I wasn’t trying to build a tool.

I was trying to understand a gap I couldn’t explain.

Everywhere I looked on Substack, women were writing thoughtful, technical work about AI and software. But on Substack’s Technology Bestseller and Rising lists, lists that shape who gets discovered and taken seriously, they were almost invisible.

That didn’t line up with what I was seeing every day.

So instead of speculating, I did the simplest thing possible.

I counted.

As of December 8:

• 13 women appeared on the Rising Technology list
• 10 women appeared on the Technology Bestsellers list
• Each list contains 100 publications

The numbers made the next step unavoidable.

If I was going to try to create change with Code Like A Girl, I needed a way to know whether anything we did actually mattered.

Noticing the gap once wasn’t enough. I needed to track it.

The developer in me, though out of practice, knew there was only one way forward: I had to build it.

This is the story of me getting my hands dirty and learning to code again, this time with the help of AI.

In early January, I rolled up my sleeves and started to build. It was the first time I’d built anything more complex than a script since 2008, before I stepped away from hands-on development, had a baby, and returned as a technical leader in 2009.

It was my first time using VS Code.
My first time setting up GitHub.
My first attempt at building a Chrome extension.

It was overwhelming learning the tools and the problem space at the same time. But the CLAG community showed me I could do this. I had been watching women like Karen Spinner, Jenny Ouyang, Karo (Product with Attitude), and Elena building tools and products with AI for months.

It’s a little ironic that my own publication, Code Like A Girl, ended up being the thing that pushed me to start building again.

The initial plan was simple: build a tool that could pull the lists automatically, then let me classify gender manually.

I knew from the start there wasn’t a reliable way to assign gender automatically. I would never trust an algorithm to do it; it would need to be manual. The goal wasn’t to publicly label anyone. Gender assignments would never be shared at the individual level. They existed only to understand the overall distribution of the lists.

When gender couldn’t be confidently determined, entries will be left as unknown. And I knew there could be mistakes. That wasn’t ideal, but it was the tradeoff required to move from anecdote to measurement.

This wasn’t about certainty. It was about getting a signal.

I had also learned from Elena that writing a Product Requirements Document (PRD) before building a tool with AI was critical to getting it right.

I spent the first few hours writing a PRD to make sure all the requirements I wanted were detailed. This was a fantastic exercise to help me think through the problem space clearly.

However, this is where things stopped feeling manageable.

The first thing I had to do was set up a Chrome extension and learn how to use it.

I created a Hello World Chrome extension and then had to ask ChatGPT how to install it, check for errors, and make sure it was running properly.

I attempted to do everything at once: scrape the UI, build a classifier, and figure out how to use and debug Chrome storage. ChatGPT kept generating new files, which I kept installing and running without fully understanding how they fit together.

At some point, I stopped myself and asked:

What am I doing?

I had 9 versions of the files by now, and I didn’t have a clean way to edit them.

I had jumped in too fast.

I paused and assessed what I needed:

• An IDE to edit the files
• Version Control to manage changes safely.

I asked ChatGPT for the best IDE for vibe coding, and it suggested VS Code. So I learned how to set that up.

As part of the setup, it prompted me to connect to GitHub! Perfect. I needed version control. The fact that I had never set up GitHub was just another thing to learn.

I could do this.

I felt like a complete newbie. I had to ask ChatGPT how to add, commit, and push the code. Ok. Let’s be real. I didn’t even know that I needed those three steps to commit the code to the repo. Git didn’t exist when I was a software developer in the late 90s and early 2000s.

The learning curve on this project was massive.

Once VS Code was set up, it suggested I use Copilot. Ok, I thought, let’s give it a try! It was incredibly effective at updating multiple files at once. That is right up until I hit the monthly usage limit. 🤦

Back to ChatGPT.

My first attempt to extract authors and publications from the Technology lists relied on scraping the UI.

I quickly remembered why that’s a terrible idea. The code was fragile, and minor changes broke everything.

A few days into fighting it, I came across a post by Karen Spinner explaining how to use Substack’s undocumented APIs.

That changed the approach.

I opened developer tools, watched the network traffic, and traced the calls populating the lists. (I had to ask ChatGPT how to do all those things…. )

Once I saw the API calls, the problem became much clearer.

I updated the PRD and rewrote the code to use the APIs instead. Within a short time, I could reliably pull items from both lists, store the data, and manually classify gender.

On paper, this looked like progress.

In practice, I was still struggling.

When I used Copilot, I let it update the code directly without fully understanding what it was changing. At the time, that felt efficient. But when I later asked ChatGPT for modifications, I realized I didn’t actually know what needed to change or why.

That’s when things started to feel wrong.

The Chrome extension had made sense when I was scraping the UI. Once the data came from API calls, though, the extension itself became part of the problem. The architecture no longer matched the task, and I didn’t understand it well enough to bend it back into shape.

Every time I opened the project, instead of feeling clearer, it felt messier and harder to understand.

So I stopped. I regrouped and asked a better question.

What would actually work for me right now?

I spent time talking through different approaches with ChatGPT, weighing the pros and cons, until I landed on an approach that actually made sense to me.

The solution ended up being simpler than I expected:

• Python scripts to pull the data
• SQLite for storage
• Streamlit for a lightweight UI
• A cron job to run weekly

The first two pieces were familiar. I’d built a Python-based stats tool for Medium a couple of years earlier, and I’d taken an SQL course in 2012 and could remember enough of it that I could make sense of what ChatGPT was asking me to do.

That familiarity mattered. It gave me confidence.

And it changed how I built. I asked ChatGPT more questions as we went instead of blindly pushing through. I built it in steps instead of all at once. I reviewed the changes it suggested and made sure I understood them.

Because of the Chrome extension work, I already understood the data schema. I already knew how to pull the data. This time, though, I could actually see what I was building.

After fixing edge cases, resolving formatting inconsistencies, and ironing out a few stubborn bugs, we captured our first complete snapshot.

WOOT WOOT!!!

We now had a repeatable, transparent way to make patterns visible.

And visible patterns are harder to ignore.

As of January 29, the tracker captures a new snapshot every week.

Right now, that happens locally with a cron job. My laptop needs to be awake and plugged in before 9 a.m. Eastern. It’s not elegant, but it works.

Eventually, I’ll move it to the cloud. For now, consistency matters more than polish.

Next, I want to make the results easier to see. Maybe a website with static views showing gender distribution and trend data that makes movement visible over time.

I’m also experimenting with what happens when you pair this kind of structured data with analysis tools. I recently started using Stack Contacts by Finn Tropy, a local tool that pulls Substack data into a database and exposes it through an MCP extension so AI tools like Claude can query and analyze it.

The combination of clean data, historical context, and the ability to ask better questions is where this gets interesting.

This project was never about building a perfect tool.

It was about proving that patterns don’t have to stay invisible, and that you don’t need permission or a pristine setup to start measuring the things that matter.

I didn’t set out to build software again.

But once I started, I remembered something important: the ability to build hadn’t gone anywhere.

It just needed a reason and the willingness to be a beginner again.

I Didn’t Mean to Start Coding Again was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Data validation using Python type hints

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The Youth Impact Project (YIP) is a collaboration between the Children and Youth Planning Table of Waterloo Region (CYPT) and Smart Waterloo Region Innovation Lab (SWRIL). The Youth Impact Project looks to fund youth who are addressing local challenges which are identified through the 2023 Youth Impact Survey results. The funded projects include a focus on supporting youth mental and physical health, increasing feelings of belonging, and responding to climate change and food insecurity.

In 2024, over 100 youth from 15 local organisations pitched their ideas to a panel of nine youth. The Youth Decision-Making Panel (“The Dragons”) decided which projects would receive funding to make their idea a reality. In 2025, CYPT and SWRIL accepted youth applications online, and a team of three youth decided which projects received funding.

Voices of Vibrance is a joyful and empowering event that brings together Black youth in Cambridge, to connect, share stories and celebrate who they are. The event will support youth to build community, confidence, and coping tools for their mental health. Just the beginning, Charleen hopes to make Voices of Vibrance an annual celebration that continues to uplift Black youth mental health in Cambridge. 

Applications for the 2025 Youth Impact Project are now closed and 17 youth projects across Waterloo Region received funding. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we announce the final project that received funding!

Last but not least, we are grateful to our funders United Way Waterloo Region Communities and Region of Waterloo for making the Youth Impact Project possible.

Learn more about the Youth Impact Project here.

The post 2025 Youth Impact Project Showcase: Voices of Vibrance #2 appeared first on Children and Youth Planning Table.

I remember being shocked and flabbergasted by the shallowness and apparent amateurishness of Chemtura's results. Their RA was to determine if their site somehow was a threat to either human beings or wildlife. According to their scientific study the only human beings at risk were trespassers and the only wildlife at risk were shrews. Now the shrews ate worms contaminated with dioxin which explained their health risks but nary a word about predators of shrews . Keep in mind that both DDT and dioxins bio-accumulate in concentration as they move up the food chain. So what about hawks, owls, foxes, mink, weasels, coyotes and other consumers of shrews?  

Trespassers wandering aimlessly on their site allegedly were at risk. Perhaps these trespassers were kind enough to wear large signs distinguishing themselves from employees, contractors, invited visitors etc.  This would of course explain why only errant and  occasional trespassers were more susceptible to any of the hundreds of various manufactured poisons as well as poisons produced as by-products of fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides etc. Also from personal experience I can testify as to the noxious odours and fumes emanating from the two east side consolidation pits prior to their removal from the sub-surface.

Dr. Regier along with myself and others were members of CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee). Chemtura explained their various RA rationales and assumptions to CPAC although not particularly in detail or with specifics. Dr. Regier made it his business to professionally investigate the process and procedures around this Risk Assessment (RA). He by invitation and in person talked to a number of Ministry of Environment personnel with expertise in RA as well as other professional sources. He then later synthesized what he was told and advised into an essay which he provided//published in 2004.

I enclose merely the first several sentences of it as follows: 

"In recent years the environment agencies of the Canadian and Ontario governments have implemented a bureaucratic process of Risk Assessment ostensibly to satisfy a commitment to the Precautionary Principle, inter alia. In effect the process abstracts, truncates and devolves difficult issues from the political arena to a conventional bureaucracy with limited competence on these matters. A costly, junk science version of a shell game may result. Whether or not it was the subversive intention of political operators "unfriendly to the environment" to do so, the process of Risk Assessment actually implemented seems designed to cripple a commitment to effective precaution or clean-up. In addition to treating this subject generically from a perspective of post-normal science, personal experiences with Risk Assessment related to contamination of a creek in Elmira will be described. An alternative participatory process for making decisions in such cases was published by officials of Ontario's environment ministry some years ago, but seems to have been ignored."

Dr. Regier thankfully is still alive and kicking and recently passed this essay and words onto some academic colleagues as well as myself.  These words as well as my personal experiences with TWO Risk Assessments, one by Chemtura and one by Lanxess Canada have formed my opinion of the second RA regarding the downstream Canagagigue Creek. To call that most recent RA a "...costly, junk science version of a shell game..." is far too kind.  The TRAC and TAG committees of Woolwich Council have either forgotten or never understood the criticism and concerns of myself and some committee members. One former member, Joe Kelly, was both accurate and clear in his descriptions of shovel sediment sampling versus using core samplers. Other issues included a plethora of Non-Detect (ND) results due to lab Method Detection Limits (MDL) in excess of health criteria. Locational sampling biases were but another flaw in the field work surrounding a RA which claimed that there were 

                              "...NO UNACCEPTABLE RISKS "  in the downstream Creek.

No proper, independent health studies combined with junk sampling and junk science. I mean Woolwich Township will happily throw their own volunteer citizen committee members under the bus as they have in the past (2008 & 2015). That is your eventual purpose TRAC. Do you think professional politicians are dumb enough to take the blame both after the 2028 groundwater failure and professional, unbiased academic papers begin to condemn decades of Elmira/Uniroyal junk science?   

When: Saturday May 2nd, 10:30am – 12:00 pm

Meeting Point: Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, 25 Caroline St North Waterloo

Walk Leader: Philippe Elsworthy

Bring you camera or smartphone. We will walk around uptown Waterloo, and talk about what and how to photograph whatever we consider important. Rain or shine.

The large language models, or LLMs, are no longer restricted to answering the question. They are now being developed to perform actions and participate in workflow-level decision-making. Such a change has put the development of LLM agents into perspective. The companies are not adapting to fixed AI tools anymore, but are taking into account the systems that can organize and adapt to the situation.

An LLM agent is not created to react. It involves intent, comparison, and action of a goal. The ability makes it applicable in operations, customer support, and internal automation. The topic of creating an LLM agent has grown in popularity as organizations explore the autonomy of AI systems.

This guide describes how to develop an LLM agent in a step-by-step and practical way. It isolates all the stages, such as responsibility definition and deployment. For businesses exploring LLM agent development internally, this guide helps in understanding what is required to build a reliable agent.

Making an LLM agent does not represent a one-time event but a series of choices. All decisions affect the agent in terms of perception of input, reactions to transformation, and functioning. The capable models could give unequal results, even when they are subjected to tested conditions without a structure.

A step-by-step process brings clarity to LLM agent development. It allows teams to separate responsibilities, control decision paths, and manage complexity. Rather than treating the agent as a single unit, this approach views it as a collection of coordinated parts.

In the case of organizations that are in collaboration with an AI development company, this process facilitates alignment. All these steps combine to describe the construction of reliable agents and the importance of being such a disciplined builder.

The intention to develop the LLM agent begins with the intent. The technical decision should be determined after the decision on the role of the agent. An objective is a defined goal concerning the fact that the agent is to perform and provide consistency in the work processes.

• Defining the goal helps to make it clear where the agent of the LLM should intervene and where the role limits the action. Such awareness affects the way that inputs are perceived and the action taken.
• The LLM agent will be consistent in repetitive tasks with a small goal. Concentrated attention reduces the distraction of performance and limits unwanted behavior.
• Certain goals influence the future design decisions, such as prompts, tools, and context management. All these aspects are in line when a decision is made at the beginning.
• The teams are also able to trace the agent behavior in the workflows, with the goal being clearly stated. This will make it easier to assess the alignment of the operating conditions.

The choice of the models influences the practice of an LLM agent. It is a decision of identifying a model that suits the need well.

• The process of model selection commences with the correspondence of the complexity of the task at hand and the ability. A small model is capable of operating effectively when objectives are specified and communication in repeated workflows is predictable.
• Issues of cost are raised at an early stage since model choice affects the rate and viability of experimentation. Tradeoffs can assist the teams in learning how to develop an LLM agent without overspending resources at the initial development and testing stages.
• Performance must be considered as contextual. Response quality, response time, and consistency are indicators that the model can support the behavior of intended agents when subjected to real workloads.
• The integration with tools, memory, and orchestration layers is also influenced by model choice.

The interaction between users and an LLM agent influences its comprehension and accuracy in results. The input and the output structure establish the boundary between the human requests and the system behavior.

• The input structure will determine the way the information gets to the LLM agent, and the intent is conveyed. Clear formats will decrease the interpretation of the guides and allow the agent to pay attention to the information.
• Output structure defines the manner in which responses are attained and perceived through workflows. Patterns ensure easy review, reuse, and connections with other systems, without the need to interpret the result and make the necessary manual adjustments.
• Homogenized inputs and outputs contribute to lessening the time-varying behaviors of agents. In cases where expectations are constant, the LLM agent becomes more consistent in similar tasks.
• Improvement and test endeavors are also anchored on well-designed patterns. The responses will be better compared in teams in case the inputs are presented according to the familiar patterns, and the outputs are presented according to the well-established formats.

Agent logic defines how an LLM agent moves from understanding to action. It shows the way in which decisions are influenced or diverted by the changing information. This is a layer that provides the agent structure without the rigidity of behavior.

• Agent logic describes the order in which an LLM agent considers information and responds to it. The agent follows an internal path that guides how conclusions are reached.
• The clear logic becomes particularly relevant when the action is based on previous results or conditions of the system. The steps are cumulative, and the agent can keep moving without losing the path.
• Sometimes, businesses that are working with an LLM development company refine logic in stages. Minor modifications enhance circulation and management without affecting the appearance of the agent.

An LLM agent starts to reveal its usefulness when it can communicate with systems. The connection of tools enables the agent to shift between thinking and action. The step alters the role of the agent in the actual working processes.

• Linking tools enable the LLM agent to access or modify systems, according to the purpose. These connections provide meaning to context and the transformation of responses into outcomes.
• There should be selective and purposeful access to the tools. Only relevant systems are exposed; the agent is focused and not wasted in unnecessary complexity.
• The agent uses APIs, databases, and internal services in the decision path. Every connection impacts the level of assurance that the agent can make.

Memory brings continuity across multiple interactions. It alters how the agent relates to information in the past and how future behaviors are developed. This layer will have an impact on familiarity, consistency, and long-term usefulness.

• The long-term memory enables the agent to store information that is applicable during the different sessions. Such details can be concerned with repetitive activities that have already been performed. Memory can be applied selectively to reduce repetition and improve continuity across recurring workflows.
• Memory decisions are based on purpose. Not all LLM agents need persistence, and unwanted retention may make behavior complex. Some agents work best in cases where interactions are considered individually.
• The stored information should be relevant over time. Too much memory introduces noise and weakens clarity. Handling in a responsible manner supports without going beyond the designated role of the agent.

Deployment is an action that consists of the transfer of a system out of test in a controlled environment. That is where the agents begin operating with the information and systems that have gone online.

• The agent can be monitored to determine the performance in workflows and usage patterns. Trends develop over time to show the extent to which the decisions have been maintained to original purpose.
• Refinement is informed by performance data. Behavior changes gradually by making small adaptive adjustments and not with sudden changes. It is more about stability than improvement.
• Continuous monitoring ensures alignment with changes in circumstances. Adaptation in the case of constant monitoring is conscious and regulated.

Developing an LLM agent is really helpful when you build it with a structure. The whole process of making an LLM agent is important, from defining the goals to monitoring performance. Understanding how to develop an LLM agent that actually helps businesses is key. When you have a plan for making the LLM agent, it helps everything run smoothly and makes it easier to make changes as needed.

For business planning, to hire AI developers, having a structured approach provides clarity. It helps teams know what to expect when the LLM agent is being developed. It also helps the technical team and the business team agree on what they want to achieve with the LLM agent. When LLM agent development follows a disciplined path, the result is not just a functional system, but one that continues to perform as conditions change.

How to Develop an LLM Agent: A Step-by-Step Guide was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I think some of us have experienced a situation like this: you’re approached by someone who doesn’t speak the local language and only knows a bit of English. There’s no translator app, no shared vocabulary, but just a few common words and a lot of gestures (and yes, your arms might feel like they’re about to fall off 😂).

“So how do colleagues in international teams handle this?”

The answer is simple: they often rely on English, and not because it’s anyone’s native tongue, but because it allows everyone to understand each other.

The same thing applies to date formats in SQL.

Feeling a bit lost? Don’t worry — you’ll get it in no time once we move to the next section, just stay with me 😄

Each user, system, or country has its own “native” way of writing dates, and locally, those formats feel perfectly natural; It’s like everyone is trying to speak English, but each in their own dialect.

But the moment data is shared, joined, filtered, or reported across systems, those differences turn into misunderstandings.

So without a common language for dates, SQL doesn’t fail loudly, but it returns results that look correct but quietly mean something else.

I think it’s time to let the cat out of the bag of one of my recent projects (not recommended 😅).

One of the clients had an old application and a database, and recently, it wanted to go to the cloud (on cloud nine maybe 😂). The application was something like “my precious” for him, and I had to be very careful.

As a BI Developer, as soon as I received access to the data, I started to get my hands dirty (oh yeah 😎). But soon my enthusiasm hit rock bottom when I tried to see the data format they are using.

It started to look like a horror movie with no door to escape, like a maze with no exit, and like a problem with no solution; and somehow I was like the guy in the gif below.

The first thing that popped into my mind was “How on Earth is this thing possible??”…and the answer didn’t take long to come…the app let the user's imagination run wild with free-text fields (BIG NO, NEVER WHEN IT COMES TO DATES).

To keep things simple and restore some zen, data standardization means defining a common set of rules that everyone follows when storing data, whether they like it or not 😂.

These are not some things that were made to be violated, because it keeps things predictable and consistent, so the database doesn’t turn into a guessing game every time you run a query.

— OR, my special version —

Data standardization is like a common rule that everyone SHOULD obey (not too zen, right? 😂)

We’ll talk about how to deal with all of this in a future article, so don’t worry — I won’t leave you lost in the fog.

When your users have so much freedom with a free-text field and freedom of choice, the database becomes a linguistic experiment. Dates show up in every format imaginable — regional standards, personal preferences, copy-pasted emails, and occasionally something that looks more like a suggestion than a date

Please, someone remind those people that SQL isn’t a mind reader! You can’t expect it to understand intent, context, or “what I meant” without hesitation, effort, or complaints🙏🙏

So why does it hurt? Well, aside from the fact that your eyes, as a data fellow, are one bad query away from taking a long vacation after witnessing that nuclear attack, your entire pipeline starts to suffer. Suddenly, everything requires extra transformations, validations, and edge-case handling, and there’s no way you’ll be able to deliver that cutie-pie dashboard everyone expects.

And why? Because nothing actually breaks. Queries still run. Reports still load. Filters still return results. But those results may be quietly wrong. A date interpreted as 03/04/2024 might mean April 3rd for one system and March 4th for another—and SQL won’t warn you about it. It will confidently give you an answer, just not the one you thought you were asking for.

When there are no rules, Brownian motion feels right at home. Dates move in every direction, formats collide, and SQL is left trying to make sense of noise that looks like data.

Below is the list of possible disasters:

1. Wrong results that look right — the most dangerous one, because SQL will happily run your query and return results that look perfectly valid. But it’s just a trap because 01/02/2024 might mean January 2nd or February 1st, which is not what is desired.
2. Filtering and grouping are silently sabotaged — When dates are stored in inconsistent formats, or even worse, as strings, comparisons like:

• “last 30 days”
• “current month”
• “before 2023–12–31”

become unreliable or even incorrect.

3. The transformations are complex, but fragile — you’ll end with a lot of CAST, CONVERT, or PARSE calls. The result? Heavier processing, slower queries, harder maintenance, and higher costs, and that’s all because the data wasn’t standardized at the source.

4. A looot of inconsistencies — based on how the dates were guessed by SQL, the reports answering the same question may proudly display different results.
No one feels responsible, and suddenly dashboards are described as “indicative” instead of “reliable.”

5. Integrations with other systems? — better get rid of the idea, because it will be a nightmare when the assumptions collide, and the implied systems have different defaults, parsing rules, and formats.

6. The bill arrives when you least expect it — inconsistent date formats in historical data always resurface. And when they do, you’re forced to clean them up retroactively, an exercise that is significantly more expensive, risky, and time-consuming than doing it right from the start.

The last one almost destroyed my nerves. Days of frustration, endless discussions with the business to confirm whether standardization was really necessary, and multiple failed attempts at damage control.
But once the problem was finally solved, I could breathe again — and the data did too.

Data standardization isn’t about being strict or taking away freedom; it’s about making sure everyone speaks the same language. Just like international teams rely on English to avoid misunderstandings, databases rely on standardized formats to keep data predictable and meaningful.

Dates, in particular, may look harmless, but without clear rules they quickly become a source of silent errors, fragile pipelines, and endless frustration.

Everyone wants a reliable and robust data model, but it’s easy to forget that SQL is not a fortune teller trying to guess what humans meant. And in the end, data — just like people — works best when everyone understands each other.

Stay tuned and also, do not forget you can find other interesting data-related articles on my Medium.

If you like my articles, let’s spend our coffee break together here. Thank you for your support!

Is your SQL speaking a different language? was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remember the groundwater contamination in Waterloo Region is not only TCE (trichloroethylene), benzene, chlorinated solvents, NDMA; it's also nitrates, glyphosate (Round Up) and salt.  The salt of course comes from our roads and sidewalks in the winter to reduce slips and falls as well as auto accidents. In today's K-W Record however we learn that a new gravel pit in Wilmot Township, situated above the Waterloo Moraine has been accepting truckloads of snow this winter.  The title of the article by Terry Pender is "Ministry shuts down snow dump in Wilmot Township". One estimate is 50 truckloads of snow in the past two weeks being dumped at the surface of the Waterloo Moraine in the groundwater recharge zone.  The likelihood of this snow being contaminated with salt either from roads, driveways or parking lots is extremely high. 

Snow dumping is not permitted at this gravel pit under the license issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) hence the owner was ordered to cease and desist. Allegedly the MNR. conduct regular inspections to ensure compliance with the terms of their gravel pit license however just like their sister ministry the MECP (Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks), that is highly unlikely especially in the winter time. This case like many was initiated by local citizens' complaints. 

The timing of course is exquisite as just last week the Region of Waterloo announced that more water would be diverted from the Shingleton Wellfield in Wilmot Township to K-W and Elmira. Kudos to Rory Farnan and Samantha Lernout of "Citizens for Safe Groundwater"  for their vigilance and action. 

I too in decades past have reported gravel pits for illegal dumping up here in Woolwich Township. Unfortunately there wasn't at the time a very public water supply crisis and absolutely nothing was done by our unesteemed Ministry of Environment (MOE) . Unfortunately gravel pits especially near the end of their gravel production time are prime areas for burying stuff you can't (or shouldn't) take to the Waterloo Region, Erb St. Landfill. I would think that dirty snow from our streets and highways is a prime candidate for illegal dumping in multiple Regional gravel pits in the winter because come spring the evidence literally melts away. 

Closer to home let's not forget our own snowdump here in Woolwich Township. It's right above the former First St. Landfill which is actually sitting upon reclaimed ground that used to be below the Canagagigue Creek before it was straightened in 1963 or 64 to allow the building of the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant. Where exactly do you think all the salt, debris and contaminants end up every spring after snowmelt?  

Quoting Rory Farnan "All this talk of protection, but no teeth." He is correct and it is done intentionally by our politicians at all levels. They pass legislation allegedly to protect their citizens but rarely include serious enforcement provisions because afterall our developers, industrialists, gravel pit operators and employers are all well organized into lobby groups and who also financially support political parties while demanding relief from onerous and strict enforcement of many laws. Finally is it not likely that politicians themselves are reluctant to see laws affecting themselves and their duties being enforced rigorously? Hypothetically perhaps this might even include laws around election financing and reporting. 

WATERCANADA.NET (2026) Ontario Canada. Available at: emagazine.watercanada.net/?pid=ODk8927512&p=25&v=2.1

The HydroSphereAI (HSAI) article in the January/February 2026 issue of the Water Canada Magazine.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

We’re excited to share that HydroSphereAI (HSAI) is featured in the January/February 2026 issue of Water Canada, highlighting how machine learning is helping close critical gaps in streamflow forecasting across Canada.

The featured article, “Forecasting the Unpredictable,” explores how HydroSphereAI combines decades of hydrologic data with advanced Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) machine-learning architecture to deliver scalable, real-time streamflow predictions— particularly in regions where physical gauging infrastructure is limited or unavailable. The feature emphasizes HSAI generalized algorithm which can be applied across thousands of catchments, enabling accurate forecasting in diverse environments, from Prairie basins and urban watersheds to northern and remote river systems.

The piece also highlights how HydroSphereAI complements, rather than replaces, traditional physics-based hydrologic modeling and long-standing national monitoring programs. By integrating large-scale historical datasets, watershed attributes, and daily weather forecasts, HSAI provides actionable insights that support flood risk management, infrastructure planning and climate resilience for municipalities, conservation authorities and water managers.

We’re proud to see HydroSphereAI recognized as part of the broader conversation on the future of hydrologic forecasting in Canada— and how advanced analytics can expand access to high-quality water intelligence.

Read the full feature online in Water Canada to learn how HydroSphereAI is helping forecast the unpredictable and strengthen water management across the country.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

The HydroGeoSphere February 2026 release is now available for download.

The February 2026 HGS software release delivers performance improvements, important bug fixes, and a major round of enhancements to hgs2vtu configuration and output handling. Together, these changes improve model stability, speed up post-processing workflows, and provide greater flexibility when defining grid generation, boundary conditions, and metadata management in HydroGeoSphere (HGS).

New command:

• table maximum size - Added to grok, mprops, dprops, and fprops files to define the maximum table size when generating tables from unsaturated function definitions.

• time varying friction for chosen faces - Allows users to modify Manning’s roughness coefficient for selected surface domain faces, regardless of zonation— providing more control over surface flow behavior.

Performance improvement for time-based raster boundary conditions
The boundary condition command time raster table now loads raster data only when needed, reducing memory usage and improving runtime performance.

Refactored initial head assignment
The command initial head depth to water table has been updated so it applies to chosen nodes in the active domain, providing more precise control during model initialization. (See hydrosphere_ref.pdf for details.)

Fixes for grid generation origin arguments
Resolved a bug that caused unexpected behavior when specifying optional origin arguments for the following grid generation commands:

• generate uniform blocks

• generate uniform prisms

• generate uniform rectangles

• generate uniform triangles

This ensures consistent and predictable grid placement when using custom origins.

Fix for large unsaturated function tables
Corrected an issue in generate tables from unsaturated functions that could cause failures when working with large tables (more than 10,000 rows).

Windows installer improvement
Fixed a bug that prevented the installer from updating the PATH environment variable when the PATH exceeded 1024 characters.

hgs2vtu enhancements (see hydrosphere_ref.pdf)

• Fixed a variable ordering issue in Tecplot ASCII and CSV outputs when certain variables were activated via plot control.

• Improved performance when writing ASCII output files, delivering a 3x–6x speedup.

• New command --config allows users to specify options in a TOML-formatted configuration file (default: hgs2vtu.config).

• New command --print-config outputs the final configuration to the console and exits.

• New command --log-file lets users define a custom name for the log file (default: prefixo.hgs2vtu.eco).

• Removed --metafile; metadata options are now set directly on the command line.

• New metadata commands:

  • --attribute – sets file-level metadata

  • --crs – sets the model coordinate reference system

  • --epoch-date – sets the simulation epoch date

  • --start-date – sets the simulation start date

  • --nc-3d-full – defines the 3D mesh format for NetCDF UGRID output

• Removed redundant elevation output variables (now provided by mesh z-coordinates).

• Added new output variables for porous medium sheet numbers and overland elevation to water table.

• Completed plot control coverage so all output variables are now supported.

Documentation updates
The HydroGeoSphere Reference Manual (hydrosphere_ref.pdf) has been updated to reflect all new commands and enhancements.

And as always, we are committed to the continued improvement to the user experience. Do you have suggestions for new commands or improvements to the user experience? Send your ideas to support@aquanty.com!

The latest installers are available on the HGS download page and a full list of changes/updates can be found in the release notes.

Download the February 2026 release of HydroGeoSphere here: www.aquanty.com/hgs-download

Review the release notes here: www.aquanty.com/updates

♦

♦Spaghetti Dinner and Gourmet Cake Raffle
Thursday, February 26
5:00 PM – 7:30 PM
$20
Kitchener Mennonite Brethren Church – 19 Ottawa St. N, Kitchener

It’s time for the Annual Spaghetti Dinner and Gourmet Cake Raffle! Your ticket includes salad, delicious spaghetti with meat balls, beverage, dessert tea and coffee. You can buy tickets for the raffle for $1.00 each or 6 tickets for $5.00. Choose from a variety of gourmet crafted cakes that will wow your eyes and, if you’re lucky, your tastebuds too. Proceeds from the Spaghetti Dinner support the Committee for Excellence at KW Habilitation. The Committee for Excellence is a staff-led working committee invested in staff development and appreciation. Get your tickets now before they are sold out!

Click here for more info

♦♦ ♦

Click here for more info

♦TWB Brewing’s 10th Birthday Bash
Friday, February 13
6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Pay What You Can
TWB Brewing – 300 Mill Street, Kitchener

TWB Brewing Cooperative is turning 10 and you’re invited to the party! Try the limited edition Birthday Beer while enjoying tunes by DJ Big Tom. The patio will be open with fire tables on. Dress for the winter chill, grab a drink, and cozy up with us around the fire to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. This event is Pay What You Can in support of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. Cheers to 10 years!

Come play casual friendly chess games each month with other local players. All levels and ages are welcome. We’ll be teaching any new players the game rules and how to play. This classic strategy game is a great way to socialize with other people and have some fun.

♦♦The CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) is a great resource for anyone who has vision loss. They have a great program that pairs people who have vision loss with volunteers called Vision Mates. Vision Mates provide regular, one-to-one assistance and companionship for a person who is blind or partially sighted. Matches are made with someone who lives close to their home, school or work. Vision Mates visit once per week for a couple of hours to assist with tasks like reading, errands, going for walks, and socializing.  Activities that you do together are based on the needs and interests of the person who is blind or partially sighted. Being paired with a Vision Mate is as simple as reaching out to the Program Leader for your region. If you want to become a Vision Mate, fill out the form below.

Click here for more info on  Vision Mates

Click here to apply to be a Vision Mate

The post February 4, 2026: What’s Happening in Your Neighbourhood? appeared first on KW Habilitation.

Your Support Services Network (YSSN) has an incredible volunteer Board of Directors that looks for like-minded leaders who want to be a part of effecting positive, lasting changes for people in our community.

For more than 40 years, our Board has been the strategic foundation of our organization. They have guided YSSN’s growth and development to become an integrated hub of services and supports for people who live with serious mental illness, a developmental disability and/or have complex service needs.

If you are looking for a unique opportunity to volunteer your talents toward strategic thinking, organizational growth or financial oversight, and support the work of a community agency that is dedicated to helping people to live their best lives, please consider joining our Board.

We are looking for people who will have:

• a diverse perspective that reflects the culture and make-up of our community
• a personal connection and desire to make a difference in York Region, Simcoe County or Durham Region
• skills or lived experience in accounting, local government, fundraising, children’s services, or the mental health and developmental services system
• a willingness to serve a minimum three-year term
• availability to attend regular monthly meetings (up to 10 per year)

If you are interested in exploring this opportunity, we would love to hear from you. Please contact ed@yssn.ca by February 25, 2026.

The post Your Support Services Network (YSSN) appeared first on Capacity Canada.

Developers and builders want to make money today not tomorrow and the housing gravy train has been very good to them for many decades.  Just as they prefer to talk about building overpriced and grossly out of reach homes for the unhoused we have our Regional Chair Karen Redman  jauntily advising all and sundry that "...this is not about blame, this is about building a path forward." While I disagree with much of Kitchener mayor Barry Vrbanovic's comments which appear to show his dedication to the development industry, nevertheless he did strike a chord with his wish for all to know what happened to suddenly drop the bottom out of being ready for one million people here in the Region by 2051. 

Mrs. Puopolo and Masseo, developers, both want to believe that the water shortage is an engineering problem not an environmental or sustainability issue.  Minor (to them) facts such as low water elevation readings in a major aquifer are not setting off alarms as they should. I expect that these two gentlemen wouldn't concede a water shortage until the day they turn on the tap and nothing but dust comes out. Clearly freezing development permits until after the problem is both clearly defined AND if required greatly improved; is the proper action. 

Proper action also includes answering the question how did this problem sneak up on us? Obviously the Region's water department does not have an accurate handle on how much water is available from the Waterloo and Wellesley Moraines  plus from other aquifers in and around the Region of Waterloo such as Bedrock Aquifers in Cambridge, the Elmira Aquifers and more. Also I wonder just how reliable the Grand River is looking these days with the effects of greater extremes in weather upon us. 

It seems to me that often those like ex Woolwich councillor Mark Bauman and Regional Chair Karen Redman who trumpet "I won't play the blame game" do exactly that while pointing the finger at others rather than themselves.  

Rounds has a Kotlin server that integrates a few things:

• PostgreSQL persistence via SQLDelight (hosted on PlanetScale!)
• WebAuthn4J for Passkeys
• kotlinx.html for dynamic web pages
• Ktor for HTTP binding

The service uses six database tables. The business domain tables are Game and GameEvent. Support for auth, sessions, and collaborative editing adds Account, Cookie, Passkey, and GameAccess.

Decomposing code into modules is something I’ve struggled with for a long time.

One some projects I’ve screwed up by putting too much responsibility into a single module. Big modules are slow to build and test. Their size means they’ll change more frequently and will be rebuilt more frequently. Decomposing them into smaller modules is difficult because it requires introducing abstraction boundaries where there aren’t any. Consumers of big modules also suffer because they drag in unwanted behavior.

On other projects I’ve made the opposite mistake by having too many modules. Each module requires its own build file, where I paste repetitive configuration. I get particularly frustrated when a new feature depends on multiple too-small modules: do I introduce a new dependency between these modules? Or do I introduce yet another module that depends on the others? Consumers of my modules choose what they want à la carte, but must write verbose build files in the process.

Ralf Wondratschek presented a pattern that was critical in decomposing the Square POS Android app. Each feature starts with three modules:

• public: the feature’s public API interfaces and value objects.
• impl: the feature’s implementation classes. It provides service objects that implement the public API.
• impl-wiring: dependency injection glue that binds the interfaces in public to their implementations in impl.

The full set of features are assembled together into an executable by an app module that depends on all of the impl-wiring modules.

Ralf also introduced a strict rule: projects can’t depend on each other’s impl and impl-wiring modules; they may only depend on each other’s public modules.

This scheme requires a lot of setup! But it yields compelling benefits:

• All impl modules can build in parallel!
• Changes to one impl module never causes other impl modules to rebuild. The build caches get lots of hits!

It’s simple and scalable and I wish I’d come up with it. Here’s what the scheme looks like for Rounds’ server. I’m using different words ’cause I dislike the word impl, and I put my wiring in the implementation module. I’m not using a dependency injection framework yet!

server
 |-- accounts
 |   |-- api
 |   '-- real
 |-- games
 |   |-- api
 |   '-- real
 |-- passkeys
 |   |-- api
 |   '-- real
 |-- server-development
 |-- server-staging
 '-- server-production

The last 3 server-* modules build executables for each environment that Rounds runs in. Each depends on all of the real modules.

The games/api module depends on accounts/api because each GameAccess entity has an associated AccountId. Similarly, accounts/api depends on passkeys/api for PasskeyId.

Most of the code is in real modules, and most of the code can build in parallel.

But I dislike dependencies between api modules. They build sequentially because there’s a dependency chain spanning them. I also have to carefully avoid creating a dependency cycle between these: it’s arbitrary that accounts/api depends on passkeys/api and not vice-versa!

When I look closer, the dependencies between my api modules is limited: I’ve got typesafe ID classes (AccountId, PasskeyId, etc.) and I reference these in my service interfaces. The fix is simple: introduce a new identifiers module with just that stuff:

server
 |-- accounts
 |   |-- api
 |   '-- real
 |-- games
 |   |-- api
 |   '-- real
 |-- identifiers
 |-- passkeys
 |   |-- api
 |   '-- real
 |-- server-development
 |-- server-staging
 '-- server-production

Now the various *-api modules depend on identifiers, and it defines simple value objects for all of my features:

package app.rounds.identifiers

data class AccountId(val id: Long)

data class CookieId(val id: Long)

data class GameAccessId(val id: Long)

data class GameEventId(val id: Long)

data class GameId(val id: Long)

data class PasskeyId(val id: Long)

The net result is a module dependency graph with nice symmetry and practical benefits.

Are you interested in making a meaningful contribution to Burlington’s vibrant arts scene? Are you passionate about the performing arts? The Burlington Performing Arts Centre is seeking a broad range of skilled leaders to join our Board of Directors. As we enter our 15th season of bringing world-class performances and experiences to downtown Burlington, we’re looking for dynamic individuals with diverse skills and talents who can help shape the future of our performing arts centre and Burlington’s cultural community. Whether your expertise lies in legal, investment management or community leadership, there’s an opportunity to contribute your talents while being part of something transformative.

The Burlington Performing Arts Centre (‘BPAC’) is a state-of-the-art, LEED Gold Certified facility designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects. Since it opened in September 2011, BPAC has become the focal point for performing arts activity in Burlington, providing close to 400 days of use between the 720-seat Main Theatre, the 165-seat Community Studio Theatre, the Family Lobby and the outdoor Plaza. BPAC is a charitable not-for-profit organization, a presenter, a rental venue, an educator, a community hub and the focal point for performing arts activity in downtown Burlington.

The BPAC Board of Directors welcomed Sara Palmieri as its new Executive Director in February 2025 and named Peter W. Van Dyk its new Board Chair by acclamation in November 2024.

The Board completed a new Strategic Plan for 2024-2027, identifying four key strategic objectives which will define success for The Burlington Performing Arts Centre:

A successful Burlington Performing Arts Centre will be:

1. A place where all feel welcome. An organization committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and access to the performing arts.
2. A financially stable organization with the resources necessary to accomplish its mission.
3. A cultural hub that attracts diverse audiences and artists through a balanced programming model that presents professional and community performances.
4. An employer of choice that attracts the best in the business.

To read our 2024-2027 Strategic Plan, click here.

To read our Annual Reports, click here.

The Burlington Performing Arts Centre (‘BPAC’) offers the best in the performing arts to the Burlington community and beyond. We nurture and support local artists, arts organizations and promoters, and we engage the citizens of Burlington in meaningful arts experiences, animating the community and enriching people’s lives. Our vision is to capture the hearts and minds of the community through the power of the performing arts by entertaining, engaging and inspiring the citizens of Burlington, maintaining active engagement with the whole community and by taking a leadership role in community cultural development.

The Burlington Theatre Board Inc. is a governance board composed of volunteers responsible for the stewardship and general oversight of the organization. The Board provides strategic direction to the Executive Director and meets approximately seven times a year, with additional time
expected for sub-committee work.

The Burlington Theatre Board Inc. is currently seeking Board members with skills and experience in legal, investment management and community leadership, as well as a passion for the performing arts. Prior Board experience is not mandatory, but certification and a designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors would be an asset. BPAC Board members serve for 4-year terms and may serve for up to two consecutive terms (8 years total).

Board members are expected to:

• have deep ties in the Burlington community;
• be members of The Burlington Performing Arts Centre;
• participate in seven Board meetings, held both in person and virtually;
• participate in a minimum of one Board Committee (Audit and Risk Committee / Governance, Ethics and HR Committee / Development & Relationship Management Committee and Ad Hoc Committees as required), which may meet monthly;
• support BPAC functions and events (either through attendance or by other means);
• make an annual financial contribution that is personally meaningful, and/or actively support fundraising efforts through strategic introductions and engagement with the development team;
• act as ambassadors for BPAC.

To read about our current Board Directors, click here.
To learn about our membership program, click here.

Please send your CV and letter of interest as one document in PDF format to bpacboard@gmail.com on or before February 28, 2026.

If you have any questions about the application process, please send them to bpacboard@gmail.com and a member of the Governance, Ethics and HR Committee will respond.

The Burlington Performing Arts Centre is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We celebrate diversity and are committed to an inclusive environment for all employees, volunteers, patrons and artists. BPAC is actively interested in supporting BIPOC and 2SLGBTQI+ community members and we encourage members of these communities to apply. We thank all applicants for their interest. Interviews will take place in mid-March, 2026.

Burlington as we know it today is rich in history and modern traditions of many First Nations and the Métis. From the Anishinaabeg to the Haudenosaunee, and the Métis – our lands spanning from Lake Ontario to the Niagara Escarpment are steeped in Indigenous history. The territory is mutually covered by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy, the Ojibway and other allied Nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. We would like to acknowledge that the land on which we gather is part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit.

The post The Burlington Performing Arts Centre (BPAC) appeared first on Capacity Canada.

Success Beyond Limits is a collaborative, youth-led, community based movement that provides youth with holistic supports to complete their education and experience success in their lives.

A collaborative, youth-led, community based movement that provides youth with holistic supports to complete their education and experience success in their lives.

To improve educational outcomes, expand possibilities, and support youth in Jane and Finch along their individual paths to success.

Success Beyond Limits exists to provide youth with the opportunity to progress from where ever they are to where ever they want to be.  This is reflected in our programming, in which Mentees become Mentors-in-training, then become Mentors, who go on to play a variety of roles within our organizations (as tutors, co-op students and board members), eventually making contributions to the broader community.

Youth-led: Everything we do aspires to and is designed for establishing youth ownership of SBL by engaging and responding to the voices of youth. Youth are involved in our governance, as well as planning, adjusting, and delivering programming.

Collaborative: The common ground of success in education for our youth is where we meet with individuals, organizations, agencies, institutions and movements.

Community Based: Our focus, mandate and staffing are community-based, community-focused, and community-empowered.

Flexibility: All of our programming stays flexible in order to respond to the voice of the youth and their changing needs.

Our focus is to reduce the impact of external factors that negatively affect the educational success of youth in Jane-Finch.  We operate a 6-week summer program that offers credits, mentorship, youth employment, enrichment, nutrition, engagement, graduation, and relationship building.

We continue our support through our presence within Westview Centennial Secondary School, where we operate a youth space.  Through this space, our staff support youth during the school day, run an after-school program, and connect youth to an array of diverse opportunities.

The Board will elect a Treasurer to support the Board of Directors in their function of financial governance. The Treasurer will be qualified and experienced in overseeing the finances of organizations, as assessed by the Board of Directors, preferably be a CPA, and preferably having experience with non-profit organizations.

The Treasurer and Co-Executive Director (Operations) will meet (at minimum) on a bi-monthly basis.

The responsibilities of the Treasurer will include the following:

1. Annual review of the organization’s financial policies and procedures
2. Monitoring actual vs. budgeted allocations and ensuring any significant changes are reported to the Board on a quarterly basis
3. Review of annual operating budget
4. Review of existing monthly financial statements and reports
5. Work with Co-Executive Director and Finance Committee to implement, monitor, and evaluate financial controls and systems controls.
6. Review and recommend the quarterly financial statements to the Board, as prepared by the Co-Executive Director (Operations)
7. Provide guidance and support to the External Auditor, Bookkeeper, and Co-Executive Director (Operations) to ensure the timely completion of the audit.
8. Review and approve the audited annual financial statement on behalf of the Board; present the statement to the Board
9. Recommend an External Auditor to the Board for approval at the Annual General Meeting
10. Annual review of the organization’s Charitable Return to the CRA
11. Annual review of the organization’s insurance policies, including the Directors’ and Officers’ Liability Policy
12. Act as the subject matter expert surrounding all financial management and strategy
13. Chair the Finance Committee and the coordination of committee activities

The Board Director with expertise in Finance and Accounting will contribute their general knowledge or subject matter expertise on topics related to:

• Understanding Financial Statements: Ability to interpret balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, and other financial reports.
• Budgeting: Experience in overseeing the creation, implementation, and monitoring of organizational budgets.
• Financial Analysis: Ability to assess financial performance, identify trends, and make recommendations for improvement.
• Cost Management: Knowledge of controlling costs and improving efficiency while maintaining quality.

• Familiarity with accounting principles (e.g. NFPS) and an understanding of how they apply to the organization.
• Ability to review accounting practices and ensure compliance with financial regulations.

• Ability to identify, assess, and mitigate financial risks.
• Understanding of insurance policies, investments, and potential liabilities to protect the organization from financial threats.

• Experience in long-term financial planning to ensure sustainability.
• Knowledge of how financial decisions affect the overall strategy of the organization.
• Ability to make informed decisions about resource allocation, investments, and fundraising.

• Understanding of various fundraising strategies and how financial performance impacts fundraising efforts.
• Ability to evaluate the financial aspects of funding sources and partnerships.

• Board Meetings: Approximately 2 hours four times per year for Board meetings (typically virtual) and an AGM.
• Committee Meetings: Committees typically meet monthly or bimonthly

*Adopted from boardsource.org/resources/board-member-job-description/

The Treasurer is a volunteer, non-paid role, and is an executive member of the SBL Board of Directors. If you have any questions about the role or are interested in volunteering on the SBL Board of Directors, send your questions and/or resume to Tammie Orifa at tammie_orifa@hotmail.com.  Directors on the SBL Board are expected to adhere to the Privacy and Confidentiality policies of the organization and must express any known or potential conflicts of interest while affiliated with the organization.

To learn more about Success Beyond Limits, please visit their website at www.successbl.com/.

The post Success Beyond Limits appeared first on Capacity Canada.

The past few months in my house have been…a lot. A layoff has shaken our routine. The holidays showed up but didn’t really sparkle. Then came the flu, followed by Snowmageddon 2026, because apparently the universe wanted the full set.

Life felt like pushing a boulder uphill in slow motion. I was still showing up for work, still showing up for my family, still trying to keep the wheels turning. But inside? I was so far beyond tired that “exhausted” didn’t even feel like the right word anymore.

Then something unexpected happened. I got assigned to a new project with a team of coworkers I don’t normally collaborate with. Nothing dramatic, it was just a shift with a new mix of people with different energy.

It turned out to be the lifeline I didn’t even realize I needed.

These incredible women didn’t try to fix me. They didn’t swoop in with advice or solutions. They simply reached across the invisible workplace boundaries we pretend aren’t there and reminded me what real support feels like.

They made space for me to breathe again, just by listening and showing up.

Why Coworker Support Matters More Than Ever

We spend nearly a third of our lives at work, so it makes sense that the people around us matter, often more than we admit.

A 2025 study from Frontiers in Public Health found that almost half of U.S. workers report chronic work‑related stress that affects emotional, cognitive, and social well‑being (www.frontiersin.org).

But here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough:

Employees who feel supported in their mental health are twice as likely to report no burnout or depression compared to those who don’t (www.mindsharepartners.org).

Supportive peers aren’t a workplace perk. They’re a buffer, a stabilizer, and a quiet form of resilience.

Peerness Isn’t Therapy, But It Is Powerful

My coworkers didn’t hand me a five‑step plan for emotional recovery. They didn’t load me up with pep talks or clichés. What they offered was much more meaningful, just presence, honesty, and genuine kindness.

And somehow that shifted the emotional weather of my days. The moments that mattered most were small:

• A teammate saying, “You don’t have to carry this alone.”
• Someone acknowledging that yes, things had genuinely been a lot.
• A shared laugh that cracked through the fog.
• A “How are you?” that wasn’t just workplace choreography.

None of these moments were big or dramatic. But they grounded me. They reminded me that I wasn’t navigating this season alone.

And research backs it up: peer support strengthens resilience, improves coping, and reduces stigma in workplace mental‑health efforts (journals.sagepub.com, psycnet.apa.org).

But honestly? I didn’t need research to tell me that. I could feel it in my breath, in my shoulders and in my head and heart. They weren’t trying to fix “Crystal.” They were reminding me I didn’t have to white‑knuckle my way through everything.

Workplace Community Isn’t Accidental, It’s Built

One of my favorite truths from adult learning is that learning is social. We learn through experience, reflection, modeling, and connection.

This season reminded me that the most meaningful lessons at work don’t always come from training programs or leadership workshops.

They come from people.

• Seeing colleagues model openness
• Witnessing resilience up close
• Being part of a team that values people as much as results

This is community and it matters. Organizations that intentionally invest in psychological safety and openness see measurable improvements in employee well‑being and connection (mhanational.org).

But culture isn’t built in a strategy document. It’s built in mini‑moments, peer to peer, meeting to meeting, Zoom to Zoom.

What My Team Taught Me (That You Might Need Too)

Here are the lessons I’m carrying with me:

Small gestures can change an entire day. Even minutes of genuine empathy measurably improve well‑being (psycnet.apa.org).

Workplace relationships affect more than your performance. Strong peer connections reduce burnout and support overall satisfaction (journals.sagepub.com).

Openness creates more openness. Nearly 46% of employees still fear discussing mental health at work (www.mindsharepartners.org).

It’s okay to need your coworkers. Not as therapists, just as fellow humans.

Community is a form of resilience, and resilience is rarely built alone.

The Quiet Power of Community

Workplace community isn’t loud. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t go viral. But it matters, quietly, consistently, profoundly.

And if your own cup is running low right now, I hope you find coworkers who show up for you in the small, steady ways that make a big difference.

Or maybe today is your chance to be that person for someone else.

The Quiet Power of Workplace Community was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

♦

The Treasurer and Chair of the Finance, Audit, and Risk Committee (FARC) plays a critical leadership role on CEE’s Board of Directors. The role ensures sound financial oversight, strong risk management, and accountable governance aligned with CEE’s mission to support the advancement and economic empowerment of young Black professionals.

As a Board member, the Treasurer contributes to strategic decision-making, helps shape Board meeting agendas, and serves as a key advisor on the financial implications of organizational priorities. This is a volunteer Board position, and the Treasurer also serves in the capacity of CEE’s volunteer Treasurer, supported by the Executive Director (ED) and Director of Finance.

• Fulfill all duties outlined in CEE’s Board Member role description.
• Act in the best interests of the organization and its mission.
• Help develop Board meeting agendas related to financial, audit, or risk matters in collaboration with the Board Chair and ED.
• Participate fully in Board meetings, strategic sessions, and retreats.
• Provide governance-level oversight while partnering appropriately with staff leadership.

This position is for a working board member. Candidates should be prepared to take an active, hands-on role in supporting the organization through committee participation, project-based work, and other operational contributions as needed.

• Provide strategic financial leadership and ensure the Board receives clear, timely financial information.
• Review, interpret, and present monthly/quarterly financial statements, forecasts, and variance analyses.
• Support and advise on the development of the annual operating and capital budgets.
• Ensure appropriate internal controls, financial policies, and reporting systems are in place.
• Monitor organizational performance against approved budgets and highlight emerging risks or opportunities.
• Advise the ED and Director of Finance on financial strategy, sustainability, and trends affecting the organization.

• Act as the primary liaison between the Board and CEE’s financial leadership (Director of Finance, ED, and relevant staff).
• Maintain a partnership-based working relationship with staff while respecting operational boundaries.
• Seek clarification from staff on financial risks, pressures, forecasts, and opportunities to support Board-level decision-making.
• Ensure that the Finance team is adequately resourced and supported to meet reporting requirements.

• Ensure CEE meets all financial regulatory requirements including CRA filings, ONCA (or Canada NFP Act) reporting, and annual returns.
• Oversee the annual audit or review engagement, including auditor selection and evaluation.
• Support the timely preparation and presentation of audited financial statements to the Board.
• Monitor progress on audit recommendations and internal control enhancements.

• Lead the Finance, Audit & Risk Committee in developing annual work plans, priorities, and meeting agendas.
• Facilitate at least eight FARC meetings per year, ensuring informed discussions and clear recommendations.
• Assess organizational risks (financial, operational, legal) and ensure mitigation strategies are in place.
• Recommend investment, reserve, banking, and debt strategies within Board-approved guidelines.
• Ensure CEE maintains appropriate insurance coverage for the organization and its Directors & Officers.

• Help develop Board meeting agendas, particularly regarding financial strategy, audit oversight, or risk decisions.
• Report committee findings and recommendations to the Board in a clear and actionable format.
• Support recruitment and onboarding of new FARC members.
• Foster a transparent and collaborative culture across the committee and Board.

• Professional designation:
  • CPA strongly preferred, but candidates with a CFA or other relevant financial credentials are also welcomed.
• Minimum three years of experience serving on a Board (nonprofit or corporate) is preferred.
• Proven experience interpreting financial statements and overseeing budgets.
• Understanding of or willingness to learn nonprofit finance, CRA regulations, and ONCA/NFP requirements.
• Demonstrated leadership experience in committees, financial strategy, risk management, or audit oversight.
• Strong integrity, sound judgment, and commitment to CEE’s mission.
• Availability to provide appropriate oversight and attend meetings (approx. 5–7 hrs/month).

• Appointed at CEE’s Annual General Meeting for a two-year term.
• Renewable up to three consecutive terms.

• Bi-monthly Board meetings.
• Minimum eight FARC meetings annually.
• Review of financial reports and audit materials before meetings.
• Regular communication with the ED and Director of Finance.
• Participation in CEE community events and stakeholder engagements.

Apply Today via secure.collage.co/jobs/ceetoronto/59266 

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It may be too much to hope for. Our politicians do best looking at short term problems not long term ones. Federally that would also apply to crime which by its' nature tends to be quiet and at least somewhat hidden from most of our views especially depending upon where we live. I expect that illegal drug use and petty crime go hand in hand in our inner cities and organized crime more obvious in Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal and Vancouver with unfortunate hot spots in Winnipeg, Thunder Bay and economically disadvantaged cities. Our federal government's response is to confiscate legally acquired firearms whose owners are licensed from the very same federal government. My understanding is that convicted criminals plus those with a history of serious mental illness can not obtain firearms licenses. So the federal government's crime fighting consists of disarming those proven to be law abiding.  That plan should work by fooling the public for what ten minutes, ten days, ten months ?

On January 26, 2026 the K-W Record published an article by a Director of the Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Mr. Kaveh Madani. His premise is that "Many natural water systems are no longer able to return to their historical conditions. These systems are in a state of failure - water bankruptcy." He further states "Despite these problems, nations continue to increase water withdrawals to support the expansion of cities, farmland, industries and now data centres." He has many other suggestions including respecting the science that tells our politicians when enough is enough. In other words don't keep growing and expanding population and economic growth blindly believing that engineering can solve all problems including water shortages. On its' own it cannot.

I'm still waiting for Wilmot Township to respond to the Region's plans for taking more water from their groundwater to satisfy Kitchener, Waterloo , Elmira etc. Why shouldn't the mayor of Wilmot, Natasha Salonen tell Woolwich to clean up their own act? Clean up our Uniroyal, Nutrite and Varnicolor Chemical contaminated groundwater so that we can once again be self-sufficient in water. When Cambridge finally admit their issues with TCE (and more) contaminated groundwater and actually seriously attempt to remove it at source rather than at their treatment facilities (Middleton Well Field etc.) then they might actually have enough reasonably priced water to send to K-W. The failure to clean up Breslube (now Safety-Kleen) decades ago assisted in shutting down two Kitchener wells, K70 and K71. Does Ms. Salonen think building a massive 700 acre industrial facility on top of agricultural land, combined with pumping groundwater on behalf of Kitchener-Waterloo  actually solve anything?

Difficult decisions in the PUBLIC interest need to be made now.   

♦

How Business Internet Pricing Works | Execulink Business

Learn what affects business internet pricing, including speed, location, service type, and contract options, so you can choose the right fit for your business.

How Business Internet Pricing Actually Works

Key Takeaways

• Business Internet pricing depends on location, service type, and capacity needs.
• Available speeds and pricing can vary by address based on network infrastructure.
• Speed is about capacity and consistency, not just headline numbers.
• Contract and month-to-month options serve different business needs.

When businesses compare Internet options, pricing can seem unclear at first. That’s because business Internet is structured differently than residential services, and it’s designed that way to support reliability, performance, and multiple users during the workday.

This article explains how business Internet pricing actually works, what affects it, and when it makes sense to review your current service.

How business Internet pricing is determined

Business Internet pricing is not one-size-fits-all. It reflects a combination of technical and operational factors that help ensure consistent performance for business use.

1. Service availability depends on location

The first factor that affects pricing and available options is location.

Different addresses are served by different types of network infrastructure. As a result:

• Available speeds may vary by address
• Some technologies are available in certain areas but not others
• Pricing reflects the network required to deliver the service

This is why businesses are often asked to qualify their address before finalizing Internet options. Address qualification helps ensure expectations match what can realistically be delivered to that location.

Qualify your address

1. Speed is really about capacity

For businesses, speed is less about “how fast” and more about how much activity the connection can support at the same time.

Higher speeds typically provide:

• More capacity when multiple users are online
• Better performance during peak usage times
• Greater support for cloud-based tools and applications

Choosing the right speed is about selecting a level that fits how your business operates today. not simply choosing the highest available number.

1. Pricing reflects the type of service delivered

Business Internet pricing generally accounts for:

• The underlying network infrastructure
• The selected speed or capacity
• Service reliability and support expectations

While two services may use similar access technology (such as fibre), pricing can differ based on how the service is delivered and supported. Some services are designed for everyday operations with standard support expectations, while others include defined service commitments, faster restoration targets, and expanded support availability.

Understanding this distinction helps explain why business Internet pricing can vary even when speeds appear similar.

Fibre services can be delivered in different ways

Fibre describes the connection type, not the service level.

Two fibre-based services can look similar on paper (especially if the speeds are comparable), but pricing can differ based on how the service is delivered and supported.

Some fibre services are built for everyday operations with standard business support. Others include defined service commitments, proactive monitoring, and faster restoration targets, which can matter more for businesses with low tolerance for downtime.

This distinction helps explain why business Internet pricing can vary even when speeds appear similar, and why different businesses choose different service levels based on operational risk.

♦

Actual availability, restoration targets, and support hours depend on provider and location.

1. Contract vs. month-to-month options

Business Internet services may be offered under a contract or on a month-to-month basis.

In general:

• Contract options often provide more predictable pricing over time
• Month-to-month options offer flexibility but may be subject to price changes

The right choice depends on how long you expect to remain at a location and how important pricing stability is for your business.

1. When it makes sense to review your Internet setup

Businesses commonly revisit their Internet service when:

• Teams grow or usage increases
• More tools move to the cloud
• Performance feels strained during busy periods
• Planning ahead for the year

A short review can help confirm whether your current service still fits your needs, or whether a small adjustment could improve day-to-day performance.

Explore business internet options

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does business Internet pricing vary by address?
Different locations are served by different network infrastructure, which affects available speeds, service types, and delivery costs.

Is faster Internet always better for a business?
Not necessarily. The best option is the speed that provides enough capacity for your users and applications without paying for more than you need.

What’s the difference between business and residential Internet?
Business Internet is designed to support multiple users, consistent daytime performance, and business-critical applications, which influences how it’s structured and priced.

Should I choose a contract or month-to-month plan?
That depends on how long you plan to stay at your location and whether predictable pricing is a priority for your business.

About the Author

Execulink Business Team

The Execulink Business team specializes in business Internet, voice, and connectivity solutions for Ontario-based organizations. With experience supporting small and mid-sized businesses across a range of industries, the team focuses on clear service options, predictable pricing, and local support.

The post Execulink Telecom: How Business Internet Pricing Actually Works appeared first on Greater KW Chamber of Commerce.

I remember being the “new girl” on the engineering team. I had just landed my first code selection for production deployment, a moment that felt like winning a bravery award. I was riding high on that validation until the alerts started screaming!!

“Who pushed that change?” the whisper got louder. My brain short-circuited. My nervous system flipped into a primal surge of Fight, Flight, or Freeze. I wanted to disappear and fix it simultaneously.

That was my introduction to the Red Zone, the intersection of high-stakes responsibility and Workplace Stress. While our corporate environments evolve at the speed of light, our nervous systems are still running on ancient software.

To survive and thrive, we have to understand that Corporate Pressure doesn’t disappear as we grow, it just changes its “circumference.”

In the beginning, my world was narrow. Finishing a single task felt like a monumental achievement. I remember celebrating a completed ticket in total isolation, treating it like a standalone victory rather than a small piece in a massive puzzle.

The Shift: From Mastery to Foundation
At this stage, your pressure circumference is small. Your world is your desk and your immediate output. The pressure oscillates between high intensity but low complexity; it’s almost always the internal whisper of: “Am I good enough?”

To excel here, you must realize that these small wins aren’t just tasks , they are the nervous system training grounds for your Professional Growth.

As I proved myself, the “reward” was more responsibility. Working and managing began to overlap. Suddenly, multitasking increased by manifolds. I wasn’t just responsible for my code; I was responsible for the flow of the project.

The Shift: From Output to Presence

As your circumference expands, your presence is demanded in more meetings and your brain is expected to hold more answers. The pressure is no longer just about “the work”, it’s about the Management Skills.

To excel at this level, energy management becomes more important than time management.

Eventually, I moved beyond systems and into the realm of stakeholders and global clients. I started handling critical projects with people from different cultures, backgrounds, and conflicting expectations.

The Shift: From Systems to Humans

When your circumference goes global, you become the face of the organization. The pressure becomes human-centric. The pressure becomes human-centric, requiring a high degree of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). You quickly realize that understanding a complex codebase is often easier than understanding a complex human.

To handle this level of pressure, you must trade your technical ego for cultural intelligence and empathy. You aren’t just solving problems; you are managing emotions, politics, and visions.

The environment changes, but our nervous system stays the same. The “Red Zone” never truly goes away; the stakes just get higher and the circumference gets wider.

The key to handling Corporate Pressure isn’t to wait for it to disappear but to expand your capacity to hold it without breaking.

Next time the alerts start screaming, whether they are server alerts or angry emails, take a deep breath. You aren’t just fixing a problem; you’re upgrading your internal software for the next level of the game.

“The pressure doesn’t get smaller; you just get better at carrying it. If this resonated with you, give it a ‘clap’ so others in the Red Zone can find it, too.”

The Corporate Red Zone: Why Pressure Scales Faster Than Your Skills was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

♦

KITCHENER - The Kitchener Panthers are proud to announce the signing of lefty relief pitcher Jake Liberta.

Liberta first arrived to Kitchener at the transaction deadline in 2025.

In five regular season appearances, he had an 11.25 ERA in 12 innings of work. The ERA doesn't tell the whole story, as without a rough appearance against Welland on Aug. 14, his ERA would sit at 5.59.

Liberta struck out 16 batters during the regular season, and punched out another four in two playoff appearances.

Before his time in Canada, Liberta played in Germany as both a pitcher and outfielder.

He win a championship in 2021 in the California Prospect League and a Northwoods League title in 2023 with the Green Bay Rockers.

Liberta is a graduate of the University of Hawaii Hilo (NCAA D2).

============

JAKE LIBERTA

• Bats/Pitches: L/R
• Hometown: Phoenix, AZ (IMPORT)
• Birthdate: December 19, 2000
• Pronunciation: Jake lib-URR-tuh

Why do I say "Thank Goodness" above regarding our water crisis getting nasty? I say it because history has shown that when all the stakeholders get together, hold hands and sing from the same choirbook; the public get it in the ear. In fact it's almost a given. The prime local example is the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis.  As long as the Ministry of Environment (M.O.E.) and Uniroyal Chemical were at each others throats in front of the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB), then the public were learning all the dirty environmental secrets of a multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation . The plan was for the M.O.E. to then take the stand for examination and cross-examination after Uniroyal were finished. It never happened because Uniroyal knew that they had the dirt and the goods on the M.O.E. who were more than willing to sell out the public interest in order to save their own credibility and reputations. This the M.O.E. did by offering a sweetheart deal which allowed Uniroyal to save hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs. These saved cleanup costs included both the downstream Canagagigue Creek as well as not forcing Uniroyal to remove as many DNAPLS as possible on and off their site.

The hoped for nastiness today is between local developers & builders  against the Region of Waterloo. It's even possible that we might see some sort of Region versus the province nastiness if we are very lucky. Do not be fooled by peace, love and harmony between essentially hard nosed, play it close to the line parties with vastly different interests. The developers and builders will quite happily build homes and commercial buildings to our very last drop of water as long as they get paid to do so. Regional Council politicians want status, recognition and when possible legacy projects to cement their reputations. Unfortunately most of them aren't remotely smart enough to actually be able to understand water systems or for that matter anything technical at all. including financing and budgets. This they do not want exposed hence they too will do almost anything to escape close scrutiny for the water crisis including selling out their constituents. Melissa Durell Executive Officer at Build Urban threw the first grenade when she suggested that the development freeze/water crisis was a "manufactured crisis".  

Both articles in today's K-W Record by Luisa D'Amato and Terry Pender suggested that regional staff and councillors might face civil and or criminal liability. Hallelujah it's about time. Generally speaking politicians like police officers have way too much immunity from prosecution or even accountability.  Throw all the stones you want and let the chips lay where they fall. If regional councillors have been ignoring staff water warnings for years and going full speed ahead on development then they need to be charged for putting all of us at risk of water shortages. The problem is there usually is enough mutual blame for the stakeholders to stop throwing stones, make nice, lie to the public and cobble together some kind of second class deal to stave off the worst of the consequences all while removing blame from the equation exactly as they did in Elmira. 

♦

The “mother” sauce béchamel entered the culinary lexicon in a formalized fashion at the hands of, (who else?), Escoffier in about 1902.

When you add Gruyere or Parmesan cheese, the béchamel becomes a Mornay sauce.

A white sauce, béchamel is simply one built with a roux and a liquid: milk-based, it maintains its white colour. Roux has been a sauce component for a long time, dating to the Middle Ages in Germany and Italy as early as the 1400s, and therefore much before being co-opted by the classic French preparations of the 17th- and 18th-centuries.

The origin of the name Mornay is debatable, but it has nothing to do with American actress Rebecca de Mornay … or the Seinfeld episode.

Photo/Mouse buck11 – english Wikipedia ([1]), Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4552760

Check out my latest post Sauce Mornay from AndrewCoppolino.com.

On New Years eve, the final episode of Stranger Things dropped. As I eagerly waited for the episode to load (not that long, thankfully), I could clearly see in my mind’s eye, the different systems that were working diligently behind the veil to bring it to me.

Two years ago, when season 4 came out, all I saw was the little spinning wheel and an instant later, heard the iconic Netflix “tudum”. Now, I can see (Well, not really SEE!) the request going out over the network — through routers, rate-limiters and gateways — reaching servers and APIs and finally, getting to that file sitting in a database (a better guess would be an LRU cache), waiting to be invoked. I could feel the response — “Stranger Things Season 5 Chapter 8” zooming back to me — and then the ever-satisfying “tudum”.

What changed? — I have embodied the spirit of a backend engineer, and all has been revealed to me.

If you don’t want the “magic debunked”, then stop right here and go back!

I am not one of the magicians behind Netflix. I’m just an overly curious, budding software engineer who likes to guess at how systems work. Most web applications build on a simple design structure — molding it to fit their unique needs. This structure is easy enough to guess at.

Applications send out requests

API’s sit on servers, deciding which requests deserve a response.

Databases Remember.

Wait a minute! But didn’t Netflix’s server crash when season 5 came out? How did that happen?

Now, we enter the upside-down of backend engineering. The system works fine when it's just one “mad-scientist” entering through a tiny gateway in Hawkins lab. But when a bunch of “idiots” decide to build a lab inside the bridge — the “crawls” need to be timed, screened, and secured — or you might end up with a fugitive in the back of your truck.

Rate Limiter limits the requests a user, IP, region, or service can make per second, to give everyone a chance and prevent one user from hogging up all the resources.

Cache’s maintain a dossier of frequent requests — in this case show/movie titles — to reduce the stress of searching the database.

Fault Tolerance makes sure the system bounces back or persists when issues occur — like when Steve’s car went through the wall of the bridge. The entire bridge didn’t collapse now, did it?

Thank God for that! Would have hated it if Steve died.

If a system is designed to handle 10 requests, and gets a 100 thrown at it, of course its bound to crash. But that’s not what happened with Netflix.

Netflix didn’t crash, it degraded.

Netflix is designed to handle huge traffic. They expect to receive an overwhelming amount of requests for the same titles during show/season drops. In such cases, the goal is to survive and not be the hero. Some requests received errors in response, and some responses took longer than normal, to protect the system.

You know how Dustin finds Dr. Brenners’ notes and has an “EUREKA” moment? Engineers have those too — only not from Dr. Brenners’ life’s work.

Us poor souls have to rely on dashboards, event logs, alerts and other boring tools(Sigh!). Each and every action is meticulously logged. Each behavior is analyzed and represented as key performance indicators or KPIs (another tale for another time) on dashboards. Systems are constantly tracked and alerts put in place to inform us of inconsistencies — like Will touching the back of his neck and shouting “guys! its here!” (sorry Will)

Because of these monitoring tools, Netflix engineers can keep an eye on things even if Netflix does go down. The system can recover itself or give advance notice if self recovery is impossible.

A pattern I’ve seen in almost all seasons of stranger things is that the group always works its way in 2’s, 3’s and 4’s towards the final showdown and have a “where have you been?” moment.(I don’t know why I heard Molly Weasley in my mind just then). Similarly, systems like Netflix are a bunch of moving parts doing their own thing in order to achieve a common goal — defeating Vecna.

NO!

Bringing you amazing binge worthy content!

Full Disclosure : This is by no means a complete picture of system design and DEFINITELY not an accurate model that netflix uses. Its just a roadmap of how most systems work. System Design, of course, has many more aspects to consider. My aim was to provide a structured thought process in a fun way. Each concept mentioned here can be its own article/series of articles.

A concept I did not touch on but is equally important is tradeoffs. Systems are costly to build and maintain and sometimes what we want can be way out of proportion with what we have the resources to build. Tradeoffs is the idea of choosing what to keep and what to abandon.

A Stranger Things Guide To System Design was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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I’ve been trying to build a remarkable UI for Rounds.app. One feature that turned out quite well is tinting the game name & menu bar icons when the winner changes.

In this recording you can see colors change when I toggle the win condition:

I’ve got a two CSS classes, tinted and tintedDefault for the game name. I’m using a CSS transition to animate color changes:

.tinted {
  transition: color 300ms linear;
}

.tintedDefault {
  color: #ffffff;
}

By using a CSS class, any element that’s declared as tinted will automatically receive tints. For example, the title:

  <div class="title tinted tintedDefault">Calico</div>

Next I need to dynamically add a CSS rule. I’m using Kotlin/JS so it’s easy to hook up the adoptedStyleSheets API:

private var adoptedStyleSheet: CSSStyleSheet? = null
  set(value) {
    field = value
    val array = js("[]")
    if (value != null) {
      array.push(value)
    }
    document.asDynamic().adoptedStyleSheets = array
  }

To call it, I build a stylesheet rule from a string:

val colorOrDefault = color ?: Colors.DefaultThemeColor
val cssStyleSheet: CSSStyleSheet = js("""new CSSStyleSheet()""")
cssStyleSheet.insertRule(
  rule = """
    .tinted {
      color: ${colorOrDefault.css()} !important;
      opacity: 1 !important;
    }
    """,
  index = 0,
)
adoptedStyleSheet = cssStyleSheet

Using !important is important here; it ensures the dynamic tint takes precedent over the default one.

I remove the tint after a 1,500 ms delay:

resetJob = scope.launch {
  delay(duration)
  adoptedStyleSheet = null
}

That’s enough to tint the text, but I need another trick to tint the SVG icons. The easiest way I found to recolor an SVG file was a CSS mask. Thankfully my icons are single-color.

<div 
  class="imageButton tintedBackground tintedBackgroundDefault"
  style="mask: url('/assets/bottle40x64.svg'); width: 40px; height: 64px">
</div>

Annoyingly, the dynamic color for masks is the background, so I need a second pair of CSS rules:

.tintedBackground {
  transition: background-color 300ms linear;
}

.tintedBackgroundDefault {
  background-color: #ffffff;
}

And a second dynamic CSS rule:

cssStyleSheet.insertRule(
  rule = """
    .tintedBackground {
      background-color: ${colorOrDefault.css()} !important;
      opacity: 1 !important;
    }
    """,
  index = 1,
)

The most difficult part of the whole exercise is using restraint. I’m inclined to color everything in bright colors all the time, but that yields a very ugly UI!

Rounds is my free web app for scoring in-person games. Try it out at rounds.app.

The post Rock Rascals appeared first on Grand River Rocks Climbing Gym.