I find being wrong in public is a great way to get people to help figure something out. So here's my first stab at a list of what should be open an ideal government software project (e.g. source code, release history, backlog, uptime, etc.) Improvements strongly encouraged, either here or on GitHub.

Has anybody put together a list of best practices for openness in government software beyond open licensing? Like public uptime tracking, a public backlog, and a public release history? I have a loose collection of these things in my head, but I bet somebody's done better work on this.

Diversity of all types drives innovation. So does immigration. I’ve written about new StatsCan research on diversity & innovation and how I hope the federal government will absorb its findings, given that its immigration crackdowns threaten its own stated goals. open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

Always read The Shield. I may not know much, but I know the Canadian state is overmatched by the tech bros. @vassb.bsky.social @kaylietiessen.bsky.social app.cyberimpact.com/newsletter-v...

In the case of the reverse-training, what I love about that is that they framed it as a training! It's a way for leadership to say "you have knowledge that is important to this department, knowledge that we do not have, despite that and because we are leaders—please help us."

I once met with a guy running a state project that had, for decades, built and maintained software used by their counties. He said that they talk to the software's users, make improvements, ship the improvements, and talk to them again. I said "oh, Agile!" He said he didn't know about Agile.

(The leaders thought that their software was bad, but after that training, they *knew* it was bad.)

This week I met with the leaders of a small state department, who told me that they recently had their front-line employees train *them* in how they actually use the software that powers the department—demonstrating their workarounds, their hacks, the stuff they need to do on paper. Brilliant.

Canada has already said it's cutting $675m from its aid budget. For those cuts to fall almost exclusively on women, sexual health and rights, and gender equality, is unforgivable www.oxfam.ca/news/canadia...

Canada's $1.4bn SRHR commitment funds 6 neglected and stigmatized areas of women's health and rights: - Contraception - Abortion - Comprehensive Sexuality Education - SRHR advocacy - Adolescent SRHR - Gender-based violence With US cuts, Canada may now be the largest funder of SRHR

Canada made waves in 2019 with a landmark $1.4bn a year for sexual and reproductive health and rights (I wrote the policy and directed the campaign for it) It's now under threat. We're quite likely going to renege on a commitment to SRHR at the worst possible time www.oxfam.ca/news/canadia...

“Sometimes I think we do ourselves a disservice by calling such options ‘bold,’ when frankly they’re often just really pragmatic common sense given the real challenges that cities face. The truth is, we tend to think of them as ‘bold’ because not enough cities are doing them, even tho they should.”

This is a story being over the target bsky.app/profile/theg...

Late to this, but this is just fantastic reporting and context. There are so many alarm bells and blinking red lights in here, and if you read carefully you can see what sure seems like the potential litigiousness of the subjects being handled with care, duty, and facts.

No notes

It reminds me of the classic “real victims” fallacy that mainly functions to deny that victims are really victims in pursuit of respecting “real victims” but it’s just a practice of shaming specific victims that hurts everyone

The discourse around disability in theme park spaces is so terrible now and it benefits companies like Disney because they can just take accommodations away from people and make them pay more to skip lines, which a lot of people can’t afford or use to the degree they need. And they get blamed for it

My specific microcosm where I’ve seen this unfold is not schools but is actually with programs at theme parks to help people with disabilities manage long lines www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...

One of the biggest impacts I’ve seen from the unproven idea that people are wrongfully using disability accommodations is that people stop trusting people with disabilities and in fact further restrict, remove, and demonize accommodations for people with disabilities in general

The Dec 2 issue of Show Up Toronto (@showuptoronto.ca) is out, with some thoughts on how a bunch of recent legislative changes add up to widen the prison pipeline, and some ideas for how to get involved. Plus, more than fifty events this week! buttondown.com/showup/archi... #toronto

I've just created a APCA + WCAG 2 Contrast Checker tool to help people choose the best color combinations that suit both the WCAG 2.x requirements and also support the APCA which has some real advantages in some contexts. mgifford.github.io/contrast-plus/

Still asking!

This is perhaps more of a bugbear of mine than it should be. There are loads of bits of government that are "independent" but housed, staffed, IT'd by a parent department. We often end up with the worst of both worlds scenario detailed here.

I remember hearing about this cutoff when I was younger and being like NO I’M GONNA OUTLAST THEM OUT OF SPITE and now I’m 36 and like hmmmmmmmmm I might be over it

OK, here is a 5-minute sketch, @tomski.com

User needs first Service design second Operating model third Technology fourth This order is still reversed way too often.

I love this line. It's so true it hurts. "Few IT projects are displays of rational decision-making from which AI can or should learn. " spectrum.ieee.org/it-managemen...

I especially feel this when sociologists who study technology do this. Y'all are supposed to take sociotechnical approaches to the study of technology. A throwaway AI-generated image does not help that credibility.

I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.

"Devant la commission Gallant chargée de faire la lumière sur le fiasco SAAQclic, l’expert américain Waldo Jaquith a fait un lien entre ces amusantes expériences de sandwichs et les (beaucoup moins amusants) flops entraînés par les virages numériques des gouvernements." C'est moi.

I feel this so deeply. I’ve been told I belonged somewhere. I’ve been told I was valued and appreciated and accepted. I’ve also *been* valued, appreciated, and accepted. Almost never by the same groups. And never in the same places.

"you belong here" means "you are responsible for staying here and fixing this no matter what" when it is delivered to you by someone who also says "and I cannot be held responsible for ever making you feel like you belong and are seen" This is why I don't accept invites to talk to girls about tech

Whoa, this kinda took off on me! Look at all the love for CanCon! (And I happened to write a piece on Schitt's Creek a few years ago - which we then developed into an undergrad seminar course! - you can find here: theconversation.com/schitts-cree...)

Dan Levy openly says that Schitt's Creek would not have survived anywhere except the CBC because it was weird and took a season or so to find its feet... Just for reference if you wanna know the ROI on this approach to supporting creative things.

And Canada is going all in on pipelines and fossil fuels. Setting ourselves up to be both climate criminals and years behind the rest of the world.

well, it’s an understatement to say that this put me on the floor. as beautiful and devastating as you might expect from @amalelmohtar.com

Today's Love Letter is a stunning meditation on birdwatching and the loss of a friendship, from the one and only @amalelmohtar.com stone-soup.ghost.io/love-letter-...

This is why OpenAI is selling so aggressively to education at all levels—they want to create entire generations of users incapable of reading, writing and thinking without ChatGPT to hold their hands And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is

Fifteen Years xkcd.com/3172/

"[The Deloitte report] included fictional papers coauthored by researchers who said they had never worked together."

"The Deloitte report contained false citations, pulled from made-up academic papers to draw conclusions for cost-effectiveness analyses, and cited real researchers on papers they hadn’t worked on, the Independent found."

"A Canadian government-commissioned Deloitte health care report that cost one province nearly $1.6 million contains potentially AI-generated errors, marking the second country this year to allege the consulting firm’s fact-checking shortcomings."

Always looking for an excuse to buy (and use!) new stamps, so this is just a delight: www.cbc.ca/books/new-st...

My team is hiring! 👩‍💻 Product manager for digital credentials, deadline to apply is December 9th. (Based locally in Whitehorse, Yukon.) It’s a great crew! yukon.ca/en/digital-b...

My guess: the BOM got taken for a ride by Accenture, who turned a $20M contract into a $62M contract, because BOM didn't have empowered technologists who knew better. I've got no special knowledge here—this is just how these projects tend to go.

A big failure like this, naturally people started asking how much the project cost. At the time of the launch, BOM said that it cost $4.1 million. That's a fair and reasonable price tag for a project of that scale. But it turns out that was part of a USD $62.5M contract to Accenture.

A month ago, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) launched a new version of their weather forecast website for the country. It has *not* been well received, and with a price tag somewhere between USD $2.6–62.5M (it's unclear), this has become a small scandal. www.bom.gov.au

Today's @showuptoronto.ca newsletter includes some thoughts on Bill 60 and not losing heart in the face of defeat, as well as another incredible 60+ events for this upcoming week. Subscribe and tell your friends buttondown.com/showup/archi... #toronto

"The colonial stench of Indigenous Service Canada must be deep-cleaned, and the Department of Justice can’t keep defending the indefensible."