Cyd Harrell

@cydharrell

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:

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Bluesky

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Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· 24d

you don't say 💀🫠

screenshot from the article linked in the quoted post: "Before the National Design Studio, Gebbia initially focused on redesigning the federal retirement online portal after previous administrations had not been able to fully digitize the process of leaving government. Although the young technologists had hoped to be done with the project in a few months, it took them longer than expected."

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jun 18

Name a TV show you're positive no one remembers but you

a promotional image for Double Trouble, a sitcom about redheaded identical teenage twin girls, that ran for maybe a year in the 80s. it's mom, dad, & the twins - dad is gray & serious, mom has big 80s hair, & the twins are wearing suspenders & a blue tie over a red button down in one case & a crazily purple sweater over a white button down in the other. they are smiling sitcom smiles.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Mar 27

DAMN this is well written (not to mention the many excellent points)

screenshot from the article in the quoted post: "Karp thinks he is destroying bureaucracy. He is encoding it. The contempt for meetings and weekly reports and presentations to senior leaders; he treats these as the bureaucratic process itself. They are not. They were where people interpreted procedure, the place where someone could notice when categories no longer fit the case. The targeting doctrine is still there. They are columns on a workflow board now, stages a target passes through on its way to being struck. What Karp eliminated was the discretion the institution could never admit it depended on. What remains is a bureaucracy that can execute its rules but with no one left to interpret them. Bureaucracy encoded in software does not bend. It shatters."

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Feb 12

oh for sure. right away 👍

A spam text from +13092015265 (all misspellings & weird grammar are from the original):

Fidelty Investment:
Attached 1099 tax form is now available in your online account for review. Open 1099.PDFs file with this message to preview.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jan 25

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jan 11

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"

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jan 1

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Dec 27

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Dec 20

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Dec 6

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Nov 14

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."

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Nov 7

in!

a receipt for donating $420 for an insulated dog house to Straw For Dogs, note from #UglyDogs

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Oct 18

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)

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Oct 15

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Oct 2

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Oct 1

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Sep 10

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Sep 4

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Aug 31

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."

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Aug 30

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.”

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Aug 30

💯 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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Aug 28

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Aug 24

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Aug 22

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jul 12

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.

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jul 6

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"

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jul 5

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."

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jun 14

#NoKings in SF - sunshine & solidarity

Cyd & Mr Cyd in Dolores Park with a flag

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· Jun 12

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

Cyd Harrell@cydharrell· May 8

cyberpunk is a warning, not a manual