This is my (joelgalvez.com) selection of newsletters. Most events are related to the arts and new media in The Netherlands, with some focus on Amsterdam, since that's where I live. This is meant to be one source among many others.

The long-term goal is to create a kind of a funnel for event data into the fediverse and the ATmosphere. You might have heard of Mastodon or Bluesky, decentralized alternatives to X/Twitter. There are similar initiatives but for events, such as Gancio, Mobilizon and Smoke Signal. Most of the events I personally care about are not available there, but a lot of them already exist in the form of email newsletters.

Here's how this works: whenever I receive a newsletter, I send an automated response with all the events I found in it. The sender can review the events, check if they look okay, and then choose to publish. I can help with adjustments if needed. Nothing gets published without human review. AI does 90% of the work, and that makes the last 10% is really important. All data processing happens locally, I don't share any data with anyone else.

Why newsletters? Why not just grab the data from various websites? Email is intentional. You're sending me your newsletter because you want me to have it. if you don't want me to have your data, you would remove me from your list. Also, since newsletters are sent at a point in time, it makes approval, consent and corrections happen easier - it becomes more like a conversation: "Thanks for your email, is this what you mean with it?"

This project is also a way for me to try a sceptical manner to use AI, by discussing the result with the original author and not taking any result for granted.