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The use of Signal or other disappearing message apps for government communications violates records keeping laws (that date from the age of memos) unless the user diligently screenshots and archives all messages.

All written communication for government business is supposed to be saved.

The CISA document you referenced doesn't seem to be clear on this point, although it is marked as not applying to sensitive communications anyway: "Sources may use TLP:CLEAR when information carries minimal or no foreseeable risk of misuse". https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...

It does seem like members of both political parties have had issues following the law on this point though - after all, Hillary's famous personal email server was an issue for the same reason.

The vast majority of federal spending is tied to programs like social security, Medicare, and the DoD which DOGE didn’t cut.

DOGE actions appear to have been largely based on the chaotic whims of Elon in response to perceived slights and tweets sent to him and did not have any significant effect on the budget. They chased after ghosts previously investigated by IGs and found insignificant, such as dead people on the social security rolls.

Real budget reform proposals remain out there from CRFB and others, and perhaps some future administration will undertake them when social security becomes insolvent in a few years.

“Could” is doing a lot of work there I think.

I suspect most problematic American drivers already know they aren’t supposed to text, drink, or watch or record TikToks while they drive, but simply do it anyway because they are aware these laws are under-enforced.

I think an copyright/IP assignment contract is standard in many or most U.S. software jobs, at least when working for a big enough company that they have a lawyer who handles the NDA/employment paperwork.

That pretty much automatically rules out over employment because you can’t separately promise two different companies that you’re assigning all software copyrights to them rather than you, it’s an incompatible contract (even if it’s limited to work hours - you’re pretending to both companies that you’re working 9-5 solely for them).

So they would rather be homeless? In a market without landlords, everyone who couldn’t afford to buy a home would have to live in their car or camp on the street.

Verification and validation of LLM output in this context would mean doing all the same research, training etc done today for human staff and then comparing the results line by line. It would actually take more time. How do you know if the LLM failed to apply one of hundreds of rules from a procedure unless you have a human trained on it who has also examined every relevant document and artifact from the process?

I came from a middle class family (both parents college educated with white collar jobs) and received significant financial aid offers from multiple colleges (2 decade ago). A mix of grants and subsidized federal loans.

I think it depends a lot on the family’s position within the middle class. Upper middle class families will not be eligible for financial aid, while members of the lower middle class have significant non-merit based aid available.

If DOGE is going to spend the USAID-allocated billions on some other foreign development aid, they are saving zero money. Their claims of cost saving contradict a defense that they aren’t violating the spending laws passed by Congress.

Catching the flu virus also gives a high temperature and fever and results in 100s of kids dying each year from the flu[0]. Vaccines have been shown to be much safer than exposing yourself to the virus.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/whats-new/2023-2024-pediatric-deaths...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/09/politics/house-vote-protect-o...

The House passed this Act in 2021 to reduce the presidents power, but Biden never asked the senate to act on it. Reducing his own power wasn’t a priority for him, he spent his political capital on pushing for other laws.

Early retirement can be done through https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/substantially-equal-per...

Gun and weapon detection is still useful to stop shootings and stabbings that arise out of fights, where one member may suddenly present and use a previously concealed weapon.

Agreed that the usefulness against a crazed gunman is less clear, although crazies do not always have a rational plan. If the weapon was concealed in a backpack or something the security may be able to tackle them before they access it. If they’re carrying it in an easily accessible, concealed holster, that’s less effective and they might be able to draw and use it after being detected.

The fact check page you provided seems clear that as early as March 5, 2020 (when the fact check was published) experts believed and were stating publicly that the IFR was not 3.4%:

A Feb. 28 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, co-authored by Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took the position that the mortality rate may well fall dramatically. It said if one assumed that there were several times as many people who had the disease with minimal or no symptoms as the number of reported cases, the mortality rate may be considerably less than 1%. That would suggest “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza,” the editorial said.

There are many similar lines.

The U.S. has never signed the treaty creating the ICC anyway.

Studies showed it decreased infection and transmission against the original strain of Covid.[0]

It lost effectiveness against delta and then became nearly ineffective against Omicron (although still helping with reduction of hospitalizations and deaths).

Non-mRNA vaccine is available now (Novavax) and the effectiveness, or lack thereof, seems similar.

[0] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/07/vaccination-a...

“supply” is controlled by government regulations. When laws state that the only housing supply can consist of single family houses, then the number of homes will be limited to the number of legal building plots.

Historically, zoning laws were established to prevent cheaper forms of housing from being built in order to keep poor people out from a region. The existence of these laws is precisely because the lawmakers recognized that more dense forms of housing would be built and lived in by poorer residents unless it was made illegal.

I’ve worked with several excellent Indian SWE colleagues in my career.

That said, they had all moved to the USA. In the past, top engineers would come to the USA for higher salaries, mobility, and sometimes for American citizenship and its benefits.

If companies stop hiring and supporting immigration to the USA you may find more top engineers staying in India.

Since iOS 13 apps need to ask for location permission to access WiFi SSIDs because of this. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/411798/does-ios-hi...

News reports say that Israel had copies of the Oct 7 plans but found it impossible to believe and were convinced hamas didn’t want all out war.

Similar to Pearl Harbor where we also had intelligence of the attack I suppose…

The app makes it so your food is ready soon after you arrive. You can spend all the time browsing the menu and ordering before arriving at the physical location and then the food is already prepared or is made upon your arrival.

Apps are used rather than PWA websites because most users find it difficult to save a mobile website to their homepage and mobile web push notifications etc add extra friction compared to native apps.

NYT is the premier digital news outlet. Why should a principal SWE there get paid less than a senior SWE working on Google News, for instance?

If NYT has the money it makes sense to me for the employees to ask for higher pay. What else is the original purpose of unions than to give workers power to bargain with the company?

“Education for pedestrians” is very difficult, maybe impossible. You’d have to reach and convince 100% of the population, including homeless people who we can’t even convince to stay in free shelters.

Even then, there are still fatalities of completely innocent pedestrians. Near me two kids were killed when someone hit them crossing at the cross walk with their parent. Driver confused the gas and brake.

Fencing in the entire sidewalk seems impossible in most cases as access to street parking and driveways is needed on most roads. I have seen fences put on the median in a few cases to discourage crossing.

Cabs cost significant money and will continue to cost relatively more and more due to Baumol's cost disease preventing productivity increases (1 driver can only drive 1 cab at a time).

Self driving cars offer the chance for inexpensive point to point transportation. Just because humans were once needed to drive cabs doesn’t mean they always will, any more than we need elevator operators anymore.

Also suspicious is that protocol is missing. For example, how do you use bug spray

Realistically, the people who do not read the instructions literally on the side of the bottle they are applying to themselves are certainly not going to go back and pull up a news article they saw a day, week or month ago and try to get the instructions from there. Never mind how error prone that would be as each "repellent" chemical has different instructions and warnings (permethrin goes on clothes, while DEET goes on your skin for instance).

Not a plumber but I’ve installed a few bidets in my homes and it’s easy to see how the flexible supply line could leak if tightened too much or not enough. Toilet braided steel supply lines themselves are supposedly supposed to be replaced every 5-10 years to reduce the risk of bursting.

I put water alarms connected to my security system behind each bidet equipped toilet.

Interesting the difference between UK and USA here. Spray foam applied directly underneath the roof deck is very common here and is a recommended assembly by building scientists, e.g. https://buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-149-unvent...

Not sure if there is a significant climate difference in the UK that makes this construction more problematic, the article mentions moisture but the U.S. building scientists say 2 inches closed cell spray foam will block air and vapors from reaching the wood of the roof. Perhaps the issue is the open cell foam mentioned in the article - it seems that closed cell foam is the recommended type in the USA.

The ID voting requirements are about keeping marginalized American citizens from voting (seniors, poor people who are bad at managing their documents, etc). Studies have been done of before/after ID requirements have been added in various states and there’s no indication that illegal aliens were taking advantage. Maybe a few anecdotes of people with a green card who were confused about the requirements - the illegally present usually try to stay as far from the government as they can.

One of my friends cancelled daycare for their 3 year old, thinking they'd just watch him at home while they worked.

As a parent of a toddler, I’m shocked they thought this would work. Kids that young need constant social interaction with their caregiver.

The Covid 19 situations were different since many people were forced into them by daycares and schools closing or “going remote”.

Biden is viewed unfavorably by a majority of Americans (as is Trump). As recently as 2008 both major party presidential candidates had net favorable ratings from the country.[0]

That’s not even getting into that the claim of Biden as “center right” is based on Overton window shifting. Biden repudiated many of his earlier more centrist positions on DEI (e.g. his anti-school busing activism in the 70s), immigration, abortion, etc to win the nomination. Compare Biden’s platform and positions to the Obama 2008 campaign platform and can you really see it as a “rightward” shift?

[0] edit - see for instance https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/19/about-1-i...

State boundaries date to 70 years old or more. The original “gerrymandering” of those boundaries is incredibly out of date. DC was given electoral votes most recently in 1961 with the expectation that it would be a “swing state” evenly split between parties, for instance.

Many solid “red” rural states today frequently elected statewide democrats just a few decades ago.