Back to… normal? (back to links)

Whew, the wild weeks have continued. We were right to be cautiously optimistic last week, as this week had another few vet visits—but things the last few days are (finally) trending well, so we’re enjoying that. Highlights of this weekend included:

• Leaving the house for non-urgent reasons!! (Any semblance of normalcy is great.)
• Digging into ice cream immediately upon return from a humid summer walk. (Also, earlier this week: eating ice cream at the park brought to us by G, served in her own pottery just picked up from the kiln.)
• Ducking away for a few hours to visit friends at a nearby campsite. Swimming, spoon carving, s’mores, and giggles galore—the perfect getaway.

In the blurred days of the past few weeks, engaging with material of substance has felt almost unthinkable—everything has felt fragmented, including my attention. But a few pieces stuck out:

• The first photos from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory are incredible. Kottke shared some more photos and backstory. Banding together to work on a project of this magnitude—there’s hope in humanity yet.
• Neat open-source success story (OSSSS?) from Tom MacWright: the code from Placemark (a company founded by MacWright) is now used by epanet-js, a web-based alternative to the oligopoly of expensive commercial water distribution modelling software built around EPANET (which is itself a public domain, open-source application).
• While this is hardly the outcome I’d prefer as a transparency advocate, it’s helpful to have the Official Languages Commissioner confirm their interpretation of the Official Languages Act regarding proactive disclosure of documents under access to information laws: if it’s published on a government website, it has to be bilingual.
• “How to leave the house”, on the joys of walking the dog and living in a city, by Mike Monteiro.
• Thirty minutes of a casino security expert on how people cheat casinos? Yes please.
• Always up for an “x thoughts at x age” post, as with Annie Mueller’s “44”.
• Assorted links about cats from Matt Webb.

Thanks again for everything the last few weeks. All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas