Hotspur

I agree with your assessment: I find it both fascinating (who would have thought each new thing was actually possible, what insane bad idea will be launched today?) and horrifying.

Still working out the coping aspect, as what’s going on directly affects me and some of my family, but mostly switch between paying very close attention and trying to game out what the agenda is, and then taking a day to not pay attention and live in calm denial.

No, obviously not. Next article New York Times.

Yep, for sure. The tradeoff was supposed to be the higher protections that come with competitive service positions, but those protections are being ignored or illegally removed week by week, so yeah at this point anyone should be allowed to join the union.

But to be honest? Its looking more and more like the admin is going to break binding union agreements as well so maybe it’s all just fucked.

Many positions in federal service are banned from joining unions—most of the higher scale / subject matter expert and “white color” roles.

These were doctors and epidemiologists, and were also in a special 2 year program, so they wouldn’t have had the standard protections of competitive service, and might also have been excluded from union membership.

Worth noting that aside from some lawsuit exposure, fed unions are not allowed, by law, to strike. (Reagan terminated thousands of air traffic controllers when they struck and replaced them with scab labor as an example) And the current admin doesn’t seem to scared of laws or lawsuits at the moment. (Hopefully they’re wrong in that confidence, but who knows)

I would join a union in a heartbeat, but my position is barred from it.

Wow that article really carries a lot of water. Trimming fat and reigning in spending huh? How can any news outlet credibly claim this is about cost savings. The amount of wastage being caused by this chaos alone will likely make it a wash for the next two years. Not to mention the vastly larger sums of money the govt outlays in virtually every other area of govt.

I also wish they’d discuss how the employees are being laid off. As many keep mentioning, govt is not a business, and it does not operate line one. Was this DOE terminating probationary employees? Was this an RIF procedure? Because those have strict guidelines about selection and I doubt you’d end up having essential nuclear security workers included. Even if it were probationary employees, the OPM memo allows leeway at the agency level to preserve some amount of these essential positions/departments. Were all of those nuclear security workers part of a woke DEI initiative to increase minority visibility in the nuclear protection workplace?

Given the scale of fuckup here, I’m guessing DOGE just said fire these list of people based on who knows what and the agency leadership appointee-stooges just sent out the emails, oblivious of regulation and worker protections, or even their own best interest with respect to guarding nuclear stockpiles and radiological materials. Mostly because no person involved in that loop HAS A FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY'RE DOING.

AFAIK you simply can’t just “lay off” competitive service / excepted federal workers. Of course, as we know, laws and regulations mean nothing to the current admin so that very likely wouldn’t stop them or their lackeys installed in leadership at the agencies.

If any of the laid off can afford it, I hope they ignore the recall. Sue the govt and hopefully it works out. No one should consider doing new business with the federal government. It’s clear that no contract will be honored and no promise kept, if it doesn’t suit the admin/admin minders’ aims.

Yeah it’s really been making my mind melt. The constant malicious lies that musk keeps tweeting for instance are treated as credible, when he clearly hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about, etc.

I still can’t figure out if there’s like an actual protocol for engaging things like RIF / downsizing where you have to show rationale and evidence… it blows my mind that any president could just decide to unilaterally shelve agencies, etc.

But I guess it’s kinda a moot point if there isn’t any enforcement of laws or if congress doesn’t have any interest in maintaining their power portfolio.

The article could be incorrect, but they state that OPM is directing all agencies to terminate their probationary employees. OPM is the source of all these agency directives that come from exec orders. The exec order is created and then OPM issues “guidance” to all the other agencies about what they are required to do per the order.

So no, this is not just OPM, it’s every agency that has not been exempted (based on the memo, which we haven’t seen yet). The RTO guidance and DEI removal guidance also came from OPM. There is some per-agency leeway provided (again we’ll have to see the memo) but my understanding is agencies generally have to comply with OPM direction unless it’s unlawful (this may or may not be, I don’t know).

Yeah ok makes sense. Plus like you said you can always over build the piece, etc. and if it breaks after a few months, you can always reprint it haha.

This is the kind of shit that always sells 3d printing to me, when is see someone solve a whacky problem they have that otherwise would be kinda hard to pull off.

I’m guessing that these days the filaments/resins are getting pretty high durability on the consumer market?

To everyone pointing out that he won’t be charged, OP’s question was can he be charged. Yes we get that it’s unlikely given the current configuration of us gov’t, but do his actions meet the basic requirements? Yes, absolutely.

That said, most billionaires probably meet the definition.

Oh and at least with my hardware, the surface keyboard and trackpad worked out of the box, no problems. I’d pay special attention to any special wireless drivers you might need because if wireless doesn’t come up, you can’t hardwire the thing to get the driver. (USB could do it though I guess)

I’ve been in-process trying to flip a surface pro 6 into a Linux tablet for a while now. Can’t answer all your questions but can provide a few. First things first: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

That’s your hub for most of tue stuff you’ll need to do it. You can look up your hardware in their feature matrix and see what is supported.

Generally touch and stylus work. Things like camera are much more hit or miss.

In terms of distro… welp it’s always kinda impossible to make a “right choice”. Everything will have pros and cons. Originally uninstalled arch just to see if I could. And yes, it turns out you can. Problem is, I use Ubuntu on a couple of spare computers as servers and such and I’m more familiar with how that works, so I thought ok I’m having some trouble getting a couple things to work I’ll just put Ubuntu on here and then I don’t have to remember two different ways of using the OS (mind you I was using gnome in all cases, so really wasn’t a big deal to have to research a few arch specific things).

Problem is, Ubuntu fails to install. I’ve tried about 4 times and it always fails out, and I can’t figure out a way to access any install logs after the fact.

So I’m probably gonna put arch back in there because it worked, mostly.

You’ll have to be willing to tinker a bit and get used to some different ways of interacting. Overall touch was pretty ok and gnome in my case was pretty nice for navigation.

I was using an app called xournal++ for stylus/notetaking, and it seems very well featured for a Linux stylus application. That said, my pen stopped working a while ago, and I could not figure out how to fix it, which is why I was gonna try again with Ubuntu. (Xournal wasn’t to blame for the stylus problems, just couldn’t use it because stylus was useless)

I still think it’s a good learning experience, and probably a good way to resurrect an older piece of tech to usefulness. Personally I wanted to replicate stuff I do on my iPad, but be able to fully Adblock YouTube, etc. my iPad is way better for reading and handwriting, but otherwise is an obnoxious locked down operating system that I find more and more annoying. Basically it’s a great tablet but limited. Whereas like the windows version the surface is not a great tablet, but an acceptable hybrid.