Dave Guarino
@allafarce.bsky.social
Software and complex (not complicated) systems. Pursuing the public good, sometimes with technology.
AI helped me successfully transfer my toddler. I heretofore fully reject any claim that AI is useless.
December 26, 2025 at 5:30 PM
AI helped me successfully transfer my toddler. I heretofore fully reject any claim that AI is useless.
I am so, so excited for a world where the creation of software is not constrained by an individual’s faculty with language syntax and tolerance of yak shaving.
December 25, 2025 at 3:46 AM
I am so, so excited for a world where the creation of software is not constrained by an individual’s faculty with language syntax and tolerance of yak shaving.
Yet another helpful use for Claude Code: connect it to our household tracker (Asana) and go through open items and propose what an actionable, concrete next step is.
December 24, 2025 at 4:37 AM
Yet another helpful use for Claude Code: connect it to our household tracker (Asana) and go through open items and propose what an actionable, concrete next step is.
Civic tech could stand some more consequentialism.
December 23, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Civic tech could stand some more consequentialism.
I am SO excited to learn that Sefaria has an MCP server! This serves exactly the niche need that I and 7 other people have!
December 19, 2025 at 12:06 AM
I am SO excited to learn that Sefaria has an MCP server! This serves exactly the niche need that I and 7 other people have!
The other night I spiked a little "Abundance Legislative Linter" to read through proposed city ordinances (for now, SF) and do some basic evaluation on how well or poorly they align to "abundance" principles. Claude Code enables so many fun side projects.
December 17, 2025 at 11:49 PM
The other night I spiked a little "Abundance Legislative Linter" to read through proposed city ordinances (for now, SF) and do some basic evaluation on how well or poorly they align to "abundance" principles. Claude Code enables so many fun side projects.
This is your regular reminder that viewing a systems problem as a morality play is both dangerous and counterproductive.
December 17, 2025 at 3:43 AM
This is your regular reminder that viewing a systems problem as a morality play is both dangerous and counterproductive.
Not to brag, but I’m the first public contributor to Nava’s open source HR 1 software.
(Yes it was a 1 line README change.)
(Yes it was a 1 line README change.)
December 16, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Not to brag, but I’m the first public contributor to Nava’s open source HR 1 software.
(Yes it was a 1 line README change.)
(Yes it was a 1 line README change.)
Who is building the attention blast shield tools for people with AI? So much is possible and it would clearly be a useful break with the last decade of over optimization.
December 16, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Who is building the attention blast shield tools for people with AI? So much is possible and it would clearly be a useful break with the last decade of over optimization.
If the cost of ETL and the cost of web scraping both drop to zero, the interoperability’s cost falls to zero.
December 14, 2025 at 7:05 PM
If the cost of ETL and the cost of web scraping both drop to zero, the interoperability’s cost falls to zero.
Fun use of AI: my partner brought home quite nice tea from a trip to the UK. I asked Claude to give me historical context on this specific (quite old) brand, the evolution of tea in English society over time, and tasting notes.
December 9, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Fun use of AI: my partner brought home quite nice tea from a trip to the UK. I asked Claude to give me historical context on this specific (quite old) brand, the evolution of tea in English society over time, and tasting notes.
“A COMMITTEE CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AND THEREFORE A COMMITTEE CAN NEVER BE ALLOWED TO MAKE MANAGEMENT DECISIONS”
December 8, 2025 at 8:12 PM
“A COMMITTEE CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AND THEREFORE A COMMITTEE CAN NEVER BE ALLOWED TO MAKE MANAGEMENT DECISIONS”
A kernel I need to write up: the value of working in the open on the web (and best case being open source) has gone way, way up with the existence of frontier AI models today.
December 7, 2025 at 1:41 AM
A kernel I need to write up: the value of working in the open on the web (and best case being open source) has gone way, way up with the existence of frontier AI models today.
Nice little weekend thing: using Claude Code to fill out a bunch of forms sent to me that are non-fillable PDFs, otherwise requiring filling by hand. (And tell it to look at its output to iterate on placement!)
December 6, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Nice little weekend thing: using Claude Code to fill out a bunch of forms sent to me that are non-fillable PDFs, otherwise requiring filling by hand. (And tell it to look at its output to iterate on placement!)
Step 1: ask Claude for stretch suggestions
Step 2: have nano banana generate an illustration of the stretch
Step 2: have nano banana generate an illustration of the stretch
November 28, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Step 1: ask Claude for stretch suggestions
Step 2: have nano banana generate an illustration of the stretch
Step 2: have nano banana generate an illustration of the stretch
I feel like people downplay that the major determinants of things happening in the world are:
- They are possible (eg technologically)
- They have a payout structure
Example: many forms of fraud meet 1, but not 2, and so generally don’t happen.
- They are possible (eg technologically)
- They have a payout structure
Example: many forms of fraud meet 1, but not 2, and so generally don’t happen.
November 23, 2025 at 5:13 PM
I feel like people downplay that the major determinants of things happening in the world are:
- They are possible (eg technologically)
- They have a payout structure
Example: many forms of fraud meet 1, but not 2, and so generally don’t happen.
- They are possible (eg technologically)
- They have a payout structure
Example: many forms of fraud meet 1, but not 2, and so generally don’t happen.
New post: Building a real-time state update pipeline for 370,000 SNAP recipients with AI open.substack.com/pub/daveguar...
Building a real-time state update pipeline for 370,000 SNAP recipients with AI
This is a crosspost of a write-up I did on the Propel blog about how we implemented a pipeline of monitoring the 50 state SNAP agencies’ websites for updates on the government shutdown, and piped it o...
open.substack.com
November 19, 2025 at 7:22 PM
New post: Building a real-time state update pipeline for 370,000 SNAP recipients with AI open.substack.com/pub/daveguar...
Google Gemini 3 Pro is out today. I ran through my standard "hard SNAP question" which I use to eval new models and it... absolutely excels.
(If you've got a hard public policy/benefits question you want to test, leave a comment and I'll run it through as I have time.)
(If you've got a hard public policy/benefits question you want to test, leave a comment and I'll run it through as I have time.)
November 18, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Google Gemini 3 Pro is out today. I ran through my standard "hard SNAP question" which I use to eval new models and it... absolutely excels.
(If you've got a hard public policy/benefits question you want to test, leave a comment and I'll run it through as I have time.)
(If you've got a hard public policy/benefits question you want to test, leave a comment and I'll run it through as I have time.)
My company, Propel, is doing a direct cash transfer to some high need SNAP families given November deposits are indefinitely delayed due to the shutdown.
Propel is contributing $1 million in company funds and looking to raise another $9m from partners.
www.propel.app/shutdown-fun...
Propel is contributing $1 million in company funds and looking to raise another $9m from partners.
www.propel.app/shutdown-fun...
October 29, 2025 at 5:26 PM
My company, Propel, is doing a direct cash transfer to some high need SNAP families given November deposits are indefinitely delayed due to the shutdown.
Propel is contributing $1 million in company funds and looking to raise another $9m from partners.
www.propel.app/shutdown-fun...
Propel is contributing $1 million in company funds and looking to raise another $9m from partners.
www.propel.app/shutdown-fun...
One awesome use of LLMs I've enjoyed is giving them a bunch of technical docs for a tool, and turning it into an audio-friendly text doc, which then I listen to with ElevenLabs Reader.
Here's an example, on Claude Skills claude.ai/public/artif...
Here's an example, on Claude Skills claude.ai/public/artif...
claude_skills_audio_guide.md | Claude
Comprehensive technical guide to Anthropic's Claude Skills system - architecture, implementation, best practices, and real-world applications for AI agents.
claude.ai
October 25, 2025 at 7:02 PM
One awesome use of LLMs I've enjoyed is giving them a bunch of technical docs for a tool, and turning it into an audio-friendly text doc, which then I listen to with ElevenLabs Reader.
Here's an example, on Claude Skills claude.ai/public/artif...
Here's an example, on Claude Skills claude.ai/public/artif...
“The AWS outage is affecting our daycare” is not something I expected to say.
October 20, 2025 at 6:25 PM
“The AWS outage is affecting our daycare” is not something I expected to say.
Finished Dune. Worth continuing on to Messiah?
October 19, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Finished Dune. Worth continuing on to Messiah?
Yet another use of Claude Code I probably won’t go back from:
Working with an API I don’t know, just tell it to comprehensively read the docs and come up with some options for me
(Solved a very annoying subtle bad default for me last week)
Working with an API I don’t know, just tell it to comprehensively read the docs and come up with some options for me
(Solved a very annoying subtle bad default for me last week)
October 5, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Yet another use of Claude Code I probably won’t go back from:
Working with an API I don’t know, just tell it to comprehensively read the docs and come up with some options for me
(Solved a very annoying subtle bad default for me last week)
Working with an API I don’t know, just tell it to comprehensively read the docs and come up with some options for me
(Solved a very annoying subtle bad default for me last week)
We need to start talking about what an AI jobs displacement benefit program would actually look like.
We need to start talking about an AI benefit design
And more specifically: how we design it to actually work
open.substack.com
October 1, 2025 at 3:55 PM
We need to start talking about what an AI jobs displacement benefit program would actually look like.
An essay I'm simmering on — thinking about government's use of tech (& AI), disambiguating problems of:
- Capability
- Alignment
- Dysregulation (cc @dsquareddigest.bsky.social)
An important differential diagnosis for interventions! And one that I think is implicit (and/or wrong) too often.
- Capability
- Alignment
- Dysregulation (cc @dsquareddigest.bsky.social)
An important differential diagnosis for interventions! And one that I think is implicit (and/or wrong) too often.
September 19, 2025 at 6:54 PM
An essay I'm simmering on — thinking about government's use of tech (& AI), disambiguating problems of:
- Capability
- Alignment
- Dysregulation (cc @dsquareddigest.bsky.social)
An important differential diagnosis for interventions! And one that I think is implicit (and/or wrong) too often.
- Capability
- Alignment
- Dysregulation (cc @dsquareddigest.bsky.social)
An important differential diagnosis for interventions! And one that I think is implicit (and/or wrong) too often.