Mostly complete
Hit and Miss #355
Happy Sunday!
First, I’d like to correct an ambiguity in the opening of last week’s newsletter: where I said “T and I (mostly)” and “SR and I (mostly)” built this or that, what I meant is that we mostly completed the projects—the labour was very much shared, as was the fun. Mostly completing projects is a theme of late: I’m getting more comfortable with the pile of partly finished projects, of “assigning unanswered letters their proper weight” (to quote Frank Chimero quoting Joan Didion).
Second, it’s somehow already mid-afternoon (one might say that this weekend is mostly complete), and we’ve a fair bit more to do today. I’m delighted that it’s been a weekend of family and friendship—but oh, how the time flies! So, on to the links:
- Mandy Brown on accountability as story-telling, not debt-paying, and how we can act a better form of accountability into being.
- Sara Hendren continues her story on the purpose of higher education—and the process of choosing a good school given that purpose—by discussing higher education as a place where “first-order questions” are on the table, taken seriously but also seen as everyday—a place to ponder, to try on different answers and inspire lines of inquiry to carry you well into life. It makes me think of the encampments set up on universities across the country (on which Emmett Macfarlane had some principled words this week). There are no doubt thoughtful conversations and meaningful growth happening for people participating in and supporting encampments—exactly in line with one of higher education’s greater purposes.
- Roxane Gay signs off as the Work Friend with a reflection of the varied stories she considered over the years, and her fervent expression of better work for all. (via Jason Kottke)
- After a very hot week (which now feels somehow faraway), it’s wild to see the geographic variation in the number of school days above 25 C.
- Two neat OCR projects via Simon Willison: the SoundSlice music editor, which includes optical music recognition (holy wow!); and a brilliant civic tech project to make municipal council records legible through OCR.
- Props to the team behind get.gov—such a classy site and a clever name (leaving aside the United States’ monopoly on a generic top-level domain for a service, by definition, carried out by, uh, governments around the world).
All the best for the week ahead!
Lucas