Waldo Jaquith
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waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Waldo Jaquith
@waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
230 followers 0 following 740 posts
Thought follower. Male software developer. Alumnus of 18F, the Obama White House, Georgetown's Beeck Center, the Biden-Harris Transition Team, and the Biden […]

[bridged from https://mastodon.social/@waldoj on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
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Reposted by Waldo Jaquith
blaine.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
RE: https://mastodon.social/@wearenew_public/115645917115143165

Six months ago, I joined New_ Public to help build a new social platform for local communities. Today, I could't be more excited and proud to share what our amazing little team has cooked up, and is launching in closed beta this […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 1, 2025 at 11:05 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
This anti-British bigotry will not stand
https://mastodon.social/@rejectedplates/115646437989563127
Rejected VA License Plates (@rejectedplates@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image
mastodon.social
December 1, 2025 at 9:38 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
It's this guy right here, in a suit, en francais, talking about how to keep huge government software projects from failing catastrophically. This interview was conducted in October, when I was in Montreal, testifying before a hearing about their DMV's big […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
Middle-aged white man, arms crossed, wearing a blue suit and a blue tie. He’s standing in front of a back curtain, and is looking directly into the camera.
December 1, 2025 at 8:06 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Bold claim from this local restaurant.
A big cloth banner on the facade of a strip-mall storefront, reading “Best pizza & steack cheese in a town.”
November 29, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Waldo Jaquith
mattblaze.federate.social.ap.brid.gy
FFS. For the first time, non-citizens will be charged a hefty surcharge to enter US national parks (an extra $100/person, and annual passes for noncitizens will cost $250 instead of $80).

Our national parks are absolute jewels, and a significant contributor […]

[Original post on federate.social]
Changes to Entrance Fees and Passes in 2026 Beginning January 1, 2026, changes to entrance fees and passes include: + America the Beautiful passes will cover entrance fees for up to two motorcycles. « A new America the Beautiful pass for nonresidents of the US will be available for $250. All other America the Beautiful passes will only be available to US citizens and permanent residents. + Entrance fee free days will only apply to US citizens and residents. Nonresidents will be required to pay entrance fees and applicable nonresident fees. o The following parks will have a surcharge of $100 for each nonresident of the US entering the park: Acadia National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Everglades National Park, Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Parks, and Zion National Park.
November 26, 2025 at 12:20 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I never did manage to log into this Google account today. Every CAPTCHA was just as indecipherable.
A CAPTCHA, which I inherently cannot represent as ALT text, but it says something like “mandrines” or possibly “marchines” or maybe “mandnines”?
November 25, 2025 at 10:04 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
foreignfundinghighered.gov
https://mastodon.social/@botgov/115611241256861199
Botgov (@botgov@mastodon.social)
The following .gov domains have been registered in the past 24 hours: berkleyma.gov bridgewaterny.gov brisbaneca.gov buenavistarcwi.gov cayugacountyda.gov foreignfundinghighered.gov georgetownpolkcowi.gov njdma.gov njdva.gov novatogymnastics.gov sennettny.gov sunsetvalley.gov tooeleschools.gov townofellisburgny.gov
mastodon.social
November 25, 2025 at 4:23 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
“Asshole”: Mundane, moderately offensive
“Ass hole”: Disgusting, reprehensible
November 25, 2025 at 1:05 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
This data is flowing again, now that the federal shutdown is over.
https://mastodon.social/@covid_wastewater/115595359130277284
Covid Wastewater Levels (@covid_wastewater@mastodon.social)
Moderate: AR, IN Low: AZ, CT, KY, ME, NE, NH, OK Very Low: AK, AL, CA, CO, DC, DE, FL, GA, GU, HI, IA, ID, IL, KS, LA, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY No Data: MT, ND, VI
mastodon.social
November 22, 2025 at 9:38 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
YES
https://mastodon.me.uk/@richardjpope/115578939863355109
richardjpope (@richardjpope@mastodon.me.uk)
"MPs on the select committee said the UK needed to develop greater “sovereign” technology capacity, award more contracts to smaller, local providers, and be less reliant on deals that resulted in government departments becoming locked into services with US firms." https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/19/microsoft-nhs-uk-contracts-public-sector-procurement
mastodon.me.uk
November 20, 2025 at 12:12 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Blog entry: The past-performance trap.

When government agencies need to have custom software built, as a matter of course they require that the bidding vendors have built that exact thing before. I understand why this seems like a good idea, but it’s a mistake […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
November 19, 2025 at 7:12 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I love how terrible this idea is.
https://mastodonapp.uk/@orbific/115564041633931728
orbific (@orbific@mastodonapp.uk)
I dreamed last night about a hack day where I had to create the worst build system I could. I invented one with a centralised registry of checksums. If your file was identical to one in another repo it was deleted locally and you could only use the version on another users remote repo. I wish I'd added in Blockchain too, but I think that's pretty unusable as it is
mastodonapp.uk
November 17, 2025 at 6:37 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
One of the great things about Amazon, once they started selling music, was their huge collection of 30-second clips from each song. It is frustrating that, at some point, they removed that functionality—for years, they've simply shown a table of track […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
A track listing from an album, which shows just the track numbers and titles. There’s no functionality to hear a bit of a song, no information about how long the track is.
November 16, 2025 at 8:22 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Microsoft is welcome to do this, I guess, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is going to wreck them in their unbelievably detailed, years-long document review process. There are reasons why the U.S. has built one (1) new nuclear plant in my lifetime, and the NRC's review process is a bunch of […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
November 14, 2025 at 8:38 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Ah, well.
Screenshot of a full page of text, from a PDF. It reads: [This is a blank page. There should have no print on it and no page numbers shown at the bottom of the final typeset copy] xx
November 14, 2025 at 3:46 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Does anybody know of an existing 88x31 web badge that indicates that a site doesn't use any tracking?
November 14, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Waldo Jaquith
katelynburns.com
the point of camo for a soldier is to obscure their position from the enemy. camo in an urban environment is completely different, and this forest green or desert pattern is functionally useless.

police only dress this way to project an image of power they should not have.
November 13, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Waldo Jaquith
hannah.posts.rat.pictures.ap.brid.gy
My body is a machine that turns going on the computer into $6 data breach settlement checks
November 13, 2025 at 12:48 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Have I Been Pwned should be run as a federal government service (in the alternate reality in which our government isn't spiraling into fascism).
November 12, 2025 at 10:05 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I very much doubt that user research demonstrated to Microsoft that what people really want, as the very first thing on GitHub's home page, is a chat-based LLM interface. In fact, I'll bet that less than 1% of page loads results in somebody actually using […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
Screenshot of the top of GitHub’s logged-in homepage. It says “good afternoon, waldoj!” and then has a text input box, with the hint text “ask anything.” A pull-down selector shows that it’s running GPT-4.1.
November 12, 2025 at 8:10 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
My kid lost an AirTag at his school. Hey, no problem, it's an AirTag! Wrong. I was there for a big event, with lots of iPhone-carrying parents around. I spent half an hour stalking around the school, the AirTag's claimed location hopping around the campus, only rarely getting a claimed, faint […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
November 10, 2025 at 7:30 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
My fellow security aficionados may share my fascination with this CVS POS system updater I spotted in the wild yesterday. The typos do not inspire confidence. It appeared to be stuck at this 99% point, also a bad sign.
storeOS Please wait while we prepare everything for you. This may take a little time Data Sync 99 % complete - 0 minutes remaining Services storeOS These are components that need to load before launching Secuirty Agent Service Web Application
November 9, 2025 at 4:45 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Profoundly sick of 1Password making me open up my phone and scam a damn QR code for a passkey instead of using Touch ID on my MacBook.
November 7, 2025 at 6:18 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Great job for somebody in Berlin!
https://mastodon.social/@sovtechfund/115502508712928818
Sovereign Tech Agency (@sovtechfund@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image We're #hiring a new Head of the Sovereign Tech Fund! 🚀 The Sovereign Tech Fund is the flagship program of the Sovereign Tech Agency. Since 2022, we've invested in critical open source infrastructure—from curl to FreeBSD to technologies like DNS that power the web—to strengthen digital sovereignty. Now we're in a pivotal phase of growth and scaling, and we're looking for an experienced leader for this key role. 1/2
mastodon.social
November 7, 2025 at 1:37 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Safari on macOS has so little chrome at this point that it's hard to find a place to grab a window to move it. Fitt's law is clear about why this is a problem, and, time was, Apple’s long-suffering Human Interface Guidelines wouldn't have allowed this.
A wide, squat screenshot of the top bar of a Safari window, the part of a window where it can be clicked on to move it. Almost the entire thing is interface elements (window resizing, toggling the sidebar, the URL bar, etc.,) providing preciously little space to click on the bar itself.
November 6, 2025 at 4:59 PM