Friendship’s sunshine

Why hello there! Can you believe, we’re nearly done October? When I write you next, it’ll be November, notoriously the hardest month. Last night, T and I made what’s likely to be our last outing to Moo Shu’s Centretown location, hunching our shoulders against the cold 7pm darkness, resolving to refresh our November survival guides¹ and make the most of these darker, closer, quieter months to come.

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This week saw the second proper meetup in Ottawa Civic Tech’s 2024 revival series. Gabe came up to share his lessons learned from Civic Tech Toronto.

One note from the night: Gabe shared a story of a Civic Tech Toronto project to scrape, archive, and publish municipal procurement documents. (An effort near and dear to my heart.) Except the project members paused their efforts before the publishing part: they realized they were unsure of the knock-on effects of doing so, whether it’d do more harm than good; they haven’t given up on it, but haven’t returned to it yet. This feels core to the best civic tech work: acting, yes, but thoughtfully, responsibly, with an eye to the consequences of the work.

It’s been good to have the meetups going again, with a wide range of folks making it out. If you’re in town and at all curious, please do consider coming out! And if you’re unsure, I’m happy to chat about it—or, at minimum, to greet you with a smile and nod when you come through the door.

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I didn’t think I had many links this week, but then the internet did its thing and here we are:

• I’ve been perusing the report on Fediverse governance by Erin Kissane and Darius Kazemi. It’s big, but they offer many “reading pathways” through it. Reading it comes at a time when I’ve been relatively absent from the fediverse (along with posting to any social media)—but it’s a beautiful exploration, and a great example of public research. (Also, it has a delightful project email: fediversalistpapers@gmail.com)
• Speaking of Erin Kissane, two pieces that both speak to me: I love the idea of doing “something halfway between journalism and academic study with a side of user research” in “a solo studio with plenty of reading chairs”, as Erin describes the launch of her research studio, wreckage/salvage; and, awesomely, Erin’s personal site “about” page has a section for nouns and another for verbs.
• Mike Monteiro lays out his thoughts on hobbies—in brief, they’re work, they’re important, and capitalism is too quick to diminish those facts in service of the work it deems worthy. (I had not realized that Mike has a newsletter.) (via Sameer’s latest newsletter post, “Ask me what I am writing”, which includes this purpose statement that also explains why I share links: “I share them because I know sometimes a personal recommendation can be the difference between checking something out and ignoring it as it passes through your feed.”)
• Don Moynihan and Don Kettl’s critique of the term “unelected bureaucrats” makes me think of two things: Mandy Brown / Sidney Dekker’s discussion of accountability as many things, especially storytelling (vs being held to account, electoral style); how inefficient it is for politicians to be deeply involved in appointing and constituting the bureaucracy (and the value of a “merit-based civil service” to counter that involvement)—see, e.g., stories (perhaps apocryphal, but instructive nonetheless) of how much time Lincoln spent corresponding about political (patronage) appointments during a literal civil war.

To close, a telling poem: “If Adam Picked the Apple” by Danielle Coffyn (via Jason Kottke).

As for the rest of the weekend? Last night, T and I spun up a group chat with some friends, “It’s cold, let’s lasagna”—so now it’s time to tidy, be of some use in the kitchen, and then soak up the fine rays of friendship sunshine. All the best for the week ahead.

Lucas