Welcome! ---
title: languages within languages
language: en
---
fork: https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/pad/p/languageswithoutwalls

__PUBLISH__
__VARIA__

languages within languages script

"What meaning meant was meaningless. there were so many languages inside each language, such different meanings for each word, that the dialogical break was inevitable" (Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive - shared with Varia by Jara Rocha)

"Don't get hung up about names." (Linus Torvalds in a very passive-aggressive email exchange https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/everything_is_file.html )

Through this script, we invite you to take a few moments to alter the language used within programming environments to situate it within the present group. We will be customising system messages, renaming commands, or changing files.

Rosa is connected to the Varia vortex, which is "a collection of techniques which allows our server in varia to act as a transit point to make other servers, whether located in the space or outside, reachable over the internet." (from the documentation of setting up the varia hub, by Roel Roscam Abbing.) More information about this setup here: https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/pad/p/varia-hub-documentation

A possible rhythm to follow:

15 min - Potential alternative route
If you have never used a terminal before, we recommend spending some time to get more comfortable with it. The Map Is The Territory game, developed by Solarpunk.cool is a short introduction to the commands you will need: https://solarpunk.cool/zines/map-is-the-territory/

• For a quick cheatsheet, see https://www.guru99.com/linux-commands-cheat-sheet.html

Another game to try out, helping learning commands, see https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/bandit0.html

25 min - The login oracle (a score within a script)
To log into Rosa, there are two ways, a simple one and a more complex one. The simple one gives you access to the Rosa server while you are on the same network (so only when you are in Varia or in the next physical location of Rosa), and the more complex one gives you access on any network you find yourself on.

The simple version:
    What is ssh
  >  https://project.xpub.nl/img/xpub_logo_2020.svg
    SSH is a command that gives you access to another computer from the terminal.

Open your terminal and run:
$ ssh friend@192.168.1.71
Ask the key holders at the table for the password.

The more complex version:
you will first need to either have to generate an rsa key.
To do this, run:
    $ ssh-keygen (only if you don't hava an rsa key already, or if you want to make a new rsa key)
    $ cd ~/.ssh/
    $ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub


Copy the output and ask one of the key holders at the table to add your public rsa key to the Varia server.

Edit the following file ~/.ssh/config to include:

• host varia_hub
•          Hostname vvvvvvaria.org
•          User jump
•          Port 12345
•          ForwardAgent yes
•          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
• host rosa
•          Hostname 10.5.1.2
•          User friend
•          Port 22
•          ForwardAgent yes
•          ProxyJump varia_hub

N.B. that the key path/name should be made specific to your own situation 

With the above config you can now do run the following command:
    $ ssh rosa

For this section, we take inspiration from Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who says:

• • Alexis Pauline Gumbs introduces her book, Dub: Finding Ceremony, as an Oracle
  • [in a lecture called Future of Praxis _ Meridians - feminism, race, transnationalism, found on youtube]
  • "Sylvia Winter says what we need is a socio-poetics, poetics for the society, we need poetics of a possible relation. The situation we have, she explains, is one of separation. The dominant story and the languages in which we reproduce it say that we are not related. Our relationships with people and environment are mediated by capital and violence. Sylvia Winter says we need a poetic practice that finds a way to center our relationships, to displace the unnatural violence that the whole definition of what it is to be human and racist, hetero, patriarchal, colonial, capitalist, and says this is the only way; to be dominated or dominant with resources or without hope.
  • She says, Can we describe it?
  • That attempt should be our work, the point of all our art, the great creative act.
  • There has not been a day since where I have not mentioned Sylvia Winter, and now I have this book where on every page, I cite a moment of Sylvia Winter making a version of this argument in different contexts and in different ways. She is still making that argument right now, insisting that in this moment, when we can actually communicate as a species, all of us in real time, we are better poised than ever, to reject the false universalism that was used to justify colonialism and slavery.That continues to destroy our life chances on this planet.
  • This for me is also the question of meridians connecting points through lines, boundaries, transnationalism, feminism, race.The work of finding and redefining our relation across all of this, the nuanced poetic activity of reclaiming relation as praxis. 
  • Sylvia Winter says the ceremony must be found to create what she calls a we that needs no other. And so I'm offering an Oracle.
  • It requires our relationship and your participation."
  • Oracle Score
  • [these actions are borrowed from a lecture by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, they are edited from a transcript]
  • This Oracle requires your relation.
  • Think of, and activate, a resonant relationship in your own life, maybe part of the reason that you're here, but not a person who's actually here in the room, because that's what's poetic about it. The borders of this university, the limits of capitalist access, even the boundary between life and death cannot eradicate your relations. So we're going to dedicate this space to and for and with our relations. 
  • Did you find them? Okay. 
  • Write down the name and a little bit about why and who you dedicated to.
  • Take about four minutes to do that right now. 
  • Now, think of a question that is at stake for you. In this time in your life. 
  • It may have to do with why you prioritise being at this school. It may be related to the person that you dedicated to, or something else that is urgently on your heart.
  • Push away the fear of asking questions we don't already know the answer to. This is not that not to say that that doesn't do anything, just this is not that.
  • Draw on your relation for the power to be poetic in this moment.
  • When you have your question, think of a number between 1 and 49
  • It could be just the number that comes to you. It could be a number related to your question.
  • Find your number in the book
  • Photograph the words
  • Write a reflection on how this relates to your person, your question, and how you can engage with writing
  • The way this socio-poetic Oracle works is that there are 49 different passages in Dub, that specifically refer to moments of emphasis in Sylvia Winters essays, they are ethno or socio-poetics that I referred to, and those are the 49

We will adapt the score of Alexis Pauline Gumbs for accessing the Rosa server. When logging in, you will see a prompt. You can change this by editing the file /etc/issue using nano, a text editor. You will need sudo for this:
    $ sudo nano /etc/issue
Right now, the text when you login is:
    "Now, think of a question that is at stake for you. In this time in your life. It may be related to the person that you dedicated to, or something else that is urgently on your heart."

We invite you to ask this question to yourself before logging into ssh. You don't need to say this question to anyone, or write it down anywhere, it's only for yourself.

When logging in, you will see a randomly selected Message Of The Day (MOTD). At the moment, these are excerpts from the book by Gumbs.
We invite you to look in the physical space of Varia, the library, the reference book area, the zines, or your own references to add to the oracle.
To add more texts to this add text files in /home/friend/oracle:
    $ sudo touch /home/friend/oracle/text-name.txt
    $ sudo nano /home/friend/oracle/text-name.txt

Definition of alias from Merriam-Webster:
 (Entry 1 of 2)
: otherwise called : otherwise known as
 —used to indicate an additional name that a person (such as an artist/ criminal) sometimes uses
 (Entry 2 of 2)
 : an assumed or additional name that a person (such as a buddy/criminal) sometimes uses

In computing, an alias is a command which allows you to replace commands/words with other words. It is mainly used for abbreviating a system command, or for adding default arguments to a regularly used command.

Aliases that can currently be found on Rosa in the .bash_aliases file on user friend
To start a tmux session to collaboratively write in a terminal:
alias together='tmux new -s'

• run:
• $ together name_of_session

To join an existing tmux session
alias join='tmux attach -t'

• run:
• $ join name_of_session

to create an alias add it to the file ~/.bash_aliases

alias sound="pavucontrol"

To make the latest aliases available to be used (run after every change in the .bash_aliases file)
alias begin='source ~/.bash_aliases'
>> multiple aliases work for the same command

• run:
• $ begin

What happens when you give an alias that exist for another command?


Pad for alliases discussion
https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/pad/p/languageswithoutwalls

 


Other possible steps
Apart from aliases, there are other things we can change:
    - the lecture file, which contains the message displayed whenever someone uses sudo. To change this run:
        $ sudo nano /etc/sudoers.unite
    - cron job that send a message after a certain time. To try this, you could for example print a message to everyone's screens every hour. For this you would first write your message, for example see file /home/friend/broadcast.txt and edit it as you see fit. To make it run, we've added this line to the crontab "0 * * * * cat /home/friend/broadcast.txt | wall" using this command:
        $ crontab -e
    The command being run every hour is called "wall". You can use this command to send a message to everyone logged into the terminal:
        $ wall "hello atnofs"



References

• Networking zine by Julia Evans https://jvns.ca/networking-zine-coloured.pdf
• A server is hard to define https://jvns.ca/blog/2019/12/26/whats-a-server/

https://github.com/jifunks/botany