When I hear people talk about the efficiency of the private sector, I assume they are more experienced with small businesses. A small business can be very efficient because the management is close to everything. Corporate America is shockingly inefficient.
-Adam ________________________________ From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> on behalf of Chuck <ch...@go-mtc.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 10:32 PM To: af@af.afmug.com <af@af.afmug.com> Cc: af@af.afmug.com <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov) Yeah, was done more for shock value than anything else. I don’t have a problem if they put some study into it. For example spacex is going to advise on a software makeover for the FAA. I don’t expect this to any better than the last three attempts. No upside for spacex. But good for entrenched bureaucrats to feel what the private sector feels every day. Perform or get the axe. They have never had incentive to watch the spending. Sent from my iPhone On Feb 18, 2025, at 3:05 PM, Ken Hohhof <khoh...@kwom.com> wrote: I am worried about the cuts going on at NIH, CDC, FAA, NASA, DHS, VA, etc. Especially since it doesn’t seem to be based on cutting specific programs or culling low performers, just across the board firing of 1-2 year employees who don’t have civil service protection yet. If they’re easy to fire, they’re gone. This includes experienced people whose “probationary” clock got reset due to a transfer or promotion, or younger people who maybe were the future of the agencies. Whether this is to blindly free up money for tax cuts or to replace them with political appointees I don’t know. No doubt with all the cost overruns at places like NASA there are many big opportunities to cut costs, but the way to do that is to cut programs and then look at skillsets and decide who to reassign and who to let go. But that’s not what’s happening. I am worried about avian flu and stuff like measles, doesn’t seem to be the time to be blindly cutting staff at NIH and CDC. And why are we cutting at VA, is that waste? If so, yes, some transparency about how those cuts were decided might be nice. I see Silicon Valley tech companies do cuts like this all the time, and we can be amused at it, but it’s their company and they can do as they please. We should demand better from our elected (and unelected) officials, because the impact isn’t just memes and lolz. The missions of agencies like NIH, CDC, FAA and VA are serious business, lives are literally at stake. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 3:43 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov) Steve, I see your point, but some important distinctions are that whatever we do at a private company doesn't have to fit within the boundaries of the US Constitution, and the company's role isn't dictated by a legal statute. Congress is supposed to be in charge of where money is spent. The president can ask congress for money for one thing or another and use the veto power as a stick to encourage congress to pass a budget they're willing to sign. The executive branch also has some latitude on interpretation, implementation, and enforcement of whatever missions they've been assigned by the legislature. So it goes back to what I said earlier: Do you trust that they're actually cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse"? Are they just deciding not to spend money on things regardless of the law? I'm willing to withhold judgement until they produce some documentation of the waste, fraud, and abuse. I do want something with a little more heft than a tweet though. -Adam ________________________________ From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com<mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com>> on behalf of Steve Jones <thatoneguyst...@gmail.com<mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com>> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 2:35 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com<mailto:af@af.afmug.com>> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov<http://www.doge.gov>) This isnt new. NPR succeeded here for sure. Its a weird thing to see people manipulated so easily. Our industry pays consultants all the time, but apparently cant figure this one out without NPR telling them what to feel. I laugh really hard because im currently in a similar role. Im 1099 at a company, Im advising, I sit in the leadership committee meetings, I direct their staff. My decisions are pretty much pre-approved with the leadership committees approval as long as those decisions align with the company vision....... sounds oddly familiar, that is why I laugh at the NPR flock. The board of advisors at first was apprehensive, but then they were professional adults and actually listened to the leadership committee about what I was doing. Then they were like "oh, thats, thats really common" and they went about their day. Its weird that people who live in a hybrid role world cant comprehend that somebody can be in charge of a team, while not being a formal team lead. its like everybody decided that now being a boomer is ok, to that I say "OK Boomer" and roll my eyes On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 1:11 PM Bill Prince <part15...@gmail.com<mailto:part15...@gmail.com>> wrote: So now the administration is claiming Elon is NOT in charge of DOGE.... https://www.npr.org/2025/02/18/g-s1-49450/elon-musk-doge-leader Shall we call this the Keystone Cops administration, or maybe the Whack-a-mole administration? I suspect it is going to get stranger and stranger as this farce goes on. bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 2/16/2025 5:23 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: Boring Company says they have a MOU for a 17 km tunnel in Dubai. https://www.boringcompany.com/dubai From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com><mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Robert Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2025 7:11 PM To: af@af.afmug.com<mailto:af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov<http://www.doge.gov>) I should reply with a picture of Lucy with the football and Charlie Brown... On 2/16/25 3:26 PM, Chuck wrote: Read an article today about him admitting AD has been a failure but vowing to get it right on the next iteration. Sent from my iPhone On Feb 16, 2025, at 4:57 PM, Robert <i...@avantwireless.com><mailto:i...@avantwireless.com> wrote: I think at this point, Tesla is a few brain cells for him. He'll show up for publicity or to smother revolt, but it's on autopilot otherwise for him. He rips off any talent that shows up, the only way he delivers self drive is through removing regulation, and legal responsibility. We had a cybertruck go into a power pole with no real cause, as far as the driver could tell. The driver took responsibility for not watching over the truck but that's not really AD. That bar has moved as much as the stock price. On 2/16/25 2:29 PM, Bill Prince wrote: and if Tesla was selling as many cars as BYD is right now, the Tesla numbers would double. BYD is running circles around Tesla right now, and is killing pretty much every other car maker on the planet. If he put as much energy into making Tesla as he did in tearing down all those whining lefties, Tesla would be a barn burner. bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 2/16/2025 1:50 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: OK, maybe you’re right. Hard to tell where his head’s at. What he did at X/Twitter seemed more like running it into the ground out of spite than trying to make money. And he’s trying to say Tesla is an AI company not a car company. His net worth is cited as around $400 billion, but that’s stock valuation, right? Not liquid. Not like Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold coins. I seem to remember he had to borrow money to buy Twitter. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/how-will-elon-musk-pay-twitter-2022-10-07/ From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com><mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Bill Prince Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2025 3:29 PM To: af@af.afmug.com<mailto:af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov<http://www.doge.gov>) Think he doesn't care? Right now Tesla annual revenue is $97 billion/year, of which about $17 billion of that is considered profit. SpaceX might be doing great, but Tesla dwarfs SpaceX by almost an order of magnitude. bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 2/16/2025 1:05 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: Not sure he cares. Besides, SpaceX is supposedly his big moneymaker, and its #1 customer thinks quite highly of him. I’ve also read that Starlink has started to be a cash cow. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/ Other Musk companies like Boring Company and Neuralink don’t seem like genius business ideas. But something has to finance his missions to Mars. https://people.com/human-interest/elon-musk-once-said-mars-needs-people-after-mark-cuban-asked-how-many-kids-he-wants/ It is being claimed he is up to 13 kids now, that would put him ahead of Nick Cannon. https://people.com/parents/all-about-nick-cannon-kids/ But I don’t think Elon is the white Nick Cannon, more like the white Kanye West? From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com><mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Bill Prince Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2025 2:08 PM To: af@af.afmug.com<mailto:af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] DOGE website (www.doge.gov<http://www.doge.gov>) Seems Elon may be backing himself into a hole. People who have been the biggest buyers of Tesla vehicles are now being repulsed by his antics. People who have not, and probably will not buy electric vehicles aren't going to start buying them because, well, they're electric. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/15/tesla-troubles-mount-as-musk-goes-full-rogue/ bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 2/15/2025 3:58 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: https://www.wired.com/story/doge-website-is-just-one-big-x-ad/ DOGE’s Website Is Just One Big X Ad The source code for the new Department of Government Efficiency’s “official US government website” points to X as its primary source of authority, while sharing links to the site sends users to x.com<http://x.com>. At a press conference in the Oval Office<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/12/tech/elon-musk-x-oval-office/index.html> this week, Elon Musk promised the actions of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)<https://www.wired.com/tag/doge/> project would be “maximally transparent,” thanks to information posted to its website. At the time of his comment, the DOGE website was empty<https://bsky.app/profile/joncooper-us.bsky.social/post/3lhwsmk4iac2u>. However, when the site finally came online Thursday morning, it turned out to be little more than a glorified feed of posts from the official DOGE account on Musk’s own X platform, raising new questions about Musk’s conflicts of interest in running DOGE<https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293382/x-elon-musk-doge-cfpb>. DOGE.gov claims to be an “official website of the United States government,” but rather than giving detailed breakdowns of the cost savings and efficiencies Musk claims his project is making, the homepage of the site just replicated posts from the DOGE account on X. A WIRED review of the page’s source code shows that the promotion of Musk’s own platform went deeper than replicating the posts on the homepage. The source code shows that the site’s canonical tags<https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization> direct search engines to x.com<http://x.com> rather than DOGE.gov. A canonical tag is a snippet of code that tells search engines what the authoritative version of a website is. It is typically used by sites with multiple pages as a search engine optimization tactic, to avoid their search ranking being diluted. In DOGE’s case, however, the code is informing search engines that when people search for content found on DOGE.gov, they should not show those pages in search results, but should instead display the posts on X. “It is promoting the X account as the main source, with the website secondary,” Declan Chidlow, a web developer<https://vale.rocks/>, tells WIRED. “This isn't usually how things are handled, and it indicates that the X account is taking priority over the actual website itself.” Advertisement All the other US government websites WIRED checked used their own homepage in their canonical tags, including the official White House website. Additionally, when sharing the DOGE website on mobile devices, the source code creates a link to the DOGE X account rather than the website itself. “It seems that the DOGE website is secondary, and they are prodding people in the direction of the X account everywhere they can,” Chidlow adds. Alongside the homepage feed of X posts, a section of Doge.gov labeled “Savings” now appears. So far the page is empty except for a single line that reads: “Receipts coming soon, no later than Valentine's day,” followed by a heart emoji<https://www.wired.com/story/heart-emoji-lost-all-meaning/>. A section entitled “Workforce” features some bar charts showing how many people work in each government agency, with the information coming from data gathered by the Office of Personnel Management in March 2024. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page reads: “This is DOGE's effort to create a comprehensive, government-wide org chart. This is an enormous effort, and there are likely some errors or omissions. We will continue to strive for maximum accuracy over time.” Another section, entitled “Regulations,” features what DOGE calls the “Unconstitutionality Index,” which it describes as “the number of agency rules created by unelected bureaucrats for each law passed by Congress in 2024.” The charts in this section are also based on data previously collected by US government agencies. Doge.gov also links to a Forbes article from last month that was written by Clyde Wayne Crews, a member of the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that pushed climate change disinformation<https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/heartland-institute-leak-exposes-strategies-of-climate-attack-machine/> and questioned the links between tobacco and lung cancer<https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/heartland-institute/>. It is also a major advocate for privatizing government departments<https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/in-shift-key-climate-denialist-group-heartland-institute-pivots-to-policy/>. The site also features a “Join” page which allows prospective DOGE employees to apply for roles including “software engineers, InfoSec engineers, and other technology professionals.” As well as requesting a Github account and résumé, the form asks visitors to “provide 2-3 bullet points showcasing exceptional ability.” The website does not list a developer, but on Wednesday, web application security expert Sam Curry outlined in a thread on X<https://x.com/samwcyo/status/1889527715029557607> how he was able to identify the developer of the site as DOGE employee Kyle Shutt. Curry claims he was able to link a Cloudflare account ID found in the site’s source code to Shutt, who used the same account when developing Musk’s America PAC<https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-election-denial-community-x/> website. On Thursday, Drop Site News<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/doge-fema-funding-access-social-security-numbers> reported, citing sources within FEMA, that Shutt had gained access to the agency’s proprietary software controlling payments. Earlier this week, Business Insider reported<https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-staff-list-white-house-2025-2> that Shutt, who recently worked at an AI interviewing software company, was listed as one of 30 people working for DOGE. Neither Shutt, DOGE, nor the White House responded to requests for comment. -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com<mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com<mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
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