Commonplace book: far too much AI but maybe also some hope

First, calendars. This is of interest as I find my way around the communities in my new area. LAUTI has written a generous how-to on running a community calendar — the hard work of keeping a list of what's happening locally. It's all about the people, and talking to people is step 1. You don't have to roll your own software as they did; Mobilizon is a federated solution, or there's Gancio ('a shared agenda for local communities', AGPL). Martin Hamilton noted the gap for 'weird nerd' type event listings and the thread up and down includes some other maker-world examples. A new local friend for me is the Liverboard. Lots of lovely things - almost too many. Social Liverpool's email events list has been good too. DoES Liverpool also has an events system (as well as the maker calendar), which is good except you don't get an email confirmation, which has somehow become part of the events culture that my brain expects, leaving me baffled. In contrast to the usual torrent of bad news around…