The year Trump broke the federal government (Washington Post, gift link)
How DOGE and the White House carried out a once-unthinkable transformation of the nation’s sprawling bureaucracy. 
 

Incredibly wide-ranging and important, showing the human cost of the firing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and all the federal agency missions undermined and abandoned as a result.

I...could not read all of this.  Teared up, still too soon.  For anyone who doesn't know, I was part of the Reduction in Force earlier this year, terminated from my federal job at a science agency you've definitely heard of.  I lived through this, and I can confirm that this article very much shows the full picture.

I know it's been awhile since the bulk of the Reductions in Force.  Please don't forget us.  The vast majority of fired federal workers were NOT called back.  Many have NOT "moved on".  Many are still struggling and still searching for jobs in a very tight job market,.  For many, their niche federal experience is not so valuable anymore because the federal government still, by and large, is not hiring.  Many are questioning themselves, heartsore and worried as much as every other patriot.

This didn't have to happen.  it's 317 days until midterm elections.  It's 1052 days until the next presidential election.  If you're struggling, I see you, hang in there.  And when it's time, please vote.

We should rethink how we teach people to code | deadSimpleTech 

(on using HTML as a first coding experience)

Got this link from alis.me, where they cringe at HTML but also say, "...actually, yeah, huh...they have a point."

Like Alis, I learned basic HTML because I wanted to make a page on Geocities.  That was it.

And it worked!  HTML was easy for me, a total coding newb, to learn and use!  I made my little page, with its very simple formatting and hand-coded list of links to individual pages with my individual fanfics on them, with my little webring images/links on the bottom.  It was fun and I felt like I had MADE A THING!  A thing that I kept until Fanfiction.net made posting fanfic (and actually having people read it) easier.

So even though that page came and went...I still use what I remember of HTML, and I've continued to use it throughout my life.

I used it on Livejournal to make my own journal templates and code in my italics and quotes and stuff before we had rich text post editors.  I used it on PILLOWFORT for cripes sake, to help apply a style somewhere, I think.

I also feel that crappy HTML website honestly taught me a lot about how the web works, and how to be resilient and independent later in the age of "you don't need to know how this works, just use our slick app where you can customize only the things we want you to!"  ("Yeah, fuck you", says the girl who coded her own shitty webpages back in the day and spent a lot of time figuring out how to get the colors on her LJ page JUST RIGHT.)

It also gives me...I dunno, appreciation for hand-made things.  Yes, maybe that webpage was a bit janky, but it was MY JANK.  I knew it was there and if I didn't fix it, it was probably because it didn't really bother me that much.  It was an inoculation against perfection and against perfectionism.

And the HTML gateway drug has been actually useful in real life, too.  In addition to being able to handcode a link by muscle memory if it's convenient, I have also multiple times run into instances where it was actually professionally useful. I still remember being the savior who helped my professor force his submitted abstract to properly format his gene names because though he had to paste it into a plaintext input box, I was the one who realized that it was a plaintext box that would parse html tags. 

Basic web coding also leads to better computer literacy and the most useful skill of "not being afraid of poking about in settings", which has put me head and shoulders above so many others who are "afraid they'll break it" and thus never understand how their software works or half the settings it offers.  Having to find my own jpegs and such directly led to knowing how to screencap something and crop it for a "good enough" web or presentation graphic (I was a minor celebrity at my last job for showing people how to do just that.)  Needing to crop or resize things also led to teaching myself use of basic image editors (reinforced by needing to make my own LJ icons, of course), which helped a lot when PowerPoint and Illustrator became a thing.

Heck, being on Livejournal also taught me about RSS feeds, which the modern internet can pry from my COLD DEAD HANDS.  Fuck their algorithm, roll your own!  (I use Feedly, but I dunno, they might be a paid thing now?  IDEK.)

And really...I'm literally thinking of brushing up on my web coding NOW (or at least my "tweak this template" version of coding) to make myself a basic professional writing portfolio page.

So yeah.  Learning HTML HAS been useful.  The problems I had to fix are probably somewhat not problems anymore on the modern web, but the modern web has new problems, amirite?  And one of those is people hating the slick corporatism all around them.  I mean...I'm charmed as hell every time I'm reminded that Neocities exists.

Go forth.  Make A Thing.

Because of the state of the world and Our AI Overlords, I'm thinking more and more of just pulling my stuff into fewer and fewer places.  My TF stuff is still up on fanfiction.net, as when I switched to AO3 (when it started lol) it was the main fandom I was in.

Now, ff.net mostly seems to be a source of random spam PMs, and I'm thinking of just taking down the stories and leaving a profile that points to AO3.  Does anyone see any downsides to this plan?

I am amazed to see that some folks are still, evidently, actively posting to ff.net.  God, that thing is an UNDEAD Pit of Voles.

Hiya all.  Not dead yet!  Still TRYING MY BEST here.  Not a whole lot to show for it, but TRYING!  :insert that determined kiddo making a fist gif here:

Anyway, books!

Stuff I've Read:

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove - A ship and a medicbot try valiantly to get past their programming and forge an alliance because monsters keep KILLING THEIR HUMANS!  I loved this so much.  Highly, highly recommend.  The beginning wobbled a bit for me because I wasn't sure what tone it was going for (there's some aspects of humor, but it was unclear how serious/feelings this was supposed to be).  Once I got my footing though?  Mwa, perfect.  Actually went and bought a copy.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones - A very, very slow horror book that was dragged down by my dislike of two of the three main POV characters.  Still, a very interesting take on vampires I'd never seen before.

The Art of Solitude and Alone With Others by Stephen Batchelor - Went through a bit of an introspection kick.  TAoS was a solid book on Buddhist philosophy with some personal experiences with hallucinogens thrown in.  Kind of slow, but interesting reading it with AWO, which was a much more "advanced" and philosophical take on some of the same themes.

City of Stairs and City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett - I really like this series, even more than his newer one.  Fun, smart characters, enough mystery to keep things interesting, and some very thought-provoking takes on colonialism and its associated ills in a somewhat faux-early-1900s kinda-AU world.  Have picked up the third book in the series already.

August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White - Oh this was fabulous in all senses of the word.  Far-future alien kaiju mecha invasion space opera with a heavy MUSIC focus.  It also got points for making me like the very entitled and shallow rockstar character DESPITE those characteristics usually putting me off, because they actually are also quite charming and smart.  I am SAD that this has not gotten more attention (and that none of my libraries have ordered the second book....)

Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell - Solid "meh".  I liked Someone to Build a Next In well enough, but this just didn't click with me, for two reasons:  it was very Greek mythology (bug or feature?), in that the gods were just terrible people, and yet you're forced to be in Hera's entitled and self-sabotaging POV for half the book, while in the other half you're forced to be in Heracles oblivious high tragedy POV.  Neither really appealed.  Also, though the idea of a found-family-inflected trials of Heracles structure was neat, said trials and said found family were just never really fleshed out and felt shallow.  :shrug?:

Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher - Fun!  A squad of goblins get teleported off a battlefield and have to figure out where they are and how to get home.  This had a bit of tonal whiplash in that Kingfisher way, where it's fluffy and funny but then takes a hard turn into dark and disturbing (while trying kind of awkwardly not to be so realistic that we have to worry about things like executing POWs), but it was funny and didn't overstay its welcome.

What I'm Reading Now

Fiction:  Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee and the above-mentioned City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

Nonfiction:  Stories Are Weapons by Annalee Newitz and The Technological Republic by Nicholas Zamiska and Alexander Karp

“WHY is this happening? Why would anyone want to blow up cancer research in the U.S.? When is cancer political?”

That’s probably the most common question asked about the recent devastation at NIH. Yes, Project 2025 talked about some of this, and Chris Rufo vowed to take over federal grantmaking. But before January 20th, there was no major public discussion of this level of attack on NIH, medical research, and cures for disease.

So why is this happening?

Sadly, it’s a natural evolution of the agenda of the American right. 

I wish that this was not true.  But this is where we are, now, and honestly, no one should be surprised.  As this article points out, Karl Rove talked about this a long time ago, and it's been brewing for decades.  This isn't conspiracy theory here, or hyperbole.  Karl Rove, one of the most influential Republican strategists of the 20th century, flat out SAID that this was the plan.

Rove goes on:

”Bigger government strengthens the Democratic Party. It generates federal employees who will mostly vote Democratic, and government programs whose beneficiaries will have reason to feel grateful and protective toward a large central government.”

“Conversely, smaller government helps the Republicans. The more taxes are cut, the more programs are privatized, the fewer strictures put on economic activity, the more people feel that their security and well-being depend on markets and not government or unions, the more the fundamental rationale of the Democratic Party erodes.”

And here we are.  This thinking does not care about actually caring for people, or making their lives better, or curing diseases.  It cares about gathering votes.  And the more precarious you make peoples' lives, the less they feel they can trust the government or that the government is looking out for them and their health, the more they go "well, why should I pay for that?  Stop taking my taxes, if you're not going to help me!"  The more they don't want to prepay for anything "just in case" (which is how the federal safety net and investment in scientific research works), because they're afraid of getting screwed.  Thus, there is HUGE POLITICAL INCENTIVE to convince people that government agencies are inept, corrupt, and/or a waste of tax dollars.

I repeat, there is huge political incentive to convince people that government agencies are useless or broken or corrupt.  Even if it's not true.   Break confidence in those institutions to gain political capital (to sow doubt that the NIH is useful and helpful), then break the institutions (cut NIH funding and staff to the bone, now that the public is now doubtful of the NIH and won't immediately scream bloody murder), then point to the broken institutions and say, "look, they're broken, you shouldn't be paying for them!"

This is the plan.  This has, sadly, always been the plan.

Not...dead...yet.  

Forget where I was, but here's what I've finished lately.

• Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes - I liked this!  I liked Dead Silence (great vibes) and HaTEd Ghost Station (because so much of it didn't make sense to me, plotwise).  I felt this was also in the "fun creepy vibes" category.  The resolution was kind of simple, but hey, solid space horror.
• Into the Broken Lands by Tanya Huff - I...am glad I read this.  Unsure if I "liked" it, but it was kind of a strange book.  Imagine...Murderbot in a fantasy setting, with mages who broke part of the world and left it a reality-challenged wasteland, but not before they left behind a lot of very powerful mage-engineered devices, including some humanoid engineered "weapons".  That was the part I liked, because it did have some interesting (though kind of overwrought) things to say about defining personhood, and the "weapon" got much more POV than it usually does (Murderbot notwithstanding).  There was also one of the most delicately done and interesting corruption arcs I've ever seen done, and that got it up out of 2-star territory for me, but overall it sat around 3 or 3.5.  I felt it touched on things I liked but consistently didn't quite hit the beats square enough to get to 4 stars.  It wasn't helped by having a very, very annoying set of characters that I hated having to see so much of.
• The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong.  I liked this a lot.  Cozy, but not too cozy in my view:  there was tension and problems and emotions and yes, everything worked out, but that's why I'm over reading cozy anyway, so I felt that was fine.
• The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher.  Solid ending to this duology, though it felt very slow for most of it.  The ending was a banger, though, and raised it back up into solid 3.5 star territory for me.

Currently I'm reading Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, and after a wobble at the start where I was kind of unsure if I was going to like the main AI character, it GRABBED me and I've loved it ever since.

The ABA Declares War
Trump tried to first “kill all the lawyers.” Now the lawyers have hit back.

This is absolutely an issue to watch.  Though there's real questions about the impartiality of the Supreme Court right now, the judiciary has been the last bulwark against the executive branch lately.  Until the legislative branch manages to find its bearings (or we find them for them via midterm elections) and start exercising its OWN oversight powers, the judicial branch HAS to remain functional.  And lawyers being afraid to bring suits absolutely will break the judicial branch.  They can only rule on what people are willing to sue for.

Also, to be clear:  this is not only about the lawyers.  Even if you don't like lawyers for whatever reason, they represent real, live people being real, live hurt by things that are happening.  And those real, live people whose rights have been violated need to be able to find a lawyer to help them defend those rights, or they can't push back, and they might as well not have those rights at all.  Make no mistake:  lawyers as a profession don't just work for the rich and powerful - they work for everyday folks, too.  And given the rich and powerful in power right now, it's everyday folks who will be hurt the most if lawyers are afraid to go up against the government.

NIH scientists call on director to protect biomedical research

Hundreds of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a call for action they dubbed the Bethesda Declaration on Monday to push back against cutbacks and changes at the biomedical research agency.

I'd like to point out that the people who signed this are actual people who work directly for NIH.  It is extremely brave for them to speak out like this, especially since it's so unlikely that anyone will listen to them.