Amanda C 🥄
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amandaesque.bsky.social
Amanda C 🥄
@amandaesque.bsky.social
Bureaucromancer. I enjoy filling out forms because it feels like taking a test where I know all the answers. MSP, she/her.
Once again, not only is the "America Design System" bloated, inaccessible garbage, but there is ALREADY a full system – US Web Design System/USWDS – built, maintained, and regularly improved by feds, free to use and iterate on. designsystem.digital.gov
This tweet from Big Balls says the new “Tech Force” website is their first using the “America Design System.” Here are just a few reasons why that sucks. 🧵
December 15, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Tried to defrost an iced over mini fridge “the fast way” by chipping at it with a flathead screwdriver. Heard a weird bubbling sound, got closer to investigate, and got a face full of freon !
okay bsky, what was your thing, what dumbass thing did you do at age 22 or so, young and bright and full of promise and also totally ignorant about basic things?
i was so delighted by the whole secene; they are so full of hope and promise and smarts and ideas and they are gonna do awesome things and also they are both total sweet little baby dumbasses who reheat garlic bread in a toaster and start electrical fires
December 14, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Lost my annual holiday music challenge at the shops today (Sir Paul’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” a song FAR more heinous than anything Wham gave us.)
December 13, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Oceans are now battlefields, sweet potatoes are now spice melange, &c &c
December 11, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
"there's a new serif in town"
Marco Rubio ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor's decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move
Rubio Stages Font Coup: Times New Roman Ousts Calibri
The secretary of state called it a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.
www.huffpost.com
December 10, 2025 at 1:06 AM
My phone rolled through some memories today and showed me the glorious Palmer House Hilton, meaning that seven years ago I was in Chicago, onboarding as a fed to my dream job at 18F.

I miss it so, so much. 💔
@alt18f.bsky.social
December 10, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Admittedly, I say this as someone enjoying her *THIRD* David Graeber book of this calendar year (turns out I'd only read parts of "Utopia of Rules," not the whole thing!!), but dang this looks great and I've already put on a library hold.

www.npr.org/2025/12/09/n...
Believe it or not, this book makes taxes fascinating
The Price of Democracy tells the history of taxation from colonization to the present day. It's essential reading for anyone who cares about preserving democracy.
www.npr.org
December 9, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
One theory I have is that competence, self-control, responsibility, and expertise have all been feminized, leaving “masculinity” with the realm of impulsivity and petulance. So the divide is not really between “femininity” and “masculinity” so much as between adulthood and childishness.
Everything else aside, the idea that this is a model for many men of *masculinity* is so wild. This? This is "manly"? This is how people think it's cool to act?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-wG...
Dave Portnoy Demands NFL Investigate Pete Carroll & Raiders For Rigging
YouTube video by Clasher Sports
www.youtube.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
Having a physical accessibility panel available to escape room players so they can turn down background music or turn off flashing lights is a fantastic idea and I hope it spreads!

Steal this idea, folks!
I've played 133 escape rooms, and this may be my favorite thing out of any of them. It's an accessibility panel that gives players direct control over sound volume and flashing lights. (Plus it directs them to other accessibility options elsewhere in the room.)

Bravo to 60 Out Hollywood!
December 9, 2025 at 4:35 PM
As a small delight in a bleak world, I highly recommend setting your ringtone to the "Come on down!" music from The Price Is Right.

My phone went off in an Ikea once and the amount of people who looked physically ready to SPRING into action and play a pricing game was great.
December 9, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
Flamin’ Hot Q-Tips
i welcome our q-tip overlords
December 8, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Best parenting advice I got was "Don't have a kid because you want to have a baby, or even a child. Have a kid if you want to have a whole additional PERSON in your family. Most of the time you'll be relating to them as an adult."
some significant part of this is just catch-all fear for “this is not the child I ordered” I think
Oh, here's a big surprise. The transphobes don't believe in ADHD either.
December 8, 2025 at 2:02 PM
I need to stop listening to random news hits crowing about generative AI doing... the same thing as search engines? Or non-AI websites that already exist? "Give an AI your grocery list and it will put in an order." THIS IS WHAT GROCERY SITES ALREADY DO.
a man wearing a suit and tie is making a funny face .
Alt: Zach Woods in "The Office" yelling "Shut about the sun. SHUT UP ABOUT THE SUN."
media.tenor.com
December 8, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque:
"This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".
December 7, 2025 at 5:17 PM
“Cautious classicalism” I’m dead. 💀
Ross Douthat, architecture critic vs. Reality
December 6, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
Blue canarye yn the outlette by the lighte swicche
Who waccheth ovir thee
Make a litel dovecote yn thy soul
December 4, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
it rules that every day now is just watching everything in your life get more expensive and worse and then also constantly being told that nothing is more expensive or worse
Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post are at it again.
December 3, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Awwwooooooooo!!!! First Wednesday of the month in MN
December 3, 2025 at 7:00 PM
How is it that when there's an emergency alert, my phone can jump around like a washing machine with a brick in it, but when I'm holding it in my hand and someone calls, the maximum vibration it can muster is "mouse fart"?
December 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
Cyber Monday is over. Everyone, please stop cybering.
December 2, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
I don’t need any more information about Tarantino’s opinions as long as I live. Truly. If he wants to make movies, he should go make movies! But sharing what Tarantino said *on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast* is like a turducken of I Absolutely Do Not Care Even Slightly.
December 2, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Glad that all of civic tech howled loudly against the "DOGE is dead" narrative from last week and that @wired.com did some awesome follow-up.
December 2, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
This cross-pollination IS how new ideas happen. EVERY field needs humanistic thinking, that's why they call PhDs "Doctors of Philosophy"
Alt text for those who need it. This is amazing.
December 2, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Amanda C 🥄
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
December 1, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Annoyed at the parroting of the Salesforce stat that 1 in 5 purchases on Black Friday were "influenced by AI." Influenced?! That could mean damn near anything!

Google shovels AI summaries at the top of search result pages, so are searchers then also influenced by AI?
December 1, 2025 at 2:01 PM