Posts

Changing the default search language in RDS

Full text search in PostgreSQL is pretty great!

Recently, though, I found a bug in my application that perplexed me. When I searched for the word “Oddball” in the app, there were no …

How to remove *some* duplicates from a dataframe

I have a dataframe that has contains duplicates. And although I wanted to get rid of many of the duplicates, I also wanted to keep some duplicates on certain conditions. In this post, I outline the …

How to use `scan_csv` with a file-like object in Polars

I have a case where a bunch of CSVs are stored together in a zip file and I want to convert those CSVs into a parquet file. I’m using polars because it has an awesome ability to lazily read CSVs …

Using python map() instead of pandas .apply()

Recently, I was playing with a rather large dataset using pandas and trying to improve the performance of my code. While reaching for the multiprocessing library, I learned about one small way to …

TIL about launchd.plists

I created a Django app that runs on my computer. Most of the time, I don’t really think about running it as a background service because it’s not a production application. But I decided …

Computers, Robots, and Erasure

What do you think of when you see the word …

War Ration Books and Plain Language

At the onset of World War II, the US government …

About my habits.sh

As we enter the new year, it’s time to think about habits! As I’ve written before, …

Output JSON (and other formats) from SQLite

Here’s a fun experiment. Suppose you have a CSV and want to export it into JSON. Obviously, one way you could do it is through a purpose-built tool. But did you know you can use SQLite …

Democracy's Data

There are stories in the data. You just have to know how …

Even and Odd Numbered Addresses

Chances are, if you live in the United States, the buildings on one side of the street are all even or all odd, and the buildings on the opposite side of the street are the opposite.

But why …

The Second Founding

During the oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College, the case where the Supreme Court is highly likely to end affirmative action in …

Innovation in the Judiciary

Years ago, I argued that lawyers should learn about writing software because doing so could improve the interactions between lawyers and technologists. As I wrote:

Ultimately, lawyers and non-lawyers …

Better RSS Feed Content

I rely heavily on RSS feeds and I published my own content here using an RSS feed. But, I noticed that my RSS reader wasn’t formatting my posts very well.

TIL how to fix that using …

Hugo Categories and Tags

Most content-management systems allow for some kind of content tagging. Until recently, though, I was creating “TILs” as a separate content type. This was fine, I guess, but it was sort of …

Twitter timeline with embedded replies

Today, one of my colleagues reached out because the twitter embed on their website only showed tweets, not replies. I helped build the website, so I offered to figure out how to fix that.

To use a …

Acer Access and Development Program

While playing around with yet another random data set, I came across the Acer Access and Development Program. Here’s the description on the website:

The Acer Access and Development Program …

Trimming local git branches

Every now and then I remember to clean local, and merged git branches, and I always forget how to do it. So, TIL how to think about it, thanks to this post.

1. Get on the main branch.
2. Run a script using …

On being uncomfortable with writer's block

Today, I have writer’s block. And so, I am just writing.

According to Seth Godin, the act of writing is the cure to writer’s block. As he puts it:

The best way to address this isn’t …

The etymology of mission

Business literature abounds with doctrine on the importance of “mission statements.” A “mission,” according to Merriam Webster is “a specific task with which a person or …

Democracy is an Act

This week was a tough one for Americans. I’ve been repeating a phrase a lot to myself in the last couple of days.

I hadn’t read or heard the phrase before, but I heard it during the debate …

Whatever we feed...

I planned this morning to write about yesterday’s events but wasn’t sure what I’d say. It so happened, though, that I read a line in Amy Jen Su’s “The Leader You Want to …

Politics and Punctuated Equilibrium

People across the United States woke up to the news this morning about Georgia electing two Democratic senators. Although there are, and will be, many takes about the meaning of the election, one …

Regeneration, redux

It’s winter again in Wisconsin.

…

Time boxing

“Timeboxing,” or setting a time limit for a given task, is an incredibly useful strategy. The amount of time you need for a timebox on a given task–1 minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, …

The Color of Law

When it comes to understanding racial segregation in the United States, there’s a story we sometimes tell in the northern states. That before the Civil Rights era, slavery and Jim Crow laws …

The Secret Life of Groceries

In the introduction to The Secret Life of Groceries, Benjamin Lorr makes a profound claim about groceries:

[Grocery] isn’t about food, it never has been about food—food is the business of …

Habits like company

For the past few years, I have been a regular attendee of, and evangelist for, Orange Theory Fitness. The instructors are excellent and motivating, the routine worked well for my schedule, and it was …

The National Symbols Cache

The intersection of intellectual-property laws and government works is an interesting topic. But last night I happened across a delightfully random law entitled An Act To prevent the unauthorized …

Sketchnoting

I take a lot of meetings. And, despite the fact that I’ve been taking meetings every day for (looks at watch) well over a decade, I still feel like I don’t love my notetaking system. …

The herald and the call to adventure

I’m currently reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which documents the concept of “the monomyth” referred to as “the Hero’s Journey.” …

Pandoc and lua filters

For my work on techprocurement.org, I opted to use hugo and the hugo-book theme. Initially, this proved a super useful strategy. But it created a bit of a problem for generating PDFs, specifically …

Be the filter, not the grounds

How can you lead if you don’t have a clear vision? How can you move forward if you don’t know the direction to go? This can be a hard problem for many leaders, and can create a lot of …

Need to get aligned on a strategy?

Delivery teams inevitably face the challenge of getting aligned on a product vision. If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to align your team, you’ve probably encountered frameworks …

A trick for managing up without wasting time

To be effective in your job (unless you’re the CEO, and often even then), you need to manage up. Sometimes, your manager will tell you what they need to keep them informed. Often, though, your …

A PSA for PTACs

I frequently interact with companies that are curious about how to do business with the government but don’t really know where to begin. When that happens, I offer a piece of advice that is …

Reasonable Pricing Isn't Enough (Part II)

Editor’s note: This is the second of two posts on a recent GAO decision.

Yesterday, we discussed the recent use of HTRRP for source selection. Today, we will explore the legal and practical …

Reasonable Pricing Isn't Enough

Editor’s note: This is the first of two (or maybe three) posts on a recent GAO decision.

In the world of government contracting, price matters. In the past few years, though, the government has …

Thinking in Funnels

As I went through security at the airport yesterday, I thought about Little’s Law. Assuming there were 60 people in line, and it takes 20 seconds to process each person, the average wait time …

The ULC's data-privacy committee

Today is the first in-person meeting of the drafting committee of the Uniform Collection and Use of Personally Identifiable Data Act, which will focus on data-privacy issues. Although there is a …

Protest reform

Yesterday, Jen Pahlka offered a provocation:

Friends, inspired by the further delay on JEDI (and like every other delay ever) I invite your comments on protest rules in government procurement. If you …

Election Day

It’s election day here in Wisconsin. On the ballot is the Wisconsin Supreme Court and nonpartisan municipal races.

One of the unfortunate paradoxes of American politics is that, although much of …

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility

Racism is a difficult topic for white people to talk about. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo helps us understand why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism, and how that discomfort …

JEDI and the Death Star

Like many who are interested in government, technology, and procurement, I find myself like a moth to the flame following the Department of Defense’s “JEDI” cloud contract saga. The …

Policy tradeoffs

Editorial note: This week, I plan to write three articles about recent research from the National Bureau of Economic Research. This is the third.

Policymaking is hard. I have experienced this …

Autonomy in Procurement

Editorial note: This week, I plan to write three articles about recent research from the National Bureau of Economic Research. This is the second.

In every procurement organization in the government, …

Public procurement, contract type, and innovation

Editorial note: This week, I plan to write three articles about recent research from the National Bureau of Economic Research. This is the first.

Perhaps it’s cyclical, but the federal …

Start with Section M

Government contracts are an open-book test. At every level of government in the United States, the government will tell you two things (1) what they’re looking for, and (2) how they’re …

Learning Anxiety

Last year, when reading about organizational-culture change theory, I came across Edgar Schein’s concept of “learning anxiety.” Schein observed that people within organizations have …

The iron triangle of procurement

In procurement, there is a concept called the “iron triangle.” The idea behind the iron triangle is simple. On one side, you have cost. On another side, you have time. And on the third …

Accepting the challenge

After the Iowa caucuses dust up, a couple of colleagues pressed me on the ethical responsibilities of the vendor at issue. What obligation, they asked, did the vendor have in telling party officials …

Elections, tech, and usability

As I read this morning’s news about the fiasco at the Iowa caucuses, it felt like deja vu.

During the 2008 primary election, one precinct in the District of Columbia posted results that showed …

The PACER paywall

In a few minutes after I hit publish, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear oral argument in National Veterans Legal Services Program v. United States. For a brief …

Predicting the Super Bowl and the Iowa Caucuses

I predict that, this evening, the Kansas City Chiefs will beat the San Francisco 49ers in the Superbowl. Tomorrow, Bernie Sanders will win the Iowa Caucuses.

Before I go further, I haven’t …

Leap Years

2020 is a Leap Year. As a practical matter, that means that – for those who observe the Gregorian calendar – we have 29 days this month, not 28. The reason we have a leap year is to …

True Daily Doubles

James Holzhauer, although officially not the GOAT of Jeopardy, understood something that most people did not. In a coin-flip situation, you should be “indifferent” to doubling your money …

Past performance and asking the right question

When hiring an expert, you want someone who knows their stuff. Not just someone who has “been there,” but someone who understands the domain deeply in unique ways and can contribute …

Risk and Uncertainty

Risk. A four-letter word.

If you’ve worked within a mile of lawyers, you know that lawyers are famously “risk averse.” Do you know how you know that lawyers hate risk? Because …

Compression and Release

When Princess Leia Organa told Governor Tarkin that “[t]he more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers,” she was not making a threat. Instead, …

Acceleration and Momentum

When thinking about organizational performance, I typically default to thinking about acceleration. If you’re going to measure, it’s often more useful to measure whether a team is getting …

The long tail of federal data elements

Longtime readers of the blog may know that I enjoy datasets about federal forms. Today, I wanted to use a new dataset to share an observation about the extent to which federal forms share data …

Pandoc, Weasyprint, and PDF generation

I love writing in plain text. Given the choice between writing a document in Word, Google Docs, or my text editor (I primarily use atom, don’t @ me), I will choose my text editor every time. I …

Executive sponsors and internal politics

To make change in bureaucracies, it is widely accepted that you need an “executive sponsor.” To pass legislation, you need a “champion.” The argument goes that, if any change …

The etymology of control

According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, the definition of the word “control” is “to exercise restraining or directing influence over.”

It’s a word that comes up …

William Gibson, The Peripheral

I can’t be certain of his intent, but I would like to believe that, in The Peripheral, William Gibson is sending us a message from our future. Or rather, not our future, but something resembling …

Defining PALT

Fair warning, severe procurement wonking ahead. I promise a shorter, less nerdy post tomorrow.

In today’s Federal Register, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) published a proposed …

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day 2020

It’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., day. Every year today, I re-read Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail and reflect on racism in America.

This year, it is hard not to think about …

Reclaiming the bench

As the Green Bay Packers take the field tonight, only some of them will play; a significant number of players will spend most (or all of) 60 minutes “on the bench.”¹ As with sports, in the …

World Building and the Illusion of Explanatory Depth

A friend recently pointed me to a podcast episode where the extraordinary science-fiction writer N.K. Jemisin teaches Ezra Klein to build a world. It’s a truly delightful episode; Ezra Klein …

Competing on cost or competing on value

Suppose you want to buy a widget. You don’t want to spend more than $100 on a widget. You go out to a store and you see a widget for $80, a widget for $99, and a widget for $120. What should you …

Some New Data on Innovation and Research

A few days ago, I wrote about government and innovation policy. Yesterday, the National Science Foundation published The State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2020. Although I am still digging into …

The Five Ts

They say that all politics is local. Perhaps. But here’s a secret I’ve learned: all local politics come down to the 5 Ts. Let me explain.

In 2010, my boss was running for re-election as a …

Cycle Times

Here’s a Little formula:

average number of things in queue = average processing rate x average cycle time

No, that’s actually Little’s Law, named after a MIT professor named John …

Winter is finally here → Regeneration

Our winter in Wisconsin has so far been unusual. Despite snowfalls for Halloween and Thanksgiving, we have been pretty warm and dry in December and January. So, when we had our first proper snow this …

Winners or Losers

In the Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato forcefully argues that much of the innovation seen out of Silicon Valley is the direct result of government adventurism. The book is effectively a …

"Make" it simpler

Given the proliferation of different commands on the command line that you need to master—docker-compose up, poetry run [blah], npm run [blah], hugo serve, etc.—it can sometimes feel impossible to …

Calculating public burden using OIRA data -- Part Two

Calculating public burden using OIRA data

Should lawyers learn to code?

For the past several years, I’ve been asked one question many times: “should lawyers learn to code?” Over those years, my view has been mostly consistent… “yes, lawyers …

When a micro-purchase doesn’t work out, we try to learn from it

This week, I co-authored a blog post for the 18F blog, entitled: When a micro-purchase doesn’t work out, we try to learn from it. It discussed a thing that is rarely discussed in government: failure. …

The Code of the District of Columbia is now available online

At long last, the Code of the District of Columbia has a permanent URL, within the dccouncil.us domain. This may not seem like a big deal, but this simple event is the culmination of years of effort, …

DC's Voter Rolls are on the Internet

Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran an article with a headline destined to scare the crap out of DC’s voters: “D.C. makes it shockingly easy to snoop on your fellow voters.” …

My theory about The Americans

This week marked the finale of season 4 of the Americans. Like almost everyone else, I loved it. Already, I can barely wait until the next season starts. But as I prepared to watch the finale, I had a …

Storytelling and federal procurement

Last week, after chatting about challenges in federal procurement, a colleague suggested a book entitled the “Free Enterprise Patriot.” The opening statement of the book sets the stage: …

On links to court filings

Dear Media,

It’s time we had a talk. Because you’re hurting democracy.

New rule, Journos. http://t.co/wLmqF2Am4E It's 2015. If you don't name the parties, at least link to the …

6 months into 18F

Several months ago, I described my intention to leave a happy job in the law and join the emerging government technology office known as 18F. Today, 6 months after starting at 18F, I want to give an …

Mailmerge for Word Docs... in Python?

I’m going to say something nice about Microsoft Word: there’s a simple loophole to its impossibly ornate OOXML schema that allows for document templating. If you are trying to do some …

Joining 18F

Today, I informed the members of the Council and my colleagues that I will be leaving the District government at the beginning of March and joining the growing ranks of public servants at 18F. One …

Dogfooding with Jekyll

Yesterday, I learned that Jekyll, the well-known powerful static-site generator, has a little-known feature that is kind of a big deal for open-data sites hosted on Github.

tl;dr: Jekyll can let you …

Client Confidentiality on Trello?

This weekend I signed up for Trello. I started playing around with it, started liking it, and then I hit a snag. There’s no two-factor authentication (“2FA”).

As a practicing lawyer …

In Praise of Commoditization

Earlier this week, Dr. Robert Read and Eric Mill penned an article for the 18F blog, entitled How to Use More Open Source in Your Next Federal IT Acquisition. It’s an important article for a …

Court Statistics: Part I

This weekend, I spent approximately 16 hours sitting in a windowless meeting room in a Chicago hotel discussing specific processes for arbitrating family-law disputes. This is how Uniform Law …

"Dumb" Government Data

I recently was named a member of the Mayor’s Open Government Advisory Group. Among the things that the Group will be tasked with is “[e]stablish[ing] specific criteria for agency …

An RSS feed for LIMS

Recently, I built an RSS feed for LIMS.

The URL for the RSS feed is here: https://esq.io/lims-rss.xml, and the source code is available here: https://gist.github.com/vzvenyach/757fa97fd99c3a14e798. …

Hello World

I’ve decided to start a blog. I’ll explain more later.