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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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
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
@simon I'm surprised that it doesn't natively label speakers, instead of "speaker 1," "speaker 2," etc. That's always a chore with diarization, but frequently (as in this case) the transcripts contain the information necessary to identify speakers.
{ "text" : "Can we please have a roll call?", "timestamp" : "01:29-01:32", "speaker" : "Speaker 1" }, { "speaker" : "Speaker 3", "text" : "Councilmember Johnson?", "timestamp" : "01:32-01:34" }, { "text" : "Councilmember Nagengast?", "speaker" : "Speaker 3", "timestamp" : "01:35-01:36" }, { "text" : "Here.", "speaker" : "Speaker 1", "timestamp" : "01:37-01:37" }, { "speaker" : "Speaker 3", "text" : "Councilmember Penrose?", "timestamp" : "01:37-01:38" }, { "speaker" : "Speaker 3", "timestamp" : "01:39-01:39", "text" : "Here." },
November 18, 2025 at 11:48 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
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
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 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
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
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Sycamore leaf.
A Caucasian hand, wearing a wedding band, laid atop a brown leaf lying in gravel. The leaf dwarfs the hand in size.
November 6, 2025 at 1:52 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Here are some of the photos. I especially enjoy seeing everything *other* than the subject—the background stuff that seemed mundane then, but has been made fascinating by the passage of time.
A small, closed-up newsstand, labeled “DOWNTOWN NEWSSTAND.” A white teenaged male, hair bleached blonde, sits outside in the winter. His face is in his hands, his eyes partially closed. A man plays drums and another man plays guitar on a sidewalk. A small boy appears to be dancing. A large crowd in a grassy amphitheater, in front of a stage. A modest cityscape is in the background.
October 12, 2025 at 3:53 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Many months of seeing @rejectedplates leaves me confused by plates like this. The DMV’s rules are baffling.
A Virginia license plate, in a tightly cropped photo of a Jeep, reading “URABUT.”
October 4, 2025 at 9:55 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
So here's a weird thing that challenges my understanding of how iOS and macOS work. I gave $5 to Virginia Public Media (VPM). My credit card recorded it as “VPM.” iOS reported it as "Vpm.” But iPhone Mirroring rendered the iOS notification on my MacBook as […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
Website screenshot, reading: “Sep 12, VPM, Pending.” iOS notification: “American Express, Vpm, $5.00.” macOS notification: “American Express, Vape Parts Mart, $5.00.”
September 13, 2025 at 1:30 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
@darius @krusynth
September 5, 2025 at 7:44 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Why the heck does Apache keep hitting the ceiling for the number of workers, so it stops accepting new requests? The traffic isn't high enough to justify this!

... Ah. Well. Yes.
# # Timeout: The number of seconds before receives and sends time out. Timeout 3300 # # KeepAlive: Whether or not to allow persistent connections (more than # one request per connection). Set to "Off" to deactivate. KeepAlive On # # MaxKeepAliveRequests: The maximum number of requests to allow # during a persistent connection. Set to o to allow an unlimited amount. # We recommend you leave this number high, for maximum performance. MaxKeepAliveRequests 30
September 4, 2025 at 3:58 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
My chickens have discovered they can follow around the lawnmower and eat the fleeing, exposed insects.
A lawnmower with two hens nearby.
September 1, 2025 at 11:49 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
As I watched, this yellowjacket tore off this larva’s head and flew away, heavily burdened with the body.
A small, yellow-and-black bee, straddling a yellow cylindrical object (a larva). The bee’s head is bent low over the larva.
September 1, 2025 at 3:32 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Our plum tree’s first-ever plum!

Also, the figs are coming in fast and furious on our increasingly enormous fig tree. Time to start giving them away.
A lone purple fig hanging from a branch. A brown, teardrop-shaped fog hanging from a tree branch.
August 9, 2025 at 5:00 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
In 1997, posing with my Apple Newton, the computer that convinced me to move from DOS/Windows to the Mac.
A smiling white teenager holds up a black rectangle in front of a highway sign. The highway sign reads “NEWTON,” with an arrow pointing right at the black rectangle, an Apple Newton.
August 9, 2025 at 4:04 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I guess I have no concept of what license plates Virginia will and will not approve.
A Virginia license plate reading “D1AREA.”
August 2, 2025 at 5:10 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
You're doing great, macOS
A screenshot of a bit of a desktop, showing three identical drives mounted, each one labelled “music.”
July 30, 2025 at 2:12 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
So…Amazon hasn't updated their computer storage categories in a while.
Department ‹ Electronics ‹ Computers & Accessories Data Storage External Hard Drives External Solid State Drives External Zip Drives Floppy & Tape Drives Internal Hard Drives Internal Solid State Drives Network Attached Storage Tape Libraries USB Flash Drives
July 20, 2025 at 3:07 AM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Toad in the hole
A toad peers out from a hole in the ground.
July 16, 2025 at 3:28 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Well here’s an interesting new scam.
Mastodon Helper #16453 @Mastodon_Moderator @covid_wastewater [! Important Notice] Your account has been temporarily suspended for identity verification. We're reaching out manually to guide you through the required steps. Deadline: 12 hours Action Required: Complete the verification via the link below. Failure to do so will result in your account remaining locked until further review. Verification Link: mstd.id-83636.world/ 239101758 Best regards, Mastodon Support Team
July 12, 2025 at 8:06 PM
waldoj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Well, that's certainly a lot worse than it was.
A driveway bisected by a stream that has washed it out, maybe 7 feet deep. A crumpled culvert is in the part of the washout.
May 15, 2025 at 4:02 PM