1969: ARPANET was created to keep the network operational even if individual computers go down. 2025: AWS goes down and takes half the world's services with it.

Flying cars are the perfect example of a point solution: trying to solve a systemic problem (traffic) with an individual product (fly over the traffic). But traffic is not a technology problem; it's a social problem. Remote work, congestion fees, and dense transit-connected housing solve it better.

August Blue True Mendelson Joe 2017

It’s wonderful that this video from Milwaukee’s Public Library system features a nod to a book on Prince, because he loved libraries. In 2001, he donated $12k to save the Louisville Free Public Library’s Western Branch — the first to serve Black patrons. www.courier-journal.com/story/news/l...

The single most important thing to understand about digital futurism is this: When the digital future that Sam Altman ( or Elon, or Andreessen, etc) predicts fails to materialize, he doesn’t have to give the money back.

Good thing no one uses Microsoft Excel for anything related to legal, regulatory or compliance business functions www.theverge.com/news/761338/...

Come hang out with me at Civic Spark next weekend!!

It's been almost three months since I launched Show Up Toronto and in that time I've posted 426 events from over 200 groups, which is pretty dang cool. The fact that there are consistently 100+ events a month representing the labour of thousands validates my optimism about the city. showuptoronto.ca

“We've created a culture that treats depth like inefficiency. One that wants love without awkwardness, wisdom without confusion, transformation without the growing pains that crack us open and rebuild us from the inside out.” HT @dbcurren.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/maalvika...

DOGE took over the US Digital Service; what lessons can we learned from the civic tech movement that it eviscerated? @emilytav.bsky.social & Kathy Pham compiled a history of the the creation of USDS, and describe an alternative vision of govt tech. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/revisiting...

The call for proposals for this year's @opendatasociety.bsky.social summit closes tomorrow (July 18!). It'll be an awesome crew of folks in New Brunswick this year: opendatasummit.ca #opendata

Silicon Valley’s alliance with Donald Trump was a mask off moment and showed the world we can’t depend on US tech companies. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to get off US tech and I put together a guide so you find alternatives too. I hope you find it helpful!

Canada needs to reduce its dependence on US tech companies — and cloud infrastructure is a perfect place to start. For @policyalternatives.ca, I explain the threat posed by our dependence on US-owned data centres and why we need a public cloud that isn’t shaped by the need for shareholder profits.

We’re putting on a conference! Join us at Civic Spark 💥 August 16-17, 2025 civic-spark.com Maybe you’ve felt the gap — between the problems we face and the systems meant to solve them. Maybe you’ve seen how those closest to the issues are pushed aside. Help change that. 🧵

Thanks to @sharonodea.com for the Alt Text - definitely many notables missing but I owe the folks named loads.

Our team at @yukon.ca is hiring! I’m biased but it’s an awesome crew of people. 😊 Come work in the Yukon! eServices Delivery Manager - yukongovernment.hua.hrsmart.com/hr/ats/Posti... Forms designer - yukongovernment.hua.hrsmart.com/hr/ats/Posti...

The load-bearing spreadsheet thing I always come back to because: * spreadsheets *are* programming * but they're not seen as Real Programming by a bunch of gatekeepers * they are business critical * their importance is undervalued and unrecognized * ... they're invisible to exec leadership?

Prime time for a "Bureaucracy keeps your ass alive, actually" platform

You see so little media coverage of organizing wins and we HAVE to share them, so I'm using the newsletter platform to highlight some of these happening around Toronto, too. buttondown.com/showup/archi...

Ontario’s Employment Standards Act doesn’t yet contemplate algorithmic management or the psychological toll of wearable surveillance. It should! It could!

Hi pals, I'm launching a new project today called Show Up Toronto!! It's a website and weekly newsletter that aggregates organizing/advocacy/direct action events in the city so you can find out how to get involved without Insta/FB. First email tomorrow, sign up and tell your friends showuptoronto.ca

“It’s too easy to feel befuddled and think that civic advocacy should be left to the ‘professionals,’ but the truth is that civic life should be participatory, emergent, and messy.” www.inthemargins.ca/civic-life-s...

Since today, Germany has its first-ever Federal Ministry for Digitalisation and State Reform. A decree published a few minutes ago gives it the final say in federal IT spending. That is big.

There is no such thing as neutral technology because technology by definition exists in the context of humans, and humans are not neutral by any means. As soon as there is a desire for other people to use a technology - which is pretty much given in our economic state - neutrality is impossible.

❤️🏋🏻‍♂️🇨🇦💪

My new paper describes why the “business ontology” is a fallacy, and how the business-centered technocratic approach to digital service delivery made agencies like USDS uniquely vulnerable to takeover under a malicious regime. journals.library.wustl.edu/pollib/artic...

Love this essay/manifesto by @anandwrites.bsky.social "Because having, and nurturing, in your life a sphere for joy and connection and community and love and food and music and human difference and living and letting live is everything they are not and is everything they are trying to take away."

NYC CTO Matt Fraser destroyed the city's digital service by declaring that Salesforce would abandon user research and build the "MyCity" platform faster and cheaper than city-employed developers. Three years and $100 million later, MyCity remains a mirage.

These people. Good people. Nice to be in Ottawa talking digital with government officials here.

Now hosted at 18F.org, the archive of guides and resources! 18f.org/guides/ De-risking procurement, design methods, accessibility, agile, and more…

18F alum here. While I appreciate the well-deserved attention the 18F team is getting, let's address a fundamental misunderstanding of why 18F was so effective in working with other govt agencies to improve their digital services and why starting a consulting company is not a substitute. 1/

Mood -

An important aspect of giving false legitimacy to far-right maunderings about a US takeover of Canada is that 👉this is right out of the Russian playbook,👈 from Ukraine to the Baltics. It starts with astroturfing a fifth column that will then claim it's being "persecuted", and call for an invasion.

It may not be cool or hip in some circles, but we legitimately do need a massive amount of people to run for office. Flood the school boards, councils, county seats, state legislatures, Congress, etc. Big changes at the top happen when the ground shifts at the bottom. And that can start now.

Me in 1999: “That South Park movie was wacky, imagining an American imperialism so deranged that they decide to invade Canada in a crusade of censorship. 😂” Me in 2025: 😐

Government’s wins are often invisible: Systems that avoid plane crashes; alliances that avert war; surveillance that prevent pandemics. Government wins are often *the avoidance of loss.* So how do we tell the story of the destruction of government? The story of future losses *not* averted?

You can’t post your way out of fascism Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them 🔗 www.404media.co/you-cant-pos...

I have missed @danhon.com ‘s threads. This one is a must-read

“Canadian companies could sell jailbreaking kits for inkjet printers that disconnect them from “subscription” services and disable the anti-features that check for and reject third party ink” - Cory Doctorow doctorow.medium.com/canada-shoul...

Canada’s biggest labour organization is calling on the federal government turn off the taps, “cutting US access to critical Canadian resources—including electricity, lumber, critical minerals, oil, and gas—until the tariffs are lifted” 75% of Canadians support restricting US access to our resources

The world needs more people like Theaster Gates. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I refuse to let myself spin into doom-scrolling. I've spent the past 45 minutes writing. I will make time every day to create something of value for the world.

Boring magic ftw

Unexpected Cold Snap Billie Rae Busby 2013

The new few weeks, months, years, will likely not be pretty. Get this guide to surveillance self-defense to your communities. It has printable PDFs as well as tailored reccomendations for certain activities, types of people, etc. ssd.eff.org

I haven’t been posting as much as I used to in nearly all the channels except some work and work-adjacent things. And while I have all kinds of reasons, @annehelen.bsky.social ‘s piece on Posting Less really resonates, particularly this quote-

Listen to me (not pictured) talk about the history of the American civil service @npr.org www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025...