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Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

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Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#351

Post by jeffrallen »

thrfedsci022425 wrote: post #38
knowknow wrote: post #11

Sad to say but this will be the norm for the next 4 years, don’t expect any federal organization to come out intact. I’ve basically ruled out working as a federal employee as there’s no assurances about anything.

Federal scientist here. The situation is dire, and this is only the beginning. We've lost all employees with < 1 year of service, which has halted the new projects they were hired to work on. Leaders of 100 employee offices were booted since they had less than 1 year of federal service--back to another interim director. Those of us left are hamstrung since all travel has been canceled, and our credit cards will have…

Hang in there. Thank you for monitoring the volcanoes, anyway.

Start a gofundme for your IoT subscription maybe? :)

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#352

Post by ellen364 »

kortilla wrote: post #326
mandevil wrote: post #201

The National Science Foundation funded the original research that became Google: https://www.nsf.gov/news/origins-google That grant in the area of library science led directly to one of the most valuable companies on the planet, creating far more value (2.2 trillion is today's market cap) from that one Digital Library Initiative grant to Stanford Professors Hector Garcia-Molina and Terry Winograd (plus a NSF Graduate…

Trying to tie Google to one single grant doesn’t make sense, nor does associating the market cap of that company to that one grant make sense. Google owes far more to TCP/IP research from DARPA than that particular library grant. But even then, the meta point is that you need lots of research pushing forward all edges of knowledge. It is very rare that any single grant can result in a massive successful business at t…

The grandparent article claims that Page and Brin were paid by NSF, working on DLI projects while researching PageRank and that the equipment for their prototype crawler was partly paid for by DLI.

If that's true, I'd say they're very fortunate that the Digital Library Initiative existed and that they could put their research into the public domain to reuse it for free at Google. In another context, I'd call the DLI an angel investor and they'd have wanted a slice of that Google pie.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#353

Post by cancerhacker »

MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #140
btilly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump I have no explanation for except corruption. But Musk and DOGE, there is a simple explanation. Musk has learned that you take a chainsaw to sacred cows, then fix the 10% that were really bad mistakes, and that is the easiest way to cut through bureaucracy. So he's trying that, at scale. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like he'll notice most of his bad mistakes. Because it is at scale, and his attention doesn't go…

Yeah, this slash and burn approach is legitimately good in many circumstances. You cut through cruft, break down old unneeded processes, and things that are needed but were undocumented become quickly documented and maybe refurbished. Things that break are quickly noticed and reinstated. It really doesn't work for huge complex systems where the breakages aren't felt fully for many years, and building the systems back…

When you’re refactoring a system (which is really what he’s claiming to want to do) you don’t just delete the repository and start with main(). You figure out where the edges are, how they fit together, where are the Chesterton Fences and how can we protect them until they’re understood. A/B unit testing.

This takes a non-zero amount of time and it takes careful consideration by subject experts.

I can’t really speak to your hopefulness of good intentions - as a parent that relies on government agencies to help my special needs child with the tools she needs, I see no hope here.

What does success look like? How long should the chaos and pain last before you’re beyond hope? Will there be remuneration for people that are materially hurt by this scorched earth policy? How will you be hurt, personally?

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#354

Post by mise_en_place »

coliveira wrote: post #287
jltsiren wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is based on a too literal interpretation of democracy. Democracy had a bad reputation in the ancient world, because unconstrained majority decisions often led to terrible outcomes. In the modern world, democracy usually means liberal democracy, which includes things like the rule of law and constitutional protections. As a rough approximation, a constitution exists to prevent the government from doing what the v…

One thing Americans don't seem to realize is that the current constitution needs to be rewritten once we get out of this mess. One of the consequences of dictatorships is that they deform the constitution for their purposes. It seems that republicans have done enough to deform the system in an irreparable way.

Do you volunteer for such a massive undertaking?

Sarcasm aside, I'm seeing a lot of wackiness on both sides of the political spectrum lately. The Constitution is fine and provides provisions for changing it via amendments. You guys aren't involved in the political process at all, I caucused and was a delegate so I can tell you the system is fine and working as intended. Don't complain about it if you aren't even involved in the process. That just makes you look silly.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#355

Post by throwawaymaths »

frozenport wrote: post #324
throwawaymaths wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder whether somebody from the opposing side can provide a reasonable logical explanation for the Musk/Trump actions. i am not on trump's side (i hate trump; i am neutral on musk except these past few weeks i think he's said -- but not yet really done -- things that are a bit beyond the pale, even for him) but i think this will be positive for American science. as i posted in sibling comment: > to steelman the…

No because these cuts do nothing to address fraud. In the immediate it seems to have cut short the next generation of scientists leaving more of the entrenched old hands.

im not arguing intent, I'm arguing effect. the effect depends on how bad the rot is. the existing system is so bad it seems incapable of self-policing (tessier-lavigne was exposed by an undergraduate journalism major, not a fellow scientist). maybe it's time to start over, any 'partial' solution will have a hell of a time figuring out who to cut and who to keep.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#356

Post by esalman »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #268
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We may be looking at a lost decade. We're looking at the US wilfully letting go of the possibiility of remaining the most powerful nation in the world. Reduced health, reduced education, reduced funding for research, reduced international aid programs (which both garner goodwill whilst also creating a bulwark against those who profit from misery), reduced oversight / regulation of the power of capital, alienation o…

I keep oscillating between are they just stupid or are they malicious and I'm starting to settle on the latter given the kinds of actions this administration is taking. Ironic that their voters thought they'd be mAkINg AMeRIcA gREaT aGAin when in fact they're going to cause us to lose our leadership role in many areas.

It's a good thing you are "starting to settle" 2025. I mean before 2020 they disbanded federal bodies for pandemic prep and look what happened.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#357

Post by mixermachine »

rights_reminder wrote: post #243

I know these cuts make almost no difference to the massive federal spending, but they are putting a spotlight on our nation's dire financial situation. Most young people have no hope of owning a home or having kids and our federal government is "borrowing" money to pay for all of these things. Last year it added 1830 billion dollars to the national debt while paying 1126 billion in interest. Take a look at the dollar…

Cutting funding for research and development can be considered stealing from kids. Not the current generation but the next one.

I'm from Europe and the current US politics discourages me from buying US products. I guess this will push a new Europe first movement on this side of the globe. Not the scenario I wished for because I quite liked the more open system.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#358

Post by exe34 »

try_the_bass wrote: post #339
mindslight wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The levers of accountability could have been pulled any time, so it stands to say that they were still accountable. Perhaps they weren't held accountable as much as you or I would have liked. But the authority was there. But either way I don't really see what greater point you're trying to make.

Just that there is no practical difference between "seeming unaccountable" and "being unaccountable", especially if, as you say, "the levers of accountability could have been pulled", but weren't. If the departments aren't being held accountable, they are, by definition, acting unaccountably. You seemed to disagree, and be trying to make a distinction where no practical difference can be found. You also seem to agree…

> but weren't

Does that imply unaccountable, or does it mean Congress thought they were doing a good job?

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#359

Post by rhubarbtree »

arunabha wrote: post #174

There are obviously strong emotions on both sides regarding the actions of the first few weeks of the Trump administration. Whether you believe the goals are worthy or not, one must acknowledge that the manner in which all of this is being done is deeply disturbing. Trump will be gone in a few years, one way or the other. However, the foundations that are being poured for legitimizing a strongman, authoritarian role…

I think it’s the end of US hegemony, and might be the beginning of a very steep decline. China is on course to lead the world, but I think it will be multipolar and the US will gradually descend to a middling power over the next fifty years.

The reason, I think, is that a kind of social compact died. Powerful corporate interests neglected much of the American population, which bred resentment and anger now harnessed by Trump, Musk, et al.

I don’t see a fix, I’m not even sure it can be fixed. It took decades to offshore so much of the American economy, but I don’t think anyone will be given decades to fix it.

I wonder how history will judge the American era.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#360

Post by mixermachine »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #148
snowwrestler wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it saving money if the cost is just shifted elsewhere? Why does it matter where the work is done except for empty ideological signaling?

The cost would be borne by the consumers of Telcos / wireless services rather than by all taxpayers. The Telcos would allocate funding / resources based on their financial position and their needs. I dunno, tbh maybe the government can do a better job at right-sizing the service and running it efficiently than the private sector could? Maybe! But it feels like most arguments along these lines would also apply to the…

Companies develop closed source technology that benefits them (as it is expect). This is done X times (where X is companies that offer services). A government agency does preferably develop open source or atleast nationally available knowledge/solutions.

This will raise prices

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