iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Aaron Snow

Matt Henry 🥄 @matthenry.fyi · 15/09/2026

The US Web Design System is load-bearing infrastructure for thousands of government websites. It makes it easy for small teams with no resources (i.e. most .gov teams) to make usable, accessible websites that work for everyone. Today, it's as close as it's ever been to being replaced with AI slop.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 09/09/2026

Oh and $2 of every card goes to the Jazz Foundation of America, because they do wonderful, important work, helping jazz and blues musicians in crisis, creating work for musicians, and bringing more music to schools and nursing homes: jazzfoundation.org

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 09/09/2026

(Built with Claude, to see how far my rusty coding skills could take me building a real thing with an AI assist. Happy to talk shop about how that went if anyone's curious.)

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 09/09/2026

Hey, I made a side project thing: dadjokepostcards.com. Pick a terrible joke, have it mailed on a postcard to someone who deserves it. Inspired by wanting to keep the #dadjoke torture going, multimedia style, even when my kids are away at camp or in college.

dadjokepostcards.com

Pun & Post — mail someone a dad joke on a postcard

Pick a groan-worthy dad joke, add a note, and we'll print it on a real postcard and mail it to anyone you choose.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 07/08/2026

Step outside Go blind Grumble Wipe humidity off eyeglasses Grumble again Ode to Maryland in August, maybe

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 04/08/2026

Jenny, please, the Geneva Conventions

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 07/07/2026

Are companies paying a lot for "I'm not a robot" captchas or are they just delay spinners that make you wait longer than any robot will put up with

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 27/03/2026

Chase DeLauter is currently on track to hit 324 home runs this season

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 09/02/2026

I've never heard a Bad Bunny song in my life until today, and I haven't understood Spanish since I was a senior in high school. But that halftime show was just brilliant. Joyous, awesome. 10/10.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 03/02/2026

Carter FWIW your sentence should end "... in North America." His crowds in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries are gigantic.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

NBA Stat @nbastat.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

The Cavs halftime show. What??!?!??! #NBA

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 10/09/2025

Cleveland will hold a counter-protest at Huntington Bank Field, running 1995 clips of people booing, pulling the chairs out of Municipal and burning Art Model in effigy, soundtrack by Nirvana and Trent Reznor

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 08/09/2025

Shot: "The last [18F] report urged the courts to 'start small.'" Chaser: "In mid-2022, the administrative office awarded a five-year, $298 million contract to General Dynamics Information Technology." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...

nytimes.com

Federal Courts Slow to Fix Vulnerable System After Repeated Hacking

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 12/08/2025

I see I can count on you to be a contributor to my inevitable side hustle slash passion project justhotelbathroomreviews dot com. Gold star if you also report back on the (nearly always inadequate) lighting for the mirror and the (frequently over-softened) water hardness

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 26/06/2025

If we're going to make people prepare and file taxes, it should be free and easy. IRS Direct File does this, with sky-high customer satisfaction numbers.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 26/06/2025

Nobody asked for Americans to need tax preparers or filers at all.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Chris Given @cmgiven.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Direct File is now open source. Finally. A short, personal post about why: chrisgiven.com/2025/05/dire... Massive kudos to the Direct File team for pulling this off and showing their commitment to transparency and earning trust.

chrisgiven.com

Direct File on GitHub

Personal blog of Chris Given, government technologist. These words are always written by a human; I have no one to blame but myself.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Alt18F @alt18f.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

We have some news to share with you. 🥄 Today we took legal action to challenge our termination, filing an appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. We did this because we believe the elimination of 18F violated safeguards that exist to protect a nonpartisan civil service.

18f.org

18F files legal challenge

A statement about 18F’s appeal filed with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 15/05/2025

How did The Rising not show up in this episode? Please say it's because it's getting its own ep!

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 29/04/2025

Outstanding thread for Canada's Election Day

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 22/04/2025

RIP Richie Havens, who died 12 years ago today. Boy, this cover hits differently now youtu.be/JltNLkh03ME?...

youtu.be

Richie Havens "License To Kill"

YouTube video by powerplaynetworks

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 01/04/2025

A guy in our neighborhood has been posting a dad joke in their front yard every day since the pandemic started, and he chose today to get violent

A sign that says:

Tom's bad dad jokes, day 1808

Today is April Fool's Day

Believe nothing and trust no one.

Just like any other day.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

I think about this story every time someone tells me they think our federal government is too big and bloated.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

There was, it turned out, almost nothing that was used by almost nobody. In fact when they tried to cut back on some legal industry specific features, they got enormous blowback and had to backtrack. Word was on everyone's desktops, so it had to be many things to many people — a price of ubiquity.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

Sure enough, when they dug into how people used Word, they found that the vast majority of users only used about 20% of Word's features. But **everyone used a different 20%.**

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

The big knock on Office, and especially Word, was that it was too bloated. Too many features, such a huge install footprint, so wasteful. If you're old enough you remember. The "bloated" din got so loud that the team conducted a big customer research study to ask the question: what should we cut?

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

At the time (for reasons not pertinent to this story), MS Office was ubiquitous. Its market share was basically 100%. But being on everyone's desktop didn't mean popular sentiment was also sky high. It was the tool that almost everyone had and used, like it or not. Some people loved to hate it.

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

A quick story about big "bloated" systems that people love to hate. When I was at Microsoft a million years ago, I had a friend on the MS Word team who told me this one. (I got the details second-hand; MSFT friends, please correct me.)

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 11/03/2025

18F had already saved the US government over a billion dollars in cost avoidance by the time I left in early 2017. No doubt it and TTS have saved much more since then -- all for the cost of a couple hundred civil servants' comp and benefits annually.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Alt US Digital Service @altusds.altgov.info · 11/03/2025

@alt18f.bsky.social saved taxpayers billions, modernized digital services, and made government work better. 💡Now, DOGE has shut it down—eliminating projects that served voters, refugees, military personnel, and more. Read about 18F’s impact ⬇️ 🔗 www.wethebuilders.org/posts/what-i... #altgov #18f

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Randy Hart @randyhart.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

18F story behind my favorite government website: www.ustaxcourt.gov/dawson.html

ustaxcourt.gov

DAWSON | United States Tax Court

Docket Access

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 06/03/2025

I'm told some DC AUSAs got those pizza-threats too. Absolutely beyond the pale.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Richard Branson @richardbranson.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Alt18F @alt18f.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

 You might know us from the guides we have put together, like the de-risking guide and the UX guide. Governments all around the world have used them to make services more accessible and add more value to the public — all while saving millions of dollars. You can still find them here: 18f.org/guides/

18f.org

18F Guides

A central resource for all 18F guides and methods

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 03/03/2025

What happens when you force mission-driven, impact-craving public servants out of their job, their career? I have no idea. I don’t think they all pack it in and go work for Fortune 500s. Somebody who could harness their energy and experience would reap big benefits.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Angela Colter @angelacolter.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

18F alum here. While I appreciate the well-deserved attention the 18F team is getting, let's address a fundamental misunderstanding of why 18F was so effective in working with other govt agencies to improve their digital services and why starting a consulting company is not a substitute. 1/

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Dan Hon @danhon.com · 02/03/2025

You should know that a big part of 18F's work was to make sure multi-million to multi-*hundreds*-of-millions dollar contracts at fed *and* state level didn't go to shitty enterprise IT consultancies that *repeatedly* delivered tech that didn't work, was late, or didn't even do what it needed to

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 02/03/2025

(Hi I helped start and later led 18F)

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Aaron Snow @aaronsnow.net · 02/03/2025

This is a good instinct @mcuban.bsky.social + so glad you're tuned into this. I don't think DOGE will ever turn back to 18F. But there are huge opportunities to invest now in a post-DOGE future of government services that's not just more efficient but more secure and transparent to the public.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

former colleagues from 18F have asked me to share this open letter widely - please pass on 🙏 🇺🇸 💻💪 18f.org

18f.org

We're not done yet | 18F

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Confirming what others have discussed or reported, 18F, the elite tech consultancy within TTS/GSA, was formally disbanded overnight. There’s a formal RIF, the legal system in which the government downsizes/layoff people. I’m told it’s 60 days on leave for all involved.

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Rebecca Piazza @rdpiazza.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Mourning 18F’s elimination as a former employee but even more so as a former 18F agency customer. Unlike DOGE, 18F did the hard work of cultural transformation and sharing their methods with other Feds as they helped improve services. They weren’t just techies, they were teachers.

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Reposted by Aaron Snow

Melody Joy Kramer @mkramer.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

working at 18F was a highlight of my career: smart, passionate, dedicated people doing work to lessen friction and make people’s lives a little easier.

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