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Staying with the US Digital Service

mattcutts.com

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Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#181

Post by codeonfire »

thisnotmyacc wrote: post #129
codeonfire wrote: post #49

Trump is going to shut this down unfortunately. I don't think people have really come to terms with what is going to change. If there is anything digital that needs done, some republican backed defense contractor is going to do it for 100x the price.

This sort of scare mongering is just plain weird.

This isn't scare mongering. Just my opinion about how things are going to go from someone who lived through Reagan and both Bushes. The main theme of right wing parties is to reduce government, but their stated goal of reducing taxes always turns out to be a crock of shit. Their motivation is to get tax dollars (and borrowed dollars) flowing to right wing organizations. Remember faith based initiatives? They had tax money flowing to churches.

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#183

Post by mc32 »

shostack wrote: post #154
danso wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a volunteer corps. For a lot of people, the military is one of the best job options as it also offers paid education via the G.I. Bill.

>"the military is one of the best job options" That seems like a problem in and of itself, and certainly a more pressing one.

Many advanced countries require people of a certain age to do a stint in the military.

I think a volunteer force is preferable to a conscripted force.

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#184

Post by prostoalex »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #178
prostoalex wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the top 500 coders declined to participate in a project that savagely violates human rights - and encouraged this as a norm in our communities - isn't it plausible that doing so could either prevent, derail, or meaningfully weaken such a project? Not sure what the top 500 vote totals were on this, but when Snowden's documents revealed existence of a massive domestic surveillance program that included large amoun…

Phone metadata isn't "large amounts of data," nor do the programs using it qualify as a "massive domestic surveillance program."

I admittedly have little visibility into the scope of NSA programs, so have to resort to media for subjective evaluation of what constitutes "massive" or "domestic".

BBC called it "extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-23123964

Wired described "the vast scope of the government’s domestic surveillance programs" in reference to Snowden leaks. https://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden/

EFF refers to NSA's access to "large streams of domestic and international communications" https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/how-it-works

Assuming that journalists tend to sensationalize I'd agree to apply a grain a salt for these statements, but is there an argument suggesting NSA's operation was fairly small scale and is not indicative of their capability to build large systems?

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#185

Post by [deleted] »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #178
prostoalex wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the top 500 coders declined to participate in a project that savagely violates human rights - and encouraged this as a norm in our communities - isn't it plausible that doing so could either prevent, derail, or meaningfully weaken such a project? Not sure what the top 500 vote totals were on this, but when Snowden's documents revealed existence of a massive domestic surveillance program that included large amoun…

Phone metadata isn't "large amounts of data," nor do the programs using it qualify as a "massive domestic surveillance program."

[deleted]

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#186

Post by jconley »

Just a warning for everyone from California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, etc. They do require you to certify for the background screening that you have not done any federally illegal drugs in the last 12 months, and possibly do drug tests. Might not want to spend too much time on it if that applies to you.

https://www.usds.gov/join#who

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#187

Post by dejawu »

jconley wrote: post #186

Just a warning for everyone from California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, etc. They do require you to certify for the background screening that you have not done any federally illegal drugs in the last 12 months, and possibly do drug tests. Might not want to spend too much time on it if that applies to you. https://www.usds.gov/join#who

This is such a shame. I remember the NSA and FBI having trouble finding techies because basically everyone they interviewed had smoked weed sometime in the last five years.

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#188

Post by throwaway9865 »

throwaway9865 wrote: post #71

Hi Looking at the salary and that I'm in Baltimore making $135k as Sr. UI/UXer (designing/coding sites apps for Govt agencies) I'm not sure the salary range of up to $163k would be worth it. That's probably not for UI/UXers or is it? My rent here in Baltimore with utilities is 2k ... if I moved to D.C. A lot of the additional salary would be absorbed by the doubling or tripling my cost of rent. Thus I wonder why remo…

$163k is very good money and awesome money for someone living in and around Baltimore.

I'd definitely consider if there were opportunities to work remotely each week a few days and commute in other days.

I think I'd be a good candidate with my interesting startup journey stories(a sad meet up story with Google re: a buy out, reality TV and other stories)and my experience working for govt. agencies here in Baltimore. But that would be up to those at the USDS to decide if I'm a good candidate or not.

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#189

Post by saycheese »

grepthisab wrote: post #182
mi100hael wrote: post #180

Anyone know who the guy in the video giving the speech with his shirt buttoned all the way up is? Edit: wow I don't recognize Jobs with a beard.

Steve Jobs.

>> Steve Jobs: "When you grow up you, tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Unedited version: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ydp6bR5HXw

Re: Staying with the US Digital Service

#190

Post by danso »

shostack wrote: post #154
danso wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a volunteer corps. For a lot of people, the military is one of the best job options as it also offers paid education via the G.I. Bill.

>"the military is one of the best job options" That seems like a problem in and of itself, and certainly a more pressing one.

Yes, the fact that our military is more racially diverse than our general population is a reflection of our socioeconomic gaps. Ironically, blacks were initially excluded from the WW2 draft because "prejudiced questions about their ability to fight and worries that tensions between black and white servicemen might erupt." [0]

[0] http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/your-numbers-up/

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