email thread on the GNU lists</a></small> --- ## Critique of bash - unix - gender <img src="https://i.imgur.com/7vVGjiL.png" width=300> [Byte magazine](https://zalkikar.github.io/) 1977 (The magazine - a micocomputer magazine around hobbyists discussed ideas, sought help, shared opinions, and planned club events about computing technology. -1975-1988 / USA)  --- ## Critique of bash - unix - gender ![](https://i.imgur.com/oX65woi.png) <a style="text-align:center" href="https://discoverbsd.com/p/e62abb575b" width=600>The Origin of Unix, 2019 conference 50yrs of Unix </a> - early development of Bash: monoculture (Richard Stallman hired Brian Fox in the mid 80s, Chet Ramey) - on-going cis-male in system admin roles, FLOSS and tech in general --- ==Interview question for the coming manual:== What do you think is the most significant disparity in the sysadmin/programmer/coder role (gender, age, ethnicity, class) and why? Do you see this gap growing or being alleviated/fixed? --- ## Interview **Mariana Marangoni** > This field [system admin] is still a very hostile environment for anyone who isn’t a white middle-class cisgender man, and it’s not enough to advocate for gender equality only – as socio-economical background, transphobia, and ethnicity are also big factors in determining who feels welcomed in sys-admin (and similar) roles. There is also the case of how the technology industry sees Asian men as more suited to these roles, profiling and generalizing them in another form of racism. In recent years, there has been much more conversation around the issue, and many companies and organizations are trying to address the disparity – not always in the most successful of ways, as just hiring people to ‘diversify’ the team without any cultural and systemic changes ends up only making these professionals frustrated, detached, and burnt out. --- ## Interview **Kat** > From what I see the industry is still mostly white cis hetero men. Keeping up with changes in tools can be difficult and stressful, so I think this pushes people out. A side effect of this is that mistakes get repeated by a new generation. --- ## Queering Bash --- ## Depart from Queer OS [Queer OS](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/535715) (Kara Keeling 2014) - a scholarly political project  > Queer OS would take historical, sociocultural, conceptual phenomena that currently shape our realities in deep and profound ways, such as race, gender, class, citizenship, and ability, to be mutually constitutive with sexuality and with media and information technologies, thereby making it impossible to think any of them in isolation. It understands queer as naming an orientation toward various and shifting aspects of existing reality and the social norms they govern (p. 153)  > It insists upon forging and facilitating uncommon, irrational, imaginative, and/or unpredictable relationships between and among what currently are perceptible as living beings and the environment in the interest of creating value(s) that facilitate just relations. (p. 154)   --- ## Creative Works --- ## Creative works: Bash ==nervousdata (Jasmin Meerhoff)== <img src="https://i.imgur.com/lWoWRx8.png" width=400> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/aqWLHGq.png" width=600> https://www.nervousdata.com/raspel.html --- <img src="https://i.imgur.com/PWwoiGp.jpg" width=600> https://www.nervousdata.com/wiese/swingcut.html --- ## Creative works: Bash ==golubjevaite== <a href="https://tube.systerserver.net/w/1GfLsUfvsn5RC92mBajV4x"> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/6FbvTlT.png" width=500></a> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/2IgpZQG.png" width=600> https://git.systerserver.net/00ff00/atxt_cmd/-/tree/main/week4 --- ## Creative works: Bash - code poetry [Queering Code](https://siusoon.net/projects/queeringcode) (Winnie Soon, 2022) & [Forkonomy](https://siusoon.net/projects/forkonomy) (Winnie Soon & Tzu-Tung Lee, 2020-2022) <img src="https://siusoon.net/gallery/albums/QueeringCode/queercode_img_1668508052.jpeg" width=500> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/eORyqw1.png" width=300> --- ## Creative works: Bash (Christoph Haag) <img src="https://www.forkable.eu/generators/wtf/o/free/en/A1/wtf_naz_0_02_729-6.gif" width=300> <img src="https://www.forkable.eu/generators/wtf/o/free/en/A1/wtf_see_0_01_009-9.gif" width=300> - [poster generator edition](https://www.forkable.eu/generators/wtf/SELFPRINT) - Built with LaTeX,Processing and BASH - [wtf.sh](https://www.forkable.eu/generators/wtf/wtf.sh) - [readme](https://www.forkable.eu/generators/wtf/README), [intro](https://www.forkable.eu/memo/2009/wtf/3x3/) --- ## Creative works: Bash ==Fuck censorship by Mark Sta Ana - booyaa== <img src="https://i.imgur.com/eXozczg.png" width=600> https://github.com/booyaa/fuckcensorship [bannedbookcensored](https://github.com/booyaa/bannedbookscensored) --- ## Activity 1: demo  a list of commands (commonly used) ``` cd, ls . vim/nano cat man -> terminal based manuals cp / mv / rm / mkdir curl / wget tail / less / more -> reading logs ``` </br> --- <img src="https://www.in-grid.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/05-scaled.jpg" width=400> 8th Mar - call for [a Counter Cloud Action Day](https://www.in-grid.io/8m/) | [international activities](https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/8m-activities) | https://systerserver.net/8m --- ## Part 2: workshop intro  ---  ## Activity 2: Coding basics - running Bash 1. Open your terminal 2. Type `mkdir queerbash` (make a directory called queerbash) 3. Type `ls` (list: can you see the queerbash directory?) 4. Type `cd queerbash` (so you are now at the bash directory) 5. Type `nano kissing.sh` (editing mode) 6. Copy and paste the script below (use mouse click copy and paste, but not shortcuts) 7. Press control+X 8. Type `Y` and then press Enter 9. Type `ls` (list the file in the directory) 10. Type `bash kissing.sh` (to run the bash script) ```bash= queer=love kisses=(dear sweetheart darling baby love monkey) read -p "Enter your lover's name : " dear for kiss in "${kisses[@]}"; do if [ "$kiss" = "$queer" ] ; then echo kiss you $kiss, $dear else echo :* :* $kiss, $dear fi done ``` ---  ## Activity 2: Coding basics | Concept | e.g | what| | -------- | -------- | -------- | | Variable | `queer=love` | some kind of storage that hold values in a string format | | Array | `kisses=(dear sweetheart)` | a list of data that hold various values in a string format | | Read input | `read -p "Enter your lover' name : " dear` | allow users to input and extract the input data for usage | | for loop | `for kiss in "${kisses[@]}"; done` | iteration to run through a list of data - array | | conditional statement | `if [ "$kiss" == "$queer" ] ; then else fi` | set condition to go for different path | | syntax: echo | `echo ":* :* $kiss, $dear";` | display msg/text on screen | ---  ## Activity 2: missing.sh Try to follow previous steps, copy the code below, save the file and run the bash script: 1. Type `nano missing.sh` (editing mode) 2. Copy and paste the script below (use mouse click copy and paste, but not shortcuts) 3. Press control+X 4. Type `Y` and then press Enter 5. Type `ls` (list the file in the directory) 6. Type `bash missing.sh` (to run the bash script) ```bash= while $love how="so" do so+="${how} " # so = so + ${how} echo I miss you $so much sleep 0.2 done ``` ---  ## Basic operators ```text= Operator, Purpose, For DataType =, Equal to operation, string ==, Equal to operation, string !=, is not equal to, string <, is less than in ASCII alphabetical order, string >, is greater than in ASCII alphabetical order, string -z, if a string is empty (or null), string -n, if a string is not empty (or not null), string -eq, is equal to, number -ne, is not equal to, number -lt, is less than, number -le, is less than or equal to, number -gt, is greater than, number -ge, is greater than or equal to, number ``` ---  ## Activity 3 awk for creating visual poetry Run the code: 1. Copy and paste the script below in the terminal, then press Enter `bash kissing.sh | awk '$1 ~ /kiss/ { print $3 "\t" $2 "\t" $4 }' | sed 's/,/ /g'` ``` bash kissing.sh lover $0 = kissing.sh $1 = lover ``` ---  ## Activity 4: Queer Computing - Can a machine feels love? Can a computer falls in love? - What do you want to say about love? <img src="https://user-content.gitlab-static.net/f1c5e9ce4045c042f64edfdbcb48330bc683bec6/687474703a2f2f6d656469612e7268697a6f6d652e6f72672f626c6f672f383935312f73747261636865792d6e6f74652e6a706567" width=800> [Love Letter Generator](https://nickm.com/memslam/love_letters.html) (1952), original by Christopher Strachey, and remade by Nick Montfort ---  ## Activity 4: Queer Computing: Love Letter Generator - Christopher Strachey (1916), a mathematician and computer scientist - ran on the Manchester Mark I - using a random number generating algoritm - letters of love and adoration addressed to an unnamed, genderless other, signed only with the initials M.U.C. (M.U.C stood for Manchester University Computer) - the dialogue structure is important in setting up an exchange between “Me” (the program writer) and “You” (human reader), so you feel personally addressed. - syntactic skeleton: "You are my — Adjective — Substantive,” and “My — [Adjective] — Substantive — [Adverb] — Verb — Your — [Adjective] — Substantive" - some words are fixed and some are optional - the program selects from a list of options — adjectives, adverbs, and verbs — and loops are configured to avoid repetition. - generate over 318 billion variations. <small>ref: A Queer History of Computing by Jacob Gaboury (2013); Wardrip-Fruin, N. (2011). 14. Digital Media Archaeology: Interpreting Computational Processes. In *Media Archaeology* (pp. 302-322). University of California Press.</small> ---  ## Activity 4: Your Queer Love letters in pairs/groups (1/2 hr) <small> How would you generate your Queer Love Letter? How would you express (queer) love via computation? 1. modifying existing scripts e.g replacing words, variable names 2. go through the commands, and see any interesting one that you want to use 3. look at: kissing.sh / missing.sh </small> ```bash= queer=love kisses=(dear sweetheart darling baby love monkey) read -p "Enter your lover's name : " dear for kiss in "${kisses[@]}"; do if [ "$kiss" = "$queer" ] ; then echo kiss you $kiss, $dear else echo :* :* $kiss, $dear fi done ``` ```bash= while $love how="so" do so+="${how} " echo I miss you $so much sleep 0.2 done ``` --- ## Activity 5: Sharing

Syntax	Example	Reference
# Header	Header	基本排版
- Unordered List	Unordered List
1. Ordered List	Ordered List
- [ ] Todo List	Todo List
> Blockquote	Blockquote
Bold font	Bold font
Italics font	Italics font
~~Strikethrough~~	~~Strikethrough~~
19^th^	19^th
H~2~O	H₂O
++Inserted text++	Inserted text
==Marked text==	Marked text
[link text](https:// "title")	Link
![image alt](https:// "title")	Image
`Code`	`Code`	在筆記中貼入程式碼
```javascript var i = 0; ```	`var i = 0;`
:smile:		Emoji list
{%youtube youtube_id %}	Externals
$L^aT_eX$	L^aT_eX
:::info This is a alert area. :::	This is a alert area.