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Competition Bureau Canada report on Data Portability

Last week the Canadian Competition Bureau released the report Your Data, Your Control: How data portability can unlock competition and empower consumers. The surprisingly readable report centers around an experiment exploring data portability in the insurance sector, calculating that “introducing data portability could save Canadians “between $1.10 billion and $3.83 billion in both time and money on their annual costs.” I decided to read the report to understand how the Canadian federal government thinks about data portability in general, with an eye towards other digital spaces like social media, cloud, AI, and the types of stuff I am interested in.

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Finally started Katabasis by R.F. Kuang 📚

Tracking on Hardcover here

Pre-ordered the special edition a few months ago: micro.chadkohalyk.com/2025/09/0…

Spent the afternoon by the water, watching this sunset 🌅 (Crescent Beach, Surrey and White Rock BC)

Been enjoying Hardcover so much I went ahead and imported all my Goodreads stuff into it. Come join us!

hardcover.app/@chadkoh

I LOL’d when I saw Ajahn Kovilo say this during the full talk 🤣 I am so glad they turned it into a Short:

Full talk is here if you want to hear more.

Finished A People’s History of Computing in the United States by Joy Lisi Rankin 📚

Here is a short review: hardcover.app/books/a-p…

Nice walk in a very sunny forest 🌞🌲🪾🌳

Shine shines blindingly through trees of various sizes, backlighting them but illuminating all the moss and witch hazela perfectly still pond reflects trees from across the way and rocks … in the sky? Yes the image is inverted on purpose!

Who do I know that lives in the Fraser Lowland? A friend has started a fellowship program to support projects focusing on localism there. If you know anyone please tag me and share them this: fraserlowland.org

Clear Mountain Monastery found land just outside of #Seattle! 🪷 They have a beautiful vision and raised 99% of the funds. I really love this community and have made a small contribution. If you are interested in having authentic #Buddhism nearby learn more: www.friendsofclearmountain.org 🙏

Good first ep in @themaybe.org’s new series on Digital Public Infrastructure with a wild story about how Walmart and Google ended up owning the digital pay rails in India 🫨

www.themaybe.org/podcast/t…

Wife brought back a nice Ebisu omamori for from Osaka for my home office. Keep the house safe, business successful, and also a bag to hold happiness 💰🧧

A very fancy luck charm standing about 30cm high with all sorts of ribbons and paper streamers, a rake, a crane, a peach, koi, a fan, and faces of Ebisu one of the 7 Lucky gods.

Interviewing Surrey and Vancouver school officials @cbcstephenquinn.bsky.social learns about how they teach critical media literacy. Luckily all of them have defunct Twitter accounts except BC gov. However they all still list X on their sites.

Chapter 5 of A People’s History of Computing in the United States has this amazing anecdote of how the statewide computer network was governed by the users via a bill of rights!

hardcover.app/books/a-p…

This interview with legendary translator Red Pine is pure poetry! From his story of learning Chinese at random, moving to Taiwan on a whim, and “dancing” with the Chinese masters… all with his earthy, saintly, demeanor. Profound and joyful (and a side of swear words)

Ooooh! Massive list of #opensource events. Will need to parse and integrate into my own list of conferences for 2026

github.com/Everythin…

A People’s History of Computing in the United States 📚

Ch3 (41%) BASIC becomes the people’s language. Meant for networked computing and timesharing, easy to mod and fork… much easier than FORTRAN which biz uses and less likely to share programs… READ MORE →

Damn! Riz Ahmed is brilliant and this looks intense

Every time I am at the grocery store standing in front of a glass case waiting 5 mins for someone to come unlock a stick of deodorant, I reflect that we went from family-run neighborhood shops who knew your kids, to impersonal big box stores, to every customer being criminalized. 😔

I am testing out Hardcover as a book tracking and journaling app this month in my 2026 journey to get off of Goodreads for once and for all. If you are using it, HMU I need to find more peeps to follow to test it properly! https://hardcover.app/@chadkoh #books

Started A People’s History of Computing in the United States by Joy Lisi Rankin 📚

Tracking progress and chapter updates in Hardcover as a test this month: hardcover.app/books/a-p…

#books #amReading

Finished Orbital by Samantha Harvey 📚

Like the novelization of a David Attenborough film on the planet. Gorgeous meditation on the fragility of the planet, and of people. Lovely. Audio was great, but I can see myself picking up the text and reading again much closer in the future.

#Reading #Books