2 The signature · a working demo

A storm day

Play Maggie. The wind came up in the night, Rosalind’s basement is taking water, and her sump pump needs power. Take our site down, then the library’s too if you like, and ask who can lend a generator. The list still answers, and the ask still goes, by email.

The demo

The storm

Where the reader looked

Answered from our own site. Only people who said yes are on the list, in the order they said it.

June OkaforEmail verified
Retired shipyard electrician. Can lend a portable generator and two heavy outdoor cords, and will come and show you how to run it outside, well away from doors and windows. Also a voltage tester and a good flashlight.
Wes AdeyemiSigned in with OAuth
Sound engineer. Can lend a small, quiet generator from outdoor shows, two work lights and a wet-dry vacuum for a flooded basement. Evenings are easiest.

What just happened

Three places, one list, and email underneath

1 Our own site

The original, at foulweatherfriends.example/pools/lend-and-borrow.json. It runs on a small computer in the bike co-op’s back room, so it goes down when Chandler Street does. We do not pretend otherwise.

2 The library’s copy

The same file, byte for byte, at board.elleryfreelibrary.example/copies/foul-weather-friends/pools/lend-and-borrow.json, copied every hour and at once when someone leaves. Today’s checksum is 938f 75fc bd7b 1d76 on both. The library runs on the harbor circuit, which comes back first.

3 The printed sheet

Printed on Sundays at the Mariners’ Hall and pinned there, at the library and in the ferry waiting room. It cannot be updated, so when someone leaves, the desk strikes their line by hand the same day. See the sheet.

How the reader knew where the copies were. Kindling v0.1 has no field for copies, so each copied file says so in a sentence in its governance_rules, and the printed sheet says it at the bottom. A reader that has seen either can try the next place. This is a gap in v0.1, and we name it.

Why the message still carries our address. Maggie read the list from the library’s copy, but her message names the Pool by its original address in via_pool §6.2. Kindling knows a Pool by its address, so a copy’s address would look like a different Pool. We add a header saying where the list was read from.

If there is no internet at all. Then email waits too, and the sheet is what is left. It has names, what each person lends and their email address, and no street addresses, on purpose. On storm days the keepers are at the Mariners’ Hall from ten to four with the clipboard.