Cyd Harrell
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cydharrell.bsky.social
Cyd Harrell
@cydharrell.bsky.social
4.5K followers 1.7K following 2.3K posts
cyberpunk is a warning, not a manual

she/her. dayjob & usual location: City & County of San Francisco (this is a personal account)

ex-18F; on the board @publicgood.tech ; wrote a small book about doing this: https://cydharrell.com/book/
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cydharrell.bsky.social
grabbed a quick screenshot
slightly blurry screenshot of a 9-dog team pulling a sled over pristine snow past a group of people dressed for the cold, with the pale sun breaking over the horizon behind them - it is Pete Kaiser & his team arriving to the finish chute in the lead of the Kuskokwim 300 (happens to be a key Iditarod qualifying race, but Pete is a past Iditarod winner so he doesn't need that) Pete Kaiser in a parka petting his dogs in the finish chute, with onlookers taking photos & standing around
January 25, 2026 at 7:44 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
remember when bundling shipment notifications in your inbox was merely automated, maybe with a little machine learning as a treat... & it worked?

I just freaking cannot with the current state of software
a row of an email inbox table showing a January 10 email from La Bien Aimee titled "A shipment from your order is out for delivery". the email system has added a green label with a little truck icon saying "Ready for pickup" a screenshot from UPS saying the delivery is scheduled for January 12 because "we missed you" (there was no notice at our house of an attempted delivery) one AI overview, from today, January 11, saying the La Bien Aimee order is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, January 12 A different AI overview saying the package is arriving tomorrow, with a track package button a view order button, and a green label saying "Visit UPS for pickup details"
January 11, 2026 at 5:35 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
I think I'm gonna let Elinor Wylie wrap this one up
(poets.org/poem/let-no-...)
the final stanza from Elinor Wylie's poem Let No Charitable Hope: In masks outrageous and austere The years go by in single file; But none has merited my fear, And none has quite escaped my smile.
January 1, 2026 at 4:35 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
what the entire hell has been going on while I've been offline
screenshot of an ad, with "sponsored" in the corner: Recipe you might like: Cranberry Orange Ginger Holiday Hummus Board, 10 minutes, serves 20, 5 ingredients accompanied by a photo of a tree shape made out of dollops of hummus with mandarin segments and dried cranberries emphasizing the curves of the dollops, alongside crackers on a wooden board
December 27, 2025 at 9:08 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
uh @bsky.app?
Screenshot of a Bluesky warning for a potentially misleading link, flagging the senate.gov part of www.warren.senate.gov with “Make sure this is where you intend to go!” - which is weird because that is a completely legitimate dot-gov url
December 20, 2025 at 11:16 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
was just thinking about manta rays & it made me think of Auden's reindeer
part 1 of Auden's The Fall of Rome (for Cyril Connolly) The piers are pummelled by the waves; In a lonely field the rain Lashes an abandoned train; Outlaws fill the mountain caves. Fantastic grow the evening gowns; Agents of the Fisc pursue Absconding tax-defaulters through The sewers of provincial towns. Private rites of magic send The temple prostitutes to sleep; All the literati keep An imaginary friend. Cerebrotonic Cato may Extol the Ancient Disciplines, But the muscle-bound Marines Mutiny for food and pay. part 2 of Auden's The Fall of Rome Caesar's double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK On a pink official form. Unendowed with wealth or pity, Little birds with scarlet legs, Sitting on their speckled eggs, Eye each flu-infected city. Altogether elsewhere, vast Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss, Silently and very fast.
December 6, 2025 at 9:18 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
great post from @kdyz.bsky.social on civil service hiring in NYC - we have similar issues in SF, although I think they're overall a little less rough, but a lot of work to do for tech hires in particular
screenshot from the post: "In addition, improving how city services are delivered in a technological age requires people who can build and maintain modern technology. Almost every service requires digital content, web forms, data management, digital tools and more, but there are no titles for “user researcher”, “data scientist”, “content designer”, “UX designer”, “product manager” or a myriad of other common tech roles in the system. Recent job posts for these roles have been in civil service titles including “Graphic Designer”, “Computer Specialist (Software)”, “IT Project Specialist”, “Research Projects Coordinator”, “Community Coordinator”, “City Research Scientist” and more."
November 14, 2025 at 3:33 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
in!
a receipt for donating $420 for an insulated dog house to Straw For Dogs, note from #UglyDogs
November 7, 2025 at 4:39 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
me: why are my eyes itchy?
PurpleAir:
screenshot of the map of San Francisco on PurpleAir, with nearly all values over 100, in the orange to red range (ie, quite bad air quality)
October 18, 2025 at 6:23 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
yeah, once more with a cover photo - I really, really encourage all tech folks to read this
cover of the report linked: a light green-grey eagle silhouette on a darker background with 5 yellow stars and the text: United States Senate Committee On Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Ranking Member Gary Peters Unchecked and Unaccountable How DOGE Jeopardizes Americans' Data Without Regard for Law and Congress HSGAC Minority Staff Report September 2025
October 15, 2025 at 3:05 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
holy shit, One Medical required me to not only self attest I have a risk condition but sign a special consent form *with a witness line* to get a COVID shot, in California where it’s supposed to be available to all
COVID shot consent form attesting that I am not being coerced into getting it, requiring not only my name, birthdate, & signature, but a witness’s signature
October 2, 2025 at 3:54 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
sometimes I think about bringing back my old website...
screenshot of Cyd's old poetry website, showing a poem page with a white background Header: Cyd Harrell (poet) in large green underlined Courier font poem (all in Courier) Mt. Constitution: From the Summit Some morning when mist is thin like pale tea, you will reach a forest where moss is so shrill a silver green and the blue of spruce limbs vibrates so loud and low that, as quiet steeps you in the damp your soul dissolves, finds mine suspended there; looking down, I read it in the leaves. footer (in sans serif italics): Cyd Harrell, 1989. Published Oxygen Quarterly No. 19. Further rights reserved. Home Email me.
October 1, 2025 at 3:13 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
made it just under the wire - I'll always remember Orange Sky Day for itself, but also as the day the first copies of A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide arrived at my house - 5 years!!
Cyd with long pandemic hair, smiling like crazy & hold two copies of her book A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide, front cover out - the front cover depicts an abstract mashup of a distress flag and a climbing wall that also evokes a computer system diagram, in predominantly orange and blue
September 10, 2025 at 5:38 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
this slide is in so many of my talks (& it doesn't even include the function piece)
screenshot of a presentation slide with white on blue text: 50 states + 5 territories 3,144 counties 19,354 cities & towns 574 tribes & I don’t even know how many water districts, air quality boards, regional transit bodies, etc.
September 4, 2025 at 3:44 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
honestly, I feel like frequent flyer perks started all of this
Screenshot from the article linked in the post above: "When you are at a Disney park, you will inevitably hear “When You Wish Upon a Star,” Disney’s unofficial anthem. Disney adopted that song in the 1940s; its second line, “makes no difference who you are,” encapsulated its egalitarian ethos. Now the song reads to me like nostalgic, middle-class cosplay that helps us relive the Disney that Walt created. The roughly $90 to get your family cut-the-line access to a premier ride (on top of what, for a family of four, could easily be over $700 dropped on tickets) is the real Disney, the one the market created."
August 31, 2025 at 8:44 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
I've got no brief either for or against Burning Man - I've never been & my friends seemed to enjoy it more before tech adopted it - but these people's midlife crises are gonna arrive early & really be *something* sfstandard.com/2025/08/30/b...
Gupta, who has become a poster child of AI boom’s grindcore culture, summarized the current mood among young tech workers in San Francisco as incompatible with the Burner sensibility: “The current vibe is no drinking, no drugs, 996 [work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week], lift heavy, run far, marry early, track sleep, eat steak and eggs.”
August 30, 2025 at 4:27 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
💯 who remembers sponge painting?
a 90s bathroom sponge-painted in a hideous hot pink, with a scrolled light fixture above a mirror with a heavy white wood frame; above the toilet roll is a picture of a tree with a hot pink background that matches the sponge painting & a magenta frame.
August 30, 2025 at 3:47 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
new late-stage capitalist risk-shift just dropped! apparently we can all pay extra for "order insurance" when we have something shipped from a merchant, since neither they nor the delivery service will stand behind it getting there
screenshot of an email: Hi Cyd, I am contacting you regarding the missing order (redacted). I want to inform you that your case has been looked into, and a replacement was approved as a one-time courtesy. For me to send you the replacement, can you please confirm the best shipping address? Also, please keep in mind that since this replacement is a one-time courtesy, we would recommend you purchase route for any future orders. Route is an order insurance that covers lost, stolen, and damaged packages. Looking forward to your reply.
August 28, 2025 at 2:47 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
hey Californians, if you got a mailer (already!) against the fall special election to counter Texas gerrymandering, the League of Women Voters wants you to know that the mailer was lying about them - screenshotting with alt text here:
screenshot of the League of Women Voters of California's post: Important Announcement You may have received a mailer from "Protect Voters First" about the redistricting ballot initiative this November. By naming our organization and quoting Gloria Chun Hoo, the mailer wrongly implies that the League of Women Voters of California is part of their coalition and endorses the information contained in the flyer. This implication is not correct - we are not part of htat coalition. The League of Women Voters of California did not authorize this action.
August 24, 2025 at 5:29 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who's coming to save you?

(hahaha, should be fine)
the cast of The Dropout's Game Changer being extremely goofy on the game's very colorful set
August 22, 2025 at 3:35 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
you know, I have a ton of versions of this slide & talktrack in decks about government & technology over the years. not showing up to assist in a disaster is a breach of a very fundamental contract
screenshot of a white-on-blue conference slide & its talk track in the notes slide: What do we ask from government? - Public safety - Infrastructure - Regulations - Record-keeping - Dispute resolution - Assistance Talk track: If you break down the things that government does, they fall in a few basic categories of collective need. A town of 10,000 people does many of the same categories of work as a city of 2 million. Run through...and there are many disagreements about the details, but almost everyone believes that there is some kind of misfortune that can befall you, where the government should help you out.
July 12, 2025 at 1:26 AM
cydharrell.bsky.social
um. I don't quite know how to say this, because whoa, wacky idea here...but like, I want an *actual* description of the food I'm ordering to pick up? not "typically" or "often" - wtf?? what are people with restrictions supposed to do here?
screenshot from a Doordash item description for a mini burrito: "Scrambled eggs, cheese, and a selection of breakfast meats, typically wrapped in a smaller tortilla, often accompanied by salsa." tagline in bold: "Description generated by DoorDash using AI"
July 6, 2025 at 5:47 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
this from Texas expert @mattlanza.bsky.social is excellent - key point:
screenshot from the article in the quoted post: "Did budget cuts play a role? No. In this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing or budget issues within NOAA and the NWS played any role at all in this event. Anyone using this event to claim that is being dishonest. There are many places you can go with expressing thoughts on the current and proposed cuts. We've been very vocal about them here. But this is not the right event for those takes. In fact, weather balloon launches played a vital role in forecast messaging on Thursday night as the event was beginning to unfold. If you want to go that route, use this event as a symbol of the value NOAA and NWS bring to society, understanding that as horrific as this is, yes, it could always have been even worse."
July 5, 2025 at 5:33 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
#NoKings in SF - sunshine & solidarity
Cyd & Mr Cyd in Dolores Park with a flag Gathering crowd at Dolores Park On the march, lots of flags & a prominent sign that says If Harris had won we’d all be at brunch The plaza at SF city hall, jam-packed with marchers
June 14, 2025 at 10:13 PM
cydharrell.bsky.social
you have been kidnapped and a character from the last tv show you watched is trying to rescue you who is coming to save you
Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp on The Residence
June 12, 2025 at 4:34 AM