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Dang Nguyen

@digitaldang.bsky.social

1.1K followers 410 following 650 posts

Researcher of media technologies and infrastructures from below and across Southeast Asia www.dangnguyen.digital

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21d

The third stack is here.

A path for ai that isn’t the stale U.S.–China binary, but something assembled, sovereign, and stubbornly local.

My essay in Noema: www.noemamag.com/a-third-path...

A Third Path For AI Beyond The US-China Binary | NOEMA

What if the future of AI isn’t defined by Washington or Beijing, but by improvisation elsewhere?

www.noemamag.com

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1h

This is messing with my head, and I can't look away.

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 2h

youtu.be/hTWKbfoikeg?...

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by NirvanaVEVO

youtu.be

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 2h

Here Paul, take this with you.

tomyships.com/products/mar...

Stand Up Bravely - Marjoram Roll-On Deodorant 75ML

An elegant product that functions as promised and smells exceptional, Stand Up Bravely Marjoram Roll-On Deodorant inhibits armpit odour for up to 24 hours, and imparts a crisp, fresh, earthy fragrance...

tomyships.com

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 2h

a cartoon character with blue hair is sitting on a throne eating a cupcake

Alt: Hades giving you thumbs up

media.tenor.com

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 9h

Hard to parse who the end user is if everyone’s each other’s customer.

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 12h

three dogs laying on a table with their heads on the table

Alt: Cerberus, but cute.

media.tenor.com

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

youtu.be/PyeWRd7ZEBs?...

Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) (Version 2) (HD)

YouTube video by PetShopBoys Parlophone

youtu.be

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

Mine's also arriving today! I'm perched by the window in anticipation...

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

So there you have it: three rivers, three temperatures of thought—silt, mirror, shimmer. The rivers were never waiting to be spoken for. They were keeping the record all along.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/14620...

Mekong Turns from Brown to Blue-Green

In late 2019, the river started to turn colors due to a reduced sediment load and algae blooms.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

The canals fold Saigon’s density and the Cherwell’s reflection into one shimmering surface. Here, life feels like architecture undone by tide: everything built to be mirrored, everything mirrored to be lost.

www.miragenews.com/ceremony-for...

Ceremony For 35th Anniversary Of Venice Commission: Council Of Europe's Body Of Constitutional Experts

The European Commission for Democracy through Law (better known as the Venice Commission), the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional

www.miragenews.com

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

And then Venice: a city that is all reflection, no banks. Water has replaced foundation; everything floats on memory and trade. In Venice, you don’t cross the river—you become part of it.

whc.unesco.org/en/list/394/

Venice and its Lagoon

Founded in the 5th century and spread over 118 small islands, Venice became a major maritime power in the 10th century. The whole city is an extraordinary architectural masterpiece in which even the s...

whc.unesco.org

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

After the Saigon River, this quiet felt almost moral—an education in restraint. The clearer the water, the less it reveals. The Cherwell taught me how thought tidies itself into argument, how institutions mirror the river’s calm to conceal the sediment beneath.

cherwell.org

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 20h

When I later walked along the Cherwell, I noticed how differently a river could speak. Here the water was cool, deliberate, disciplined into banks. The punts drifted lazily; the reeds looked rehearsed.

www.booktopia.com.au/death-on-the...

Cover of Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay, part of the British Library Crime Classics series. The illustrated scene shows two women in a small wooden boat on a calm river. One woman, dressed in a yellow gown, reclines against pink cushions under a folded parasol, while the other, wearing a purple dress, stands with a long pole, reaching toward the overhanging branches of a willow tree. The title appears in bold yellow letters on a green box at the top, with the author’s name below. The style evokes 1930s British mystery aesthetics, elegant and slightly theatrical.

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21h

From my balcony, I could see barges passing, hauling sand from the delta. Even then, I knew the current was carrying more than silt.

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21h

In Thảo Điền, nicknamed "Rich Vietnam," I was practicing distance as aspiration: learning how privilege feels when it’s still porous, how the river both separates and connects.

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21h

When I lived in Saigon, I crossed the river to move away from my family to live in Thảo Điền neighbourhood—a gesture of independence.

saigoneer.com/saigon-arts-...

Art, History, Wellness and Sustainability Attended to at Amanaki Thao Dien | Saigoneer

Colorful Biên Hòa pottery pieces that reveal the distinct influence of French and Japanese techniques; a hand-operated shaved ice machine; mid-20th-century barber chair; antique magnifying glass; trad...

saigoneer.com

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21h

The Saigon River carries heat, density, and churn—an urban current shaped by trade, colonial dredging, and humid velocity. It’s brown, slow, industrious; every bend holds memory and residue.

www.britannica.com/place/Saigon...

Saigon River | Vietnam, Map, & Facts | Britannica

Saigon River, river in southern Vietnam that rises near Phum Daung, southeastern Cambodia, and flows south and south-southeast for about 140 miles (225 km). In its lower course it embraces Ho Chi Minh...

www.britannica.com

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21h

Let’s stage this through three bodies of water: the Saigon River, the Cherwell, and Venice.

The Mekong (before flooding) in Cambodia and Vietnam.

This series of Terrand And Aqua MODIS images from August 2002 shows flooding in the Mekong River Delta in southeast Asia. In the false-color images black represents open water, green represents land, cyan represents low-level water clouds, white represents high-level ice clouds, and bright blue represents flooding in the marshlands. Notice that the river—s outflows into the sea are the same bright blue color as the flooded, inland areas. That is because in both cases, the color is the result of sunlight inbterating with soil (sediment) and water. In these images from August 1, 28, and 29, 2002, Cambodia is in the image center, and Vietnam is at right.

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 21h

I’ve been reading Robert Macfarlane’s new book while thinking about @davidgunkel.bsky.social's work on moral and legal ontology—how rivers, mountains, and perhaps AI systems are granted legal personhood. What does it mean to speak for a river, to name its rights, to imagine its intentions?

A hardcover copy of Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane lies on a wooden table. The book’s cover is a vivid green background overlaid with flowing, river-like patterns in pale blue, lavender, and white, giving the impression of winding waterways or currents. The title “IS A RIVER ALIVE?” is printed in large white letters across the top half, while the author’s name, “ROBERT MACFARLANE,” appears below in black. A subtitle at the bottom reads, “Bestselling author of Underland.”

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely! And I happen to have written about precisely that! Will email you a gratis copy.

www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Chapter 6 Small Automation: Thinking Through the Texture of Automated Systems

Chapter 6 Small Automation: Thinking Through the Texture of Automated Systems was published in The De Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures on page 89.

www.degruyterbrill.com

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1d

What I'll add though, is that the idea that you can automate work as a "bundle of tasks" is misguided. Work carries affect, care, and love—things that are beyond automation.

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1d

People much smarter than me have studied this extensively, so I'll just drop a canonical text here by way of response.

archive.org/details/more...

More work for mother : the ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave : Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, 1941- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xiv, 257 pages : 25 cm

archive.org

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1d

That makes a lot of sense. It feels like the paradox of this whole moment, doesn’t it? Efficiency buys us time but often spends our meaning. (And fair—you don’t have to be a philosopher to feel that one.)

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1d

Oh no, that's no good! Curious as to why they would feel that way, if genAI is helping them, by the sound of it?

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Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 1d

Yes! When we flatten thought into computation, we’re also flattening empathy into efficiency. The machines aren’t imitating us; we’re rehearsing which parts of ourselves we’re willing to outsource. (Love your screen name BTW 🎃).

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