I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F. 18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it. We made this website to tell our story: 18f.org

This is a bigger issue than people realize. Not just jobs lost. But their families losing benefits. Landlords losing tenants. Cities and towns losing revenue. This is how recessions start Ready Fire Aim is no way to govern.

If you worked for 18F and got fired, Group together to start a consulting company. It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably create. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help

But wait, there's more! 🚨 We are gearing up to release *napari 0.6.0*! 🚨 Come be the first to hear about everything that's coming! There's cool new features, major bug fixes, and we are migrating to @pydantic v2 and #python 3.10+. And remember, you can add your own items to the agenda! Not […]

Our next community meeting is coming up! Join us at 9am CET (Paris/Warsaw/etc) / 1:30pm IST (Delhi) / 7pm AEST (Melbourne). Zoom: https://numfocus-org.zoom.us/j/83351642622?pwd=avon14qhl1ZTaxg91KP5z1OUrawi5d.1 Agenda: https://hackmd.io/9vo_DiJpSfuUExeGqVHbDQ Community meetings are a resource […]

Any asshole can build an org where the smartest, most experienced engineers in the world can get shit done. A truly great engineering org is one where normal, workaday software engineers, with decent skills and ordinary experience, can move fast, ship code, and move the business forward day by day.

Leadership is speaking up. @berniesanders4.bsky.social's speech articulates what many see in the US today: youtu.be/cQXl5JZG-C8?...

🚨Elon Musk’s DOGE operatives are attempting to access confidential tax information — tax returns, bank data, Social Security numbers — for millions of Americans. Illegal access can lead to jail time under federal law. @wyden.senate.gov and I are investigating and fighting back.

Are you using @napari.org or want to learn more? I've curated a list of videos about napari and its uses on YouTube. If I missed a video, please let me know. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Hi folks! napari is officially on bsky now! 🥳 Let's hit the ground running with a reminder that all are welcome at our next (Atlantic) community meeting on Feb 12, 8:30am SFO / 11:30am NYC / 5:30pm Paris. Agenda and details here: hackmd.io/BXWDZ3i8Q6OA...

Tesla earned $2.3 billion in the United States in 2024. You'd think it paid a lot in taxes, right? Well it paid precisely $0 in federal income taxes last year. You want waste and fraud? Look at what some big corporations and the rich are getting away with.

🎉 We are now on the ‘Awesome Inclusion Open Science list’ 🤗: github.com/willingc/awe... Many thanks to @willingc.bsky.social for creating the list. #Inclusion #OpenScience #OpenData #OpenSource

ASK: Anyone skilled at video content creation on platforms like TikTok? Colleagues who teach undergrads are saying they have NO IDEA about the admin's attacks on science & research. Many get their news from TikTok. We could post 'explainer' vids about banned keywords & effects on science agencies

And they also have Society of Women Engineers swe.org which has been around since 1950 which isn't DEI. It's a professional organization with over 40,000 members and has benefited countless women in engineering.

The United States Military Academy has just eliminated all Cadet clubs and activities for POC. Most of these have existed for decades like the Society of Black Engineers. They were there when I was a Cadet in 1987. All of the religious ones remain. This isn’t DEI. It’s white Christian Nationalism.

If Biden did any one of these things they’d impeach him. This is f-ing mental. Why is everyone so silent? But her emails? Elmo is running around with some kid and a laptop deleting stuff and there’s no pushback. Overwhelming

I love the work that the @ropensci.org community does. Open Science means striving to be open to everyone. Open Science and Open Source only with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility ropensci.org/blog/2025/02...

Holy shit

The American College of OB/GYN’s website is now hosting the critical documents purged by the CDC This is what every professional medical organization should be doing right now #MedSky www.acog.org/clinical/cli...

the death of 18F/USDS is much sadder than losing something like direct file. USDS grew out of the team that helped fix healthcare.gov, and was a team dedicated towards recruiting tech talent to taking on deeply complicated tech debt in the government. The loss of USDS is an end of an era.

If I study anxiety via threat-biased attention, the word "biased" gets me flagged. You can't design a study of humans without using at least one of the terms on the banned list, which means that biomedical, brain, social science research is now on ice in the USA

The word "systemic" is on the banned list, so if I study systemic inflammation & health, flagged. If I study political science, flagged. If I study trauma, flagged. Keep in mind that the largest mental health provider in the country is the Veteran's Administration, but we can't study trauma now?

These keywords could show up in the text of ANY grant involving human participants. If you say you're going to study men and women, you get flagged. If you say you're going to control for socioeconomic status - totally standard practice - you get flagged. Disability? Flagged.

Decision tree that has been sent to Program Officers at NSF

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

These words would be in pretty much any human-computer interaction grant. Or any computer science grant at all that required a broadening participation in computing plans, which is all of them. This is government censorship, full stop.

the internet archive is a nonprofit that is going to need your support. as the IA continues to be a resource that guards against the wholesale erasure of knowledge and information in a time where both are being threatened, their costs will almost certainly rise. please consider giving. 🙏🏾

BREAKING NEWS: CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed. Goes beyond MMWR +other CDC pubs. Applies to research already submitted to top medical journals. Take a look. open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

This story is bananas. "A team including current and former employees of Musk assumed command of OPM on Jan. 20 ... They have moved sofa beds onto the fifth floor of the agency's headquarters, which contains the director's office and can only be accessed with a security badge or a security escort."

"Officials halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils." It could've been telegraphed in advance. The fear, uncertainty, chaos, and disruption are the point.

I had someone do this to me in an interview. I was the interviewer. His face was priceless when I shared that I was part of the team that created the tech. #interviewFail

The desktop version of bluesky

I am very happy to be here. #PyCon has been wonderful this week. It’s been great to see so many old friends and be inspired by new friends. Humbled by the amazing PyLadies that I have seen from around the world.