March 3, 2024

Hit and Miss #339: Sure, winter, see ya later

We’re somehow 1/6th done the year!? Ahahahahahaha I have so many projects I thought I’d be further along on by now. But also, winter, showing ourselves grace, and so on.

• Writing about generative AI, Ethan Marcotte opens with “Hey, you. I made us a playlist.” And it just gets better from there. (Chuffed, as ever, to see the amount of Ursula Franklin in here.)
• Mandy Brown on defensiveness and curiosity at work.
• This piece on the 2024–25 Main Estimates has some, uh, interesting accounting (whoaaaaa, I know, I know, the Main Estimates are a big vibe change). But the estimates process matters for the federal government—really matters, in some ways more than the budget process!—so I think it’s important to emphasize one or two things:
  • I don’t find the percentage change numbers in the table as meaningful as they’re made out to be. Compare the 2023–24 main estimates figures to the 2024–25 ones, and you can see the change in each organization’s new baseline for the year, absent additional funding in the supplementary estimates over the year. The percentages as presented show the change from total planned 2023–24 spending to initially planned 2024–25 spending.
  • “expects to spend $449.2 billion in the coming year, up from the $432.9 billion it planned to spend this year and down from the $492.6 billion that it ended up allocating” – “ended up allocating” is the key phrase here; in practice, the overall baseline is 3.8% higher, and will likely be supplemented (that’s an estimates joke) over the course of the year. That’s certainly acknowledged in the article, but the emphasis on the amounts changed seems, given this, somewhat misleading.
• Continuing the accounting theme, Patrick McKenzie catalogues some of the delightful weirdness and assumptions built into financial systems (human and digital) as they relate to time (with some fun tidbits about government systems, natch).
• Jessamyn West on small-town democracy, and getting involved.
• Speaking of small-town-type interventions, Ann Hermes shares the story of volunteers who carry forward “the only working maritime commercial radio site in North America”. (via Simon Willison)

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas