mastodon 4.7.3Author. Freelance Professor. Writing hopeful energy and tech futures otherwise. Often found on islands. Living in Denmark (she/her).
Banner is a segmented heavy metal cable running out from smooth rocks into the sea, with the handwritten words: undersea/ the data cloud/ flows, condensed.
It's here! #ClimateImagination a collection of hopeful futures, both science fiction and academic reflection... Names you know, some you will want to know...
I try to do things, write stories, collaborate with people, that are persistently trying to make the world better, more hopeful. This is all of that.
My short story is called #StormpunkIslands. Just before the piece with #KimStanleyRobinson
Get your taste of #solarpunk here...
What's the cost to research – to an entire discipline – of "AI" living rent-free in our heads?
@dawnnafus@mastodon.social brilliantly lays out the loss to #STS from so many being focused on AI-hype: 24% of papers at #4S were on AI.
Come and get it! 'From Flatlands to Livable Futures: Unflattening carbon metrics in the energy and data industries' out now in #BigDataandSociety.
#JuliaVelkova and I pack insights about the carbon intensity of electricity in the data industry: how it shapes the electricity grid and data centers, and what it does to landscapes and people.
We speculate on an #ElectricityAtlas as a way to explore other futures for an inseparable energy-data industry.
Download free: https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517251396074
"Grid grabbing" (as Julia Velkova and I call it in our paper) exhibit A: https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/27/datacenter_uk_grid_demand/
"The strategy for many datacenter operators is to secure multiple land parcel rights, request a grid load connection for each (often requiring a costly load study), and see what gets approved so they can build. The capital investment to take all these projects seriously is clearly untenable..."
Just sent out my May sample of hopepunk writing to my mailing list. It's an extract from the #fanzine I made last week "Zine futures: Going solarpunk with paper"
Read the extract here: https://sand14.com/samples/#may
Or just subscribe if you feel like you need more #hopepunk writing in your life...
[It] and Ecology
A found poem on A.I.
This ‘found poem’ is my response to the event, AI and Ecology, at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, Oslo.
Each line of this 42 line poem is a quote from a presentation or discussions held during the workshop. With thanks to everyone at the event who inspired its writing.
https://sand14.com/it-and-ecology-poem-on-ai/
Direct link to pdf:
https://sand14.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Watts_ItandEcology.pdf
This month I am writing with hope about a world with dark skies, dark enough to see the Andromeda galaxy.
Writing sample from impromptu writing for the public event 'Towards 2100: Imagining a future without fossil fuels' organised by Amber Nordholm and Tomas Moe Skjølsvold, NTNU, Trondheim.
Everyone was invited to write a postcard from the year 2100, about what life is like...
(I happened to have a postcard handy to write on...)
sand14.com/sample#mar
I run Writing Futures workshops, have done for a decade. People write the most extraordinary pieces in just a few minutes–when they have the space to find their creative voice.
Just uploaded a 'Menu' of different writing workshops that I offer - writing futures, digital energetic futures, speculative fabulations... Choose your own adventure, as they say.
Yes, but if this is the case (that the cool kids are off the platform and un-monetiseable) then what about all the 'cool kids' who never had a choice?
I'm thinking about my long-running interest in places at the network edge, who would quite like a bit of cash, but are perennially of no interest to platforms.
Island communities leading wave & tide energy and local-owned wind energy etc. is pretty 'punk' in my book. But I don't think this is going to hit the Paris catwalk anytime
It's out! My monthly dose of #hopepunk writing on #FairTradeEnergy.
This is a teaser trailer for the workshop paper that @dawnnafus@mastodon.social and myself have written on 'Federated Fair Trade Energy' for LIMITS 2026, the annual online workshop on Computing with Limits, 23-25 June.
Read it here: https://sand14.com/samples/#june
Or subscribe to my hopepunk mailing list to get it direct to your inbox.
Are there any fellow #Scriptnotes listeners out in Copenhagen?
Any other writers in Denmark who are here for Craig and John's public service broadcasting for screenwriters (and Craig's gaming habit)?
Anyone know if there is going to be a LIMITS Hub in Copenhagen?? https://computingwithinlimits.org/2026/
Pinging @sebastian@mastodon.cc
Professor Irina Shklovski and I have a great 2-year full time postdoc job opportunity on our interdisciplinary project at University of Copenhagen, ‘Data quality for Responsible AI in Energy Systems’ (DARES).
We’re looking for someone who has the potential and enthusiasm to work with us across #STS, #HCI, and #EnergyFutures, who is excited to ask sociotechnical questions about data inside the infrastructures of the green energy transition.
Full details: https://candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationInit.aspx/?cid=3010&departmentId=19976&ProjectId=157056&MediaId=4917
I'm sending out a bit of hope(punk) every month: samples of writing i am doing, sometimes published, sometimes raw.
Subscription details - https://sand14.com/samples/
Come and lurk.
This is lemon-light shining out in words. Thank you for sharing.
There are times I feel like I don't belong anywhere and then I read something like this and feel: there we are, scattered but persistent, working quietly at hope...