mclevin.bsky.social
38 posts
94 followers
225 following
Active Commenter
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Please try to have DDOT keep the sidewalk closures in front of Jenkins Row to a minimum.
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Indexes and ETFs! It’s simple to invest in the market without owning individual stocks. In fact, it usually beats performance of stock picking.
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Most of that is grants and other direct transfers, ie mandatory spending. Only $1.7T is discretionary spending. Trying to compare 1946, before the modern welfare state (such that it is in the US), to 2024 is ridiculous.
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This EO will be riddled w exceptions w/in 6 months, esp once senate nominees get in. Food inspectors, payroll processors, grant reviewers, etc. There’s very little fat to trim at the agencies on the civ payroll side & I THINK the Cabinet officers will want to do at least some of their mission.
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This holds true for more than you might think…
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Each of the Service branches have an IG.
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What does blockchain (a distributed ledger) offer than a centralized database can’t?
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Genuinely what?
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Two things that bely this analysis: 1. The federal civilian workforce as a percentage of the entirety is near post-war lows.
2. The majority of spending is mandatory spending. Non-defense discretionary spending, adjusted for inflation, has barely budged.
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They renamed an existing WH org:
“Sec. 3. DOGE Structure. (a) Reorganization and Renaming of the United States Digital Service (USDS). The USDS is hereby publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service (USDS) and shall be established in the Executive Office of the President.”
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I assume the order was written for confused farmers who keep mistaking roosters and hens. Hopefully with this cleared up, egg production will increase!
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It’s sarcasm, good gawd.
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DMV? There is no federal DMV?
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The law never required TikTok shut down! They CHOSE to do that themselves. The law only penalizes service providers (App Stores) who make it accessible. Apple and Google are the ones that need to make the call on whether they’ll risk the legal jeopardy. Total kabuki theater.
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Trump wants to make a deal with Xi for China to sell TikTok. The same China he is threatening with massive tariffs and that all of his nat’l security advisors say is the US’s principle geopolitical rival. Okay.
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Or, and hear me out, there’s nothing special about TikTok, and a near clone with replace it before the midterms. This doesn’t eliminate the technology of short form video. People will move on.
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That’s it, I’m cancelling. I love the Capital Weather Gang, but their reporting side is gone.
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Don’t bury the lede - why did Jr break this news?
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Facebook was no big deal to let go, but Instagram is how I see news from local shops / restaurants. Would love to know of a viable alternative to getting updates from smaller businesses!
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Bank tellers have been declining in number since the introduction of the ATM. AI has nothing to do with it.
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The actual law text is flexible enough to cover Chinese TikTok clones. Recall, the leg’n never calls out a specific app, just criteria that fit TikTok. And wouldn’t you know it, the Chinese clones fit the same criteria. It’ll be whackamole, but the regulatory language is now in place.
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Instagram is a bad platform and enables spreading hate speech. I’m not surprised by all the antisemitism I find, but I’m continually surprised by the sheer inaction by the content moderation team after it is reported.
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State AGs are pursuing this, the cases can’t be entirely dismissed.
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The writers are just getting lazy this season.
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There are a hair over 2M Armed Servicemembers. Any foregone pay from Congress would be a drop in the ocean.
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NO - they unfroze automatic cost of living adjustments. Congress hasn’t seen a COL increase since 2009. By keeping Congressional pay low, it only ensures the independently wealthy can afford to be in Congress.
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No, GLP-1s have been studied since the 1980s. The first approvals came in the early 2000s to treat diabetes. They’ve only been used for weight loss for 2 years.
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Lithium-ion batteries are clearly a bigger deal than LLMs? Why the need for such hyperbole?
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The expenditure of resources does not equate significant output. Building more data centers only means that the current AI usage requires that amount of compute, nothing more.
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Something can be both overhyped and pose serious risk. Use cases for LLMs are limited outside of copywriting (even code assistance is meh). But convincing BS is still dangerous! It floods the zone with disinfo and generally makes people less trusting.
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Bitcoin remains valuable but cryptocurrencies? NFTs? Blockchain technology generally speaking? Limited impact on the broader economy, at most. Web3 was supposed to change the world and it just didn’t.
So what will come of the current AI boom? What is the asset that stays valuable?
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Source?
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Except they’re not? OPM maintains the eOPF, which has employee actions (SF50).
If they mean real HR systems, those are agency (Dept / Bureau) specific, and siloed by design. The systems are antiquated because Congress doesn’t fund back office functions sufficiently.
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Don’t overthink it - they’re Nationalist Conservatives or Nat-C’s. Any resemblance to historical groups or parties is completely happenstance.
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There is a realignment going on between the parties that would be more interesting and engaging… Except for the authoritarianism.
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The public facing people? No. But the nameless, thankless White House staffers and Schedule C’s that make the exec branch run? Perhaps.
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That’s why I called out the three buckets of RDTE I did - those are the parts that are pure Research. I did not include the programs that build / test prototypes. The military is still a massive driver of materials sciences and, yes, infectious disease research (particularly tropical diseases).
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DOD did $152B in RDTE in FY25, of which 15% was Basic / Applied Research and Advd Tech Dev. DOD is the biggest driver of research in the fedl govt.