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Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

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Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#331

Post by ben_w »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #326
ben_w wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to catch it from behind, just put yourself in it's path and let Starship's own kinetic energy cause the damage with your own velocity being nearly stationary vs the ground at the time. Aiming is one of the easier things: huge target, multi-gigwatt heat signiature.

> Aiming is one of the easier things: huge target, multi-gigwatt heat signiature You’re describing boost-stage missile intercept. It’s incredibly hard.

For strategic use against ICBMs, yes.

For an extremely well advertised launch into a predetermined flight path of something which isn't even trying to hide its signature and where you can watch the livestream of the countdown?

Perhaps I'm still underestimating the challenge, but I think boost stage vs Starship is a much less of a challenge than boost stage vs. an actual weapon.

But yeah, given your background, if you say I'm wrong, I know to defer to you on this.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#332

Post by readthenotes1 »

philistine wrote: post #27
selykg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely insane that this is what we've come to. It is mind blowing to me that this is what people want. We are regressing this country so rapidly that we are likely to become one of those shithole countries the president so loudly proclaimed Haiti, El Salvador and others were.

The is exactly a move the people in power in those troubled countries will use to maintain control over government. It used to be that the US government had pride in its own professionalism. The US is now acting like the countries it loves to destabilize.

"It used to be that the US government had pride in its own professionalism. "

The phrase "good enough for government work" has never been a positive in my lifetime.

But I'm sure the Dulles brothers were proudful...

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#333

Post by rurp »

_heimdall wrote: post #181
deadbabe wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to ask with all this disruption, what if we were hit with a massive 9/11 scale attack right now?

Unfortunately war does tend to have a way of rallying both sides together. Tribalism tends to just need an "other" group to demonize. A 9/11 scale attack would make it pretty easy for supporters of both parties to turn their sights on whoever they think attacked us.

That's certainly true in general but I can't think of an attack that was preceded by such a visible effort to make the country more vulnerable. There would be some rallying effect, but it might be smaller and shorter lived than usual especially if the response is bungled. Then again, things might have become so cultish that reality completely stops mattering and trump skates by once again without any responsibility.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#334

Post by palata »

jgilias wrote: post #129
palata wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is now acting like the countries it loves to destabilize. Ironically, it's destabilising itself on its own.

That’s what the successful decades long Russian psyop would want you to believe. I’m not talking primarily about agent Krasnov allegation from a top Kazakh ex-spook (though that is an actual possibility), but about the well known Russian influence operations by financing what used to be extremists (both far-right and far-left) across the West.

Well, Russian psyop has brought the US to destabilise themselves on their own. The people elected Trump.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#335

Post by rurp »

dingnuts wrote: post #219
mordae wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JFYI federal government headcount of 2M people has stayed constant over last 100 years with ever increasing population and things to take care of. I wouldn't call that bloat, honestly. What has been growing a lot are mostly municipalities, which I guess boils down to more people helping disadvantaged kids in schools, which I guess is nice and more policing, which many are calling to shrink and replace with something…

> disrupting or bribing competing nations, ... and protecting your fucking imaginary property everybody in the world fucking hates. Wait, I'm confused. Are you upset that Trump might stop the CIA from disrupting foreign nations? Because that's something I've always been ashamed about as an American so I'm having trouble being upset about the intelligence apparatus that everyone hates worldwide apparently getting fire…

There is a big difference between disrupting a neutral country versus an active adversary. But I suspect you already know that and aren't being sincere.

> Regardless, it has come to the point where we cannot afford the interest on our debt

I agree that our debt payments are a growing issue. That's one of the many reasons I think that this administration is going to leave behind a vastly weaker country. If you actually believe that Trump/Elon are serious about this take a look what percentage of the federal budget is comprised of salaries, and look out how much money they want to spend on tax cuts, border security, and a myriad of corrupt contracts. You'll find that the latter is much larger than the former.

I'm sure you won't be swayed by anything I say but I hope you will take a look at the current national debt and check it again in a couple years. When you see that it has become vastly worse under this administration perhaps you'll reevaluate whatever has led you to believe their obvious lies about trying to balance the budget.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#336

Post by rurp »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #221
danaris wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insane that anyone actually believes that it's being done for efficiency. It's not, and never was. It's being done a) to drive people to quit, so they don't have to lay them off, and b) to restore the power dynamic to the status quo ante , where your manager could just look over at your cubicle and see you in your seat, and know that whether or not you were working , you were still there to bow to them. (And man…

> many of them genuinely have zero metric for gauging "how much is Aurornis working?" besides measuring the amount of time a butt is in a seat This is a legitimate problem though. Obviously making people do all their work from a centralized office location is a horribly inefficient solution, but it is a solution, and if there really is widespread slacking happening it might still be more efficient than doing nothing.

If a manager doesn't have any better way to judge if their employees are working than to check seat attendance then that manager is useless.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#337

Post by troyvit »

Brybry wrote: post #308
troyvit wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welp, maybe those eligible voters who didn't vote will remember next time that not voting is the same as voting for the winner.

I didn't vote. I have various (bad) reasons: - I live in a deeply partisan state where the outcome was predetermined: a disproportionate amount of those who didn't vote would have to vote in the opposite of those who voted (if I lived in a different state the pressure to vote would have been greater) - I lack an easy means to get to my polling location and my state makes absentee ballots difficult to get - I would ha…

I was pretty flippant and your reply makes it clear that there's a lot more going on than the apathy I was hinting at. Anybody who cares about democracy should look at those reasons very seriously to see what we can do better (polling locations, difficulty with absentee ballots, privacy issues to say the least).

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#338

Post by mirekrusin »

metalliqaz wrote: post #261
mirekrusin wrote: post #220

This situation reminds me how people were declaring the end of twitter with swift, unconventional moves. It's worth looking back from time perspective.

Well that would be bad news. Twitter has since turned into a company that can't make money because its too toxic for advertisers.

Reports from Feb 2025 say that X doubled its adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) from $682 million in 2021 (the last full year before the takeover).

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#339

Post by joquarky »

rurp wrote: post #336
Ajedi32 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many of them genuinely have zero metric for gauging "how much is Aurornis working?" besides measuring the amount of time a butt is in a seat This is a legitimate problem though. Obviously making people do all their work from a centralized office location is a horribly inefficient solution, but it is a solution, and if there really is widespread slacking happening it might still be more efficient than doing nothing.

If a manager doesn't have any better way to judge if their employees are working than to check seat attendance then that manager is useless.

The pay for such a simple supervisory task that needs only attendance-taking skill should be near minimum wage.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#340

Post by datadeft »

nemomarx wrote: post #14
datadeft wrote: post #6

It kind of weird to have employees without an office. How could that happen?

with WFH it doesn't seem very weird to me? why have the central office if the work is getting done anyway

I WFH for 20 years but never had a job where we did not have an office.
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