OH: this chronic yak shaving is effing bullshit.

So, so, SO many of my friends woke up yesterday to find themselves unemployed — simply because they were very good at their job and passionate about their work. They are also fearless. 18f.org

I once saved an agency around $2 million on a modernization project because of a bad contract they had, it took me several phone calls and less than a week. You need alignment and air cover to pull stuff like this off, but the game changing is stuff we weren't even allowed to promote or talk about

“We’re still absorbing what has happened. We’re wrestling with what it will mean for ourselves and our families, as well as the impact on our partners and the American people. “But we came to the government to fix things. And we’re not done with this work yet.“ — @team18f.bsky.social, 18f.org

Here are the key parts of a letter from US Digital Service employees who resigned donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...

Gutting 18F will make pave the way for private contractors, many aligned with Musk, to fill the gap that DOGE has created, but at a much inflated cost. From Dan Tangherlini, former GSA Administrator who oversaw 18F.

18F was doing exactly the type of work that DOGE claims to want – yet we were eliminated shortly after midnight. Read our letter to the American people: 18f.org

The administration got rid of 18F under the cover of night. People who own skyscrapers are afraid of 100 people who make websites. Not because of the latest tech fad, but because we proved the government can be fixed, the government can be made better and the government can work for the people.

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

I’ve got a lot of friends still at 18F, struggling with everything that’s happening outside their control to themselves and others. I’m afraid many of us may need to make our own lists soon. Thanks for sharing this, Ethan. Best of luck.

Thank the universe for smart people.

The FBI’s core values, including integrity, compassion, fairness, and allegiance to the Constitution - and oh, yeah, diversity, are being painted over at the FBI Academy. Source: NYT.

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.

OH: it’s just turtles all the way down. And by turtles, I mean nightmares.

OH: I’m afraid Beverly’s pompon will get soggy.

Going away for a four day birthday weekend and I packed no laptop, iPad or anything electronic other than my phone. I feel very naked right now. 😬

OH: I’m posting all these selfies you took on my phone when I wasn’t looking. How do you spell *miscreant*?

What did I do on my first day of winter break? Cleaned my neglected home, did 4 loads of laundry, flipped my king mattress (alone), stripped and remade it with fresh new bedding, and then had a cup of tea and watched Dr Who. It was almost as if I remembered how to have a life again.

Wow. Just… wow. A picture worth a 1,000 words. On all the signs.

If you’ve ever seen my talks that mention Anne’s Alphabet of Accessibility, you know her approach to the world is something special. I highly recommend taking her up on project work.

We call this “holiday Tetris”. Hope y’all are enjoying the extended holiday weekend.

😂🥁

OH: Was not expecting “How hard it was to keep the robots on track”

I stopped interacting on Twitter several years ago because of <waves hands vaguely> reasons, but there wasn’t a comparably sized community to join elsewhere. Until now. Let me just say, this is lovely. 💙

Since I've been here for a while… here are some useful features on Bluesky that you might not have discovered yet! 🧵

Tooling around Bluesky and found cool content from my friend @gilzow.bsky.social that I'd forgotten about from several years back. Sharing it because 1) really interesting and 2) I'd _never_ found that again back on twiX. (also, 👋 Paul)

Brilliant. Also, good to know!

This brings me much joy.

Alright, people. Time to get serious about this. So long, cesspool Twitter. Hello, Bluesky.