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stefanlaser.bsky.social
Laser
@stefanlaser.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.3K following 410 posts
I am an academic ✒ on 🚯🚆🐮💾. #sts #sociology #ecology #waste #energy

Plus, Fujifilm #photography

I post POSSE style: Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. Many things Asia, VN.
https://social.tchncs.de/@stefanlaser
https://stefanlaser.net
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stefanlaser.bsky.social
Out now, Call for Case Participation (CfCP?) and CfP for “Before Ruins” in Bochum.

Together with students, I will organise a case on vacant houses. Or, in the words of a recent controversy:
“#Leerstand im #Stadtbild”
stsing.org/before-ru…
A dithered image of Ruhr-University campus, just next to the Audimax and in front of the mensa. Lots of concrete, but there's nature in sight.
November 13, 2025 at 8:06 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
A tiny side-project that I can hopefully pull through: reverse engineering an audio box for kids that works with proprietary “tokens.” Like a cassette player but rigid af. Use and dispose. #hackerspace #netz39

First stop, getting info about chips and pins. A cheap USB microcontroller it is
Using a bunch of tools to open a little plastic token that functions as a tape for a "Galakto" audio box. These magnetically attach on top of these little boxes. Very easy to use. This is the setting of a makerspace with iFixit tools and more. Colorful One side of a small printed circuit. Electronics and pins and an ID to trace the chip. A QR code from production.&10;&10;This is the only chip running the token. It includes tracks and every token has only a small set of songs or stories. On the storage device, there's only a few GB. Yet maybe there's room to load more and different stuff on this 🤫
November 6, 2025 at 7:46 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
I like to play around as an anonymous commenter in online newspaper columns. If you point out the biases of #AI systems, the comment gets deleted because it is considered too polemical.

The comment was addressing an article about AI in public service and the use in refugee applications 🫣
A quick chat with ChatGPT itself: asked about bias in training and inference, it agrees. It's not traceable; "the exact causal pathways inside a deep neural network remain largely opaque to human understanding." It's never fully decodable. Not that we can trust this very output.
October 21, 2025 at 6:53 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Der Abfall, der Schmutz des Systems – Mary Douglas ruft an: Soziale Systeme entledigen sich Menschen, Dingen und Plätzen, die tatsächlich oder potenziell eine Gefahr darstellen, die eine gewünschte Ordnung infragestellen.

Darum geht es der #CDU und #Merz. Von Obdachlosen bis PoCs. #DiscardStudies
Ein Screenshot von der Tagesschau, wo der Kanzler rassistisch über ein sog. reines Stadtbild philosophiert. Es gibt zu viele Migrant*innen und Obdachlose, die soz. runlungern. Titel des Artikels: "Merz' Problem mit dem Stadtbild"
October 17, 2025 at 12:40 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Epic #semiconductors. I am part of a German-Taiwanese research collab: “Exploring Silicon Urbanism: Bilateral Workshops and Fieldtrips in Dresden and Hsinchu.” With trips to clean rooms and affected communities.

Photo-documentation upcoming! #sts

www.ioer.de/en/projec…
Exploring Silicon Urbanism between and across Hsinchu and Dresden’s Urban-scapes, created by Xiaoxue Gao. Base layers: Top: hand-drawn city map of Hsinchu (©Tom Rook, used with permission); Down: snapshot of Dresden Germany 50×50 km 3DCityMaps, no License needed (3D model by 3polies, Data source: © OpenStreetMap contributors). Collage, colour and other creative adjustments by the author.
October 16, 2025 at 7:39 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
It’s been three months since we left #Vietnam. I miss my dear vegan Phở from Kiez Hanoi. The stolls, ride, life.

In other news, the North is still fighting the floods and rain from 10 days ago. Read more and click through the impact
Me, the poster, digging a pho, digesting the hot sauce I always added on top. You see a man with a cappie and glaces looking down at a soup, grabbing food with chop sticks
October 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Our Bochum+ crowd finished yet another sweet RUSTlab annual retreat. We focused on writing and reviewing texts, sprinkled some organising magic on top—and donkey meditation! 🫏

Stay tuned for our winter lectures, and the stsing 2026 conference, of course 🤓
rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Two big French donkeys that are part of the Münster Location we stayed at for the retreat. These animals are part of a theology institute that thinks about more-than-human relations
October 9, 2025 at 9:45 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Bomben Panel auf dem #DGS Kongress – von cultured meat über klimapolitökonomisches organising, den Katastrophen und Schwellen der Moderne, der zerstörten und zerstörenden Moderne, hin zum Recht der Natur und Intraklusion, einem ordentlichen Barad-Vibe. So lässt sich mit "Verwerfungen" denken
Panel Beschreibung: vier Beiträge zu sozial-ökologischen Verwerfungen Foto aus dem Vortrag von Andreas Volkers, Umgang mit Katastrophen, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, und mehr
September 25, 2025 at 2:19 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
#Soziologie time, auf zum #DGS2025 Kongress! Ich hoffe, die Schiene hält, dann wird im waste-Panel aufgeräumt 🙌
Screenshot aus dem Programm. Wir tragen for zu Fürsorge, Ed wird ein Schema serviert
September 24, 2025 at 6:14 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
The NVidia black market documentary keeps on giving: #Repair shops in #China pimp GPUs to double the VRAM. With new PCBs. Repurposing silicon, that’s sustainable hacking.

rumble.com/v6xro9o–…
Removing a GPU from a PCB with heart and precision. And that's only the first step of a two-hour process.
August 25, 2025 at 7:43 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
The hottest shit in #offshore construction technology, that’s at least what Google tells me.

Ready for 20MW projets, going 70m deep, methanol driven. 💨

#Borkum views #holiday #energy
The Van Oord, a rather new vessel that builds foundations and more for offshore wind power
August 18, 2025 at 9:23 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
There is a piano in there.*

#train life of a #commuter

#photography

*Ok, that’s from a line a podcast just dropped while I listened and typed. 99÷ Invisible
Sunset shot through the window of a driving train, right into the sun, a green turned black field in the front, some wind power around
July 29, 2025 at 7:10 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
We proudly share our Call for Cases for the 2nd #stsref="/hashtag/stsing" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#stsing conference, hosted in #Bochum. A case-based format is a way of conferencing that is local, small, and oriented towards the concrete.

Make your case, fit your case, hop on. #sts #sociology #anthropology

stsing.org/before-ru…
Dithered photograph of disassembly action in the Ruhr valley, representing the not-yet of transformation, pasts and futures.
July 22, 2025 at 9:10 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
On writing in the botanical garden. Take this, #AI frustration.

Ruhr-Uni campus life 🦋, bees all over the place
Macro shot (with lots of zoom details) of a butterfly species 🦋 in a blooming meadow. Lots of green and some colourful pop
July 8, 2025 at 11:13 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
“Können nur das Geld ausgeben, das wir haben”, zitiert die SZ #Merz von einem Banken-Meetup. Auf dem Foto wurde genau die richtige Pose eingegangen.
Neuer MMT-Lehrbuchbeitrag incoming. Kanzler Merz vor einem Rednerpult, suggerierend, dass er ja leider trotz allem nichts tun könnte
July 4, 2025 at 3:50 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Warum die Trassenpreise steigen, und was das mit Obsoleszenz im System der #Bahn zu tun hat. Oder: Buchungstechnisch modernisiert, strukturell blockiert: https://stefanlaser.net/2025/07/04/warum-die-trassenpreise-steigen-und.html
Bild einer vorbeifahrenden Bahn am Gleis. In Bewegung, unscharf. Ob das wirklich eine deutsche Bahn, oder gar eine besser funktionierende Bahn irgendwie in Asien ist, bleibt den Sternen überlassen
July 4, 2025 at 8:37 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Meanwhile, Twitter tells me: Pouring rain in #Hanoi. Different worlds, one planet
A wide angle shot of rain on Hanoi, you see an HDR world with the rain only in the middle, like it's released by the rain God
July 1, 2025 at 11:30 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
"Attesting to living in times of nearing ends, ‘Before Ruins’ is when we are able and required to act, to notice and recognize."

stsing.org/before-ru…

Announcing the 2nd #stsref="/hashtag/stsing" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link">#stsing conference in Bochum. We will have some fun over there, and try to do a few things differently. #sts #lowcarbon
Dithered image (80s web style) of the Ruhr Valley campus with the forests in the back. Reduced colours, mostly green, white, black, sprinkles of rusty red. Aiming for a low-carbon conference of sorts
June 17, 2025 at 4:06 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
The Economist aiming for #Vietnam and the general secretary.

"If Mr Lam fails, Vietnam will muddle on as a low-value-added production centre. But if he succeeds, a second doi moi would propel 100m Vietnamese into the developed world, creating another Asian growth engine."

archive.is/fXEF2
Cover of The Economist, in all red and the general secretary of the communist party with golden stars on his glaces on the front. This is basically the flag
May 23, 2025 at 11:15 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Blue hour in the colourful town.

#streetphotography #Hanoi
The Hanoi logo, aka the temple of literature, which is included in the railing around any lake. So here's the railing, a lake, and a nice city skyline behind
May 15, 2025 at 11:55 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
The last coffee in my favorite neighborhood spot in #Hanoi. 👋❤️

I will miss the Vietnamese vibe
Snapshot looking out the window towards the street, cyclist driving along, the West Lake of Hanoi in the background. Listening to Jazz music
May 15, 2025 at 7:34 AM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Chilling out outside, perhaps having a solo Karaoke session, rockin it, living the AQI 50 life.

#streetphotography #Vietnam
On a solo cement park bench, green trees around, a men sings Karaoke in a golden mic connected to a phone An old yet flash mini delivery truck 🚚 is parked on the corner of a street, the driver napping on the front seat
May 11, 2025 at 1:56 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
50 years of reunification, the end of the second Indochina war, #Vietnam had a blast with a mammoth celebration. The nationalism is troubled but it goes strong. An entire day of a parade in Saigon and on TV, and we had a tank in the newspaper 🤷

Interesting, since it’s the final days abroad for us
Lots of tiny red Vietnam flags lined up across a tree, blue sky avoce and curbside below A cardboard build your own tank as part of the newspaper. A gift to readers, all under the header of 50 years of glory, the propaganda of the government. The longer you read about propaganda propaganda, the less dramatic it sounds. But lest not forget that this was a civil war and that there's a history with a yellow flag, communities still strong, e.g., in the US
May 6, 2025 at 2:50 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Thought I needed a replacement of my keyboard, but repair man thought otherwise. A bit of polishing the wires was enough 🤝
Computer repair in Hanoi, a worker sits with a laptop in front of His desky many tools left right and centre. Nicely lot. Mess and no mess at the same time
May 6, 2025 at 2:30 PM
stefanlaser.bsky.social
Smart algorithms you’re having there, #wallstreet hi-speed traders, insta buying bacause a guy with BLOOMBERG in his tag spread misinfo.
Copy of now deleted tweet by Walter BLOOMBERG. Afterward, the market rose by A LOT, and then, after missing confirmation, it dropped again, by A L.O.T. Losers on the line
April 7, 2025 at 4:32 PM