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A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

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Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#311

Post by tomrod »

jameshart wrote: post #287
tomrod wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather things like this all the time. I'm against DOGE as much as 90% of the US is, but collection of open data for curiosity and interest is really not a thing to focus on.

The government has whole departments of people whose job it is to be on top of this sort of thing. Why is it suddenly part of the job description of a junior DOGE employee to build workforce org chart visualization tools and investigate strategic resource datasets? Isn’t that weird to have one brand new government employee doing self-taught random investigations of topics as complex as ‘government workforce managemen…

> Why is it suddenly part of the job description of a junior DOGE employee to build workforce org chart visualization tools and investigate strategic resource datasets?

That is totally fine to focus on. My point was focusing on the code prior to DOGE existing showing collection of GIS data.

> Isn’t that weird to have one brand new government employee doing self-taught random investigations of topics as complex as ‘government workforce management’ and ‘strategic resource analytics’?

We're in total agreement on this particular point.

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#312

Post by mistrial9 »

huslage wrote: post #223
porphyra wrote: post #112

Works created by U.S. federal government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain, according to 17 U.S.C. § 105, except for classified or restricted information (but none of what he posted is classified or restricted)

This is a ridiculous statement. The US Government (or any government) has processes to publish data so that it is well vetted and understood. Some script kiddie isn't allowed to just post things in public on his own.

roughly speaking - the work products of the US Federal Govt are public unless specifically ruled otherwise. It may be hard to believe that, but historically it is the exact opposite of the British Crown policy "all government information is restricted unless specifically ruled otherwise" IANAL

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#313

Post by soulofmischief »

cactacea wrote: post #152
soulofmischief wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there should be "why" comments. Those are great to have in any codebase. However, that does not preclude descriptive comments. Obviously, the best way to make code self-documenting is to wrap logic in a method whose name clearly describes its intended function. For one-liners however this can lead to overabstraction, and leaving a "what" comment can be entirely appropriate if the engineer decides it is.…

Every word of the comment is in the code except "the". That level of redundancy is always bad. Yes, always.

A well-placed comment serves as an anchor for the eye when skimming large amounts of code, and provides a sanity check. This is something you would come to appreciate when working in certain environments.

Does this mean every line of code needs an accompanying comment? No, that is absurd. But what's also absurd is the amount of judgement and unwarranted extrapolation over this particular bit of code, and the general defensiveness which most people in this thread seem to be engaging in. I leave comments like this sometimes if I think it helps increase code clarity.

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#314

Post by huang_chung »

chris_wot wrote: post #140
bburnett44 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the "sensitive geospatial data" is just open data. He also created the geospatial gists before trump was in office so he definitely didn't have access to critical data then https://web.archive.org/web/20250228230950/https://gist.gith...

The problem is, compiling the list like he has, and being on the DOGE team, makes it all very, very suspicious. And it is sensitive data - even if it is open. Those are important infrastructure locations.

> And it is sensitive data - even if it is open.

This is literally contradictory.

Data does not become sensitive because some random on HN says so. You are speaking with authority but have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#315

Post by FreebasingLLMs »

a12k wrote: post #201
FreebasingLLMs wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Calm down...You're behaving in a histrionic way. This sort of condescension is characteristic of people who hold the opinions you do. The rest of your post is complete nonsense.

[flagged]

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#316

Post by tomrod »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #210
tomrod wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather things like this all the time. I'm against DOGE as much as 90% of the US is, but collection of open data for curiosity and interest is really not a thing to focus on.

Point of contention - according to a recent YouGov[1] poll, 48% of respondents think DOGE should be kept or expanded, while only 37% think it should be reduced or eliminated. A far cry from 90% either direction. You may be subject to confirmation bias. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/doge-support-collapsing-poll-elon-m...

I don't really care about a single YouGov poll about what people think about a headline -- that's a shallow approach, misses quite a bit of context, and when used as a summary would rightly be called clickbait. Digging deeper and past propaganda, the activities of DOGE are deeply unpopular to the electorate wholesale, and my 90% claim is easily justified by a groundswell of current and long time understanding of the electorate:

- negative impact to the economy is deeply unpopular [0]

- lying about savings is deeply unpopular [1]

- threatening cuts to entitlement spending is deeply unpopular [2]

How you ask a question, what question you ask, and how you collect data will unduly influence any poll -- event with adjustments.[3] People aren't as fickle as headlines would otherwise lead you to believe.

My take on your oblique reference to "maybe [I] have confirmation bias" is that you are taking the headlines as fact and thus can dismiss anything that doesn't agree with your perspective. This may be mistaken on my part, but if you feel deep inside that it is not, then I encourage you to dig deeper.

[0] "It's the economy, stupid!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hxNKweJbc

[1] DOGE is not trusted - https://truthout.org/articles/nearly-6-in-10-voters-concerne...

[2] https://www.nasi.org/learn/social-security/public-opinions-o... - Gallup shows opinions are fairly stable even though this source is somewhat dated

[3] Now-infamous Selzer poll https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/03/trump-harris...

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#317

Post by amarcheschi »

layer8 wrote: post #252
amarcheschi wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be wrong, but I feel that the gist of posting the direct source is to avoid websites reporting a news regarding that source. Such as, amd announcing new graphics card and a blog making a post about it. And it is understandable that it would be better to post amd own's page. I would be curious about dang opinion on posting non og link that only contain the og source repackaged in a more accessible way

It’s also to automatically deduplicate submissions of the same source. And HN does for example block archive.is for submissions, to which your argument wouldn’t apply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130177 You can email hn@ycombinator.com to ask about the policy.

Oh ok, it is quite useful for disambiguation. I get that

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#318

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

Jtsummers wrote: post #205
a12k wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Bozo” is pretty lightweight for someone actively trying to destroy the foundations of this country’s government and democratic policies.

You're responding to someone who believes DOGE is getting rid of corruption in government while Musk is capturing contracts for his own companies. There's no point in responding to people like them. They aren't based in reality. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036122

Hard disagree with this take. There is certainly a purpose responding to them. Whether or not their opinion is changed comes down to them.

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#319

Post by [deleted] »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #318
Jtsummers wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're responding to someone who believes DOGE is getting rid of corruption in government while Musk is capturing contracts for his own companies. There's no point in responding to people like them. They aren't based in reality. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036122

Hard disagree with this take. There is certainly a purpose responding to them. Whether or not their opinion is changed comes down to them.

[deleted]

Re: A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub

#320

Post by belter »

belter wrote: post #53

According to official documentation submitted to the court by the current US Administration, the person running DOGE, was on holiday in Mexico when nominated.

"Gleason told a CBS reporter on Tuesday that she was in Mexico, with The New York Times later reporting that she was on a previously scheduled vacation." - https://www.thedailybeast.com/doges-mystery-leader-finally-u...
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