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Waldo Jaquith

waldo.jaquith.org

From the Augusta Free Press: “Inevitably, the network of blogs, in this case the Virginia blogosphere, will feed off one another, and we’ll correct each other and help each other and so on,” Jaquith said. “But what we haven’t done is set up a comfortable correction mechanism. If I correct somebody,

Society / politics / economyTech news / industry

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Posts
5,680 from 2 Aug 1999 to 20 Oct 2026
Posting
weekly (24 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://waldo.jaquith.org/feed/

Latest

October 2026

  1. Looking back at the first decade of the Canadian Digital Service.
  2. Repetition Builds Mastery
  3. Incremental versus iterative.

September 2026

  1. Canada has a chance to rethink government technology.
  2. NYC can improve service delivery through better software procurement.
  3. On the types of vendor capture.

August 2026

  1. The State Decoded v1.2.

July 2026

  1. I made a new bot (feat. Super Cat).
  2. Going beyond plug-in solar.
  3. The iPhone is the best webcam for the Mac.
  4. A “public interest test” for government insourcing.
  5. “I don’t want the government working efficiently, because that’s how you get to a dictatorship.”

June 2026

  1. Solar overtakes coal in the US.

May 2026

  1. Pooling funding for government software.

April 2026

  1. Independent government cost estimates are essential.
  2. A standing disclaimer about my Agile procurement writing.
  3. Delivery deadlines are a mistake.
  4. Detailed deliverables are a mistake.

March 2026

  1. Capital funding poisons software projects.
  2. The Intergovernmental Software Collaborative has a forever home.
  3. How to foster better collaboration.
  4. Why government software is so expensive.

February 2026

  1. One neat trick for buying software that isn’t trash.

November 2025

  1. The past-performance trap.

October 2025

  1. No, your agency’s developers cannot “help” your vendor’s devs.

September 2025

  1. A GitHub pull request model for outsourced software projects.

June 2025

  1. Custom or COTS, either way it’s almost entirely open source software.

April 2025

  1. A model for IV&V that’s actually useful.

March 2025

  1. Why I work in the open.
  2. Don’t outsource control.
  3. Toward a proper IT funding approval process.

February 2025

  1. An RFI is not a substitute for market research.
  2. A systemic fix for terrible specialized agency software.
  3. Embracing Agile implicitly means a major shift in project control.
  4. Avoiding the “past performance” trap.

January 2025

  1. Don’t ask for references—seize them.
  2. Agile and IGs don’t have to be opposed.
  3. What if IV&V was actually useful?
  4. “Customized COTS”: When government demands to be lied to.
  5. The Frankenstein of Theseus.
  6. Why government software costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
  7. Explaining the risk of major software projects.

June 2024

  1. Agencies must not outsource compliance to their vendor scrum team.

March 2024

  1. Org. chart chasms cause custom software project failures.

January 2024

  1. Beyond the stoplight chart: How to perform Agile oversight at scale.
  2. Preventing lousy vendors from bidding on your custom software project.

December 2023

  1. Publishing your agency’s software as open source puts you at a major advantage.

August 2023

  1. Budgeting for software projects in “scrum team years.”

May 2023

  1. How an agency principal should oversee a major custom software project.
  2. “Agile” versus “agile.”

March 2023

  1. The work before the work: what agencies need to do before bringing on an Agile vendor.

February 2023

  1. “Customized COTS” is the worst of both.
  2. Why governors put this over here, with the rest of the fire.
  3. An Excel error caused a $202 million state budget shortfall.

December 2022

  1. Pity Francis M. Wilhoit.
  2. Car buyback offers are bad CX.

January 2022

  1. Apple Card account verification considered harmful.

June 2021

  1. Procurement smells.

May 2021

  1. The disconnect between software development and government contracting.
  2. Never contract for story points.

April 2021

  1. Reduce bid prices by reducing uncertainty.

December 2020

  1. Government should procure custom software as open source.

September 2020

  1. Vote ”yes“ on VA’s redistricting constitutional amendment.

August 2020

  1. Make sure your UI modernization plan includes an open source clause.

February 2020

  1. How to stop failures of major custom software procurements.

June 2017

  1. My videoconferencing setup.

November 2016

  1. Truth, earned credibility, and a publisher’s responsibility.

July 2016

  1. I want you to become a government tech vendor.
  2. How I built a chicken coop.
  3. Term-limiting your organization can be a gift to future you.

October 2015

  1. How to get started with continuous integration.

September 2015

  1. Shuttleworth fellowship.
  2. I am two dogs old.

June 2015

  1. “Accidental APIs”: Naming a design pattern.

June 2014

  1. Dynamic electrical pricing demands dynamic price data.
  2. What’s wrong with Puckett’s resignation?
  3. Ethics and tobacco meet again in Richmond.
  4. Opening up Virginia corporate data.

February 2014

  1. Cloud corporations.

January 2014

  1. Modern tools of business.
  2. Announcing the U.S. Open Data Institute.

November 2013

  1. Open your data.

September 2013

  1. “I put Algernon’s body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried.”

July 2013

  1. McDonnell’s Rolex.
  2. Déjà vu.

June 2013

  1. Kluge subpoenaed.
  2. Bullshittery and bad candidates.
  3. Randy “Duke” Cunningham has been released from prison.

May 2013

  1. Ethics training in the governor’s office.
  2. A Virginia campaign finance API.
  3. Cuccinelli’s self-inflicted FOIA gunshot wound.
  4. Make money from home! (Even if your home is the governor’s mansion.)
  5. New site, new datasets.

March 2013

  1. I am one dog old.
  2. $500 speech transcription bounty claimed.
  3. $500 bounty for a speech transcription program.

February 2013

  1. Why fresh-squeezed orange juice turns bitter.
  2. Everything you want to know about gun violence in the United States.
  3. That “fresh squeezed” orange juice is anything but.

January 2013

  1. Senator Henry Marsh’s big day.
  2. Muller concludes that humans are behind climate change.
  3. 3-D printers are a nightmare for the NRA.

December 2012

  1. Turn-of-phrase inflation.
  2. “Opening Up State Legal Data.”
  3. Neither Cuccinelli nor McAuliffe can win. And yet one of them must.
  4. Michigan’s filmmaker tax break boondoggle.

November 2012

  1. Top Florida Republicans admit that “voter fraud” laws are about suppressing turnout.
  2. Just a coincidence, one assumes.
  3. Obama’s secret UN-led mind-control plot revealed.
  4. Government can’t create jobs. Except when McDonnell does it.
  5. George Allen says he’s done running for office.
  6. What’s next for the Republican Party after last night’s many defeats?
  7. On the proposed constitutional amendments.
  8. The New York Times is looking at Virgil Goode.

October 2012

  1. A conservative Virginia activist has been sending anti-Obama SMSes.
  2. You say Missouruh, I say Missouree.
  3. “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America.”

September 2012

  1. The politics of beer or the beer of politics.
  2. Feda Morton has been barred by a court from campaigning.
  3. Don’t average voters deserve a little representation?
  4. “TV News Search & Borrow.”
  5. Sweet land of liberty.
  6. Bush White House actively ignored September 11 warnings.

August 2012

  1. OpenCourt Wins Legal Battle Over Streaming Proceedings
  2. Request for Awesome.
  3. Hurt is failing his campaign promise of beating Perriello’s accessibility record.

July 2012

  1. 63% of Republicans still think that Iraq had WMD in 2003 and that the president is not an American.
  2. Muller concludes that humans are behind climate change.
  3. New Virginia Decoded features.
  4. 43% of Philadelphia voters lack photo ID.
  5. There is no voter fraud in Pennsylvania.
  6. Unsurprisingly, Medicaid helps people.
  7. “Yeah, no.”
  8. Racial resentment correlates with support for voter ID laws.
  9. The NRA just keeps going too far.
  10. Sunlight Foundation “OpenGov Champion.”
  11. Wikipedia: South Asian numbering system
  12. UVA hijinx.

June 2012

  1. DNA analysis finds huge rate of wrong convictions in Virginia.
  2. Michigan representative barred from speaking on the floor for saying “vagina.”
  3. Finish VDOT contract work quickly, get laid off quickly.
  4. Tracy Thorne-Begland appointed to the bench.
  5. 2012 is the hottest year ever.
  6. PolitiFact fact-checks Bob Marshall. (Hint: He does poorly.)

May 2012

  1. Congress declines to let people download copies of bills.
  2. Scientific American: NC Makes Sea Level Rise Illegal
  3. Opening up Virginia campaign finance data with Saberva.
  4. Our new ladies.
  5. Gay sex, civil rights, and star-spangled axes.
  6. Answering legal questions with Google.

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