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UofWinds 445, Week 36, 2026: How I added (another) heat pump to my home ✭ The Weirdness of Using Social for the Hyperlocal ✭ Russel Davies' Earlies


Good morning. It is the Labour Day long weekend. It will look like our household is at rest but I like to think of it more as that we are just all caught in a moment not unlike when a ball thrown up in the air and appears to pause before it comes back down again: it is a time in which our trajectories are changing. For my kiddos: days spent at summer jobs will be turning into days spent on a university campus. For my husband it is the end of another soccer season. For myself, I've given myself an ambitious year-long writing project, which I will share shortly once it has properly begun.

How I added (another) heat pump to my home


Reading about global warming can (and should?) make you feel distraught. I am here to tell you that one way to make yourself feel better is to respond to the news and choose to work on building a better present, for a better future.

Reader, we installed a heat pump in our home and it feels so good.

Last week I shared what we chose, a bit of the decision making process, and some advice for when you are getting quotes from HVAC contractors in a not-too-long blog post.

I have an inclination that one way to start having essential conversations around energy policy is to give it meaning by connecting it to something that people already care deeply about: their homes or their dreams of an affordable future home. I realized this after watching this video the Missing Middle podcast called We Want 1.5 Million New Homes. But Can We Power Them? when provincial energy policy suddenly took a shape that I could recognize.

From the historical legacy of Sir Adam Beck’s publicly owned hydro model to modern electrification demands like EVs and heat pumps, we discuss why developers are being pushed to fund local grid expansions and what policy fixes, such as tax-exempt utility bonds and reforming the tax code’s 90/10 rule, can keep Ontario’s housing goals alive.

It was from this video that I learned that the Ontario Energy Board provides a Centralized Capacity Information Map (CCIM) that shows what areas in Ontario already have power for future homes and development, and which do not. These kind of maps could potentially provide useful information for those tracking potential data centres being considered local to where you are.

The Weirdness of Using Social for the Hyperlocal


One of the reasons why I'm starting my year-long project is so that I can displace a large part of my time that I would otherwise spend in front of a screen. The project is deeply local and what vexes me is that in order to share this work locally, I felt compelled to create an instagram account for the project. (ARG! Meta wins again!)

This is why Elise Granata's recent post, The Weirdness of Using Social for the Hyperlocal, hit me in the feels. Elise is doing the thing that some of us only idly dream about doing: she is a "creating hub for community-building that supports local projects through relationships, resources, and skill-sharing." I think it's got the perfect name: Group Project. And in her newsletter, Group Hug (another perfect name), she describes how it feels to re-install Instagram to tell everyone about it:

I made a hard post to Instagram the other day for the first time in 5 years for a new community space we are opening. To say the response was ‘exhilarating’ is an understatement. ‘Doing cocaine’ is closer to it.

Tracking the dozens of likes and follows stream in over the next few days became a small hobby, as anyone who has ever received affirmation online knows. I recognized faces of people in town who I haven’t met yet but felt a fresh reason to say hi to now. My co-founder Kai was stopped in the street by a giddy stranger who wanted to share their excitement. I got weirdly thrilled that the library followed us. THE LIBRARY!

Days later, sobered from hoovering dopamine, this all struck me as a little strange. Why did this moment feel more real for the space than any moment so far? Why hadn’t I heard anything about so many local projects I was now discovering on our feed? Why did a hyperpublic online platform need to connect me with people down the street?

We don’t need another piece on the ills of social media, but we might need one on how truly bizarre it is for use with hyperlocal projects that are neither businesses nor brands nor purely personal, a.k.a. more well-worn territory on these platforms.

This essay also has the most perfect metaphor for going offline.

I stopped using Instagram in 2021 and was already off (or never using) other platforms like Facebook or Twitter. My main reason for leaving was actually tied up in my local context: I had just moved back to Connecticut and was viciously jealous of everyone anywhere else doing something fun. The relief was instant. I was like a bird going bonkers in a cage until someone finally tossed a towel over it in hopes it would shut up.

Russel Davies' Earlies


I love a morning ritual. I love it that so many of us have their own personal routine to nourish and fortify the self before the demands of their day set in.

My morning ritual includes a cup of home-brewed coffee, Wordle, and generating a random number. And for the last couple of months, I have also been enjoying Russel Davies Earlies: an offering of mostly instrumental music on YouTube with playlists of about 40 minutes long. Yesterday's video was from a cafe across the street from a Pret a Manger either in Smithfield or not Smithfield.

I've enjoyed how Davies has been experimenting with the form. Early Earlies videos often featured information cards being added as the songs progress. Since then Davies has discovered how to type in the track names to the video as the songs are played. Recently he's been broadcasting from out of doors. I don't know if he finished experimenting with the format which is another reason why its a small delight to discover each morning's Earlies.

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