#GSA Schedule

[usbri]

The Business Assets Getting Secured From GSA Certification

The contemporized conceptualization of risk to business operations and supply chains, especially those that deliver services to the federal government substratum, reveals that organizations are currently operating in a precarious environment that is highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change and the frequency of severe weather occurrences.

[post-it-notes7]

What was Mir Falspar dreaming about?

He doesn't like to mention those.

[m0e-ru]

bro causing the bedsheet and dry ice industrial supply shortage

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s minions—from trusted sidekicks to random college students and former Musk company interns—have taken over the General Services Administration, a critical government agency that manages federal offices and technology. Already, the team is attempting to use White House security credentials to gain unusual access to GSA tech, deploying a suite of new AI software, and recreating the office in X’s image, according to leaked documents obtained by WIRED.

Some of the same people who helped Musk take over Twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official GSA employees. Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter HQ as an unofficial member of Musk’s transition team, has high-level agency access and an official government email address, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Hollander’s husband, Steve Davis, also slept in the office. He has now taken on a leading role in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thomas Shedd, the recently installed director of the Technology Transformation Services within GSA, worked as a software engineer at Tesla for eight years. Edward Coristine, who previously interned at Neuralink, has been onboarded along with Ethan Shaotran, a Harvard senior who is developing his own OpenAI-backed scheduling assistant and participated in an xAI hackathon.

“I believe these people do not want to help the federal government provide services to the American people,” says a current GSA employee who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation. “They are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company.”

The team appears to be carrying out Musk’s agenda: slashing the federal government as quickly as possible. They’re currently targeting a 50 percent reduction in spending for every office managed by the GSA, according to documents obtained by WIRED.

There also appears to be an effort to use IT credentials from the Executive Office of the President to access GSA laptops and internal GSA infrastructure. Typically, access to agency systems requires workers to be employed at such agencies, sources say. While Musk's team could be trying to obtain better laptops and equipment from GSA, sources fear that the mandate laid out in the DOGE executive order would grant the body broad access to GSA systems and data. That includes sensitive procurement data, data internal to all the systems and services GSA offers, and internal monitoring software to surveil GSA employees as part of normal auditing and security processes.

The access could give Musk’s proxies the ability to remote into laptops, listen in on meetings, read emails, among many other things, a former Biden official told WIRED on Friday.

“Granting DOGE staff, many of whom aren't government employees, unfettered access to internal government systems and sensitive data poses a huge security risk to the federal government and to the American public,” the Biden official said. “Not only will DOGE be able to review procurement-sensitive information about major government contracts, it'll also be able to actively surveil government employees.”

The new GSA leadership team has prioritized downsizing the GSA’s real estate portfolio, canceling convenience contracts, and rolling out AI tools for use by the federal government, according to internal documents and interviews with sources familiar with the situation. At a GSA office in Washington, DC, earlier this week, there were three items written on a white board sitting in a large, vacant room. “Spending Cuts $585 m, Regulations Removed, 15, Square feet sold/terminated 203,000 sf,” it read, according to a photo viewed by WIRED. There’s no note of who wrote the message, but it appears to be a tracker of cuts made or proposed by the team.

“We notified the commercial real estate market that two GSA properties would soon be listed for sale, and we terminated three leases,” Stephen Ehikian, the newly appointed GSA acting administrator, said in an email to GSA staff on Tuesday, confirming the agency’s focus on lowering real estate costs. “This is our first step in right-sizing the real estate portfolio.”

The proposed changes extend even inside the physical spaces at the GSA offices. Hollander has requested multiple “resting rooms,” for use by the A-suite, a team of employees affiliated with the GSA administrator’s office.

On January 29, a working group of high-ranking GSA employees, including the deputy general counsel and the chief administrative services officer, met to discuss building a resting room prototype. The team mapped out how to get the necessary funding and waivers to build resting rooms in the office, according to an agenda viewed by WIRED.

After Musk bought Twitter, Hollander and Davis moved into the office with their newborn baby. Hollander helped oversee real estate and office design—including the installation of hotel rooms at Twitter HQ, according to a lawsuit later filed by Twitter executives. During the installation process, one of the executives emailed to say that the plans for the rooms were likely not code compliant. Hollander “visited him in person and emphatically instructed him to never put anything about the project in writing again,” the lawsuit alleged. Employees were allegedly instructed to call the hotel rooms “sleeping rooms” and to say they were just for taking naps.

Hollander has also requested access to Public Buildings Service applications; PBS owns and leases office space to government agencies. The timing of the access request lines up with Ehikian’s announcement about shrinking GSA’s real estate cost.

Musk’s lieutenants are also working to authorize the use of AI tools, including Google Gemini and Cursor (an AI coding assistant), for federal workers. On January 30, the group met with Google to discuss Telemetry, a software used to monitor the health and performance of applications, according to a document obtained by WIRED.

A-suite engineers, including Coristine and Shaotran, have requested access to a variety of GSA records, including nearly 10 years of accounting data, as well as detailed records on vendor payments, purchase orders, and revenue.

The GSA takeover mimics Musk’s strategy at other federal agencies like the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Earlier this month, Amanda Scales, who worked in talent at Musk’s xAI, was appointed as OPM chief of staff. Riccardo Biasini, former Tesla engineer and director of operations at the Boring company, is now a senior adviser to the director. Earlier this week, Musk cohorts at the US Office of Personnel Management emailed more than 2 million federal workers offering “deferred resignations,” allegedly promising employees their regular pay and benefits through September 30.

The email closely mirrored the “extremely hardcore” note Musk sent to Twitter staff in November 2022, shortly after buying the company.

Many federal workers thought the email was fake—as with Twitter, it seemed designed to force people to leave, slashing headcount costs without the headache of an official layoff.

Ehikian followed up with a note to staff stressing that the email was legitimate. “Yes, the OPM email is real and should be taken very seriously,” he said in an email obtained by WIRED. He added that employees should expect a “further consolidation of offices and centralization of functions.”

On Thursday night, GSA workers received a third email related to the resignation request called “Fork in the Road FAQs.” The email explained that employees who resign from their positions would not be required to work and could get a second job. “We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” it read. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

The third question posed in the FAQ asked, “Will I really get my full pay and benefits during the entire period through September 30, even if I get a second job?”

“Yes,” the answer read. “You will also accrue further personal leave days, vacation days, etc. and be paid out for unused leave at your final resignation date.”

However, multiple GSA employees have told WIRED that they are refusing to resign, especially after the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) told its members on Tuesday that the offer could be void.

“There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised,” the union said in a notice.

There is also concern that, under Musk’s influence, the federal government might not pay for the duration of the deferred resignation period. Thousands of Twitter employees have sued Musk alleging that he failed to pay their agreed upon severance. Last year, one class action suit was dismissed in Musk’s favor.

In an internal video viewed by WIRED, Ehikian reiterated that GSA employees had the “opportunity to participate in a deferred resignation program,” per the email sent by OPM on January 28. Pressing his hands into the namaste gesture, Ehikian added, “If you choose to participate, I offer you my heartfelt gratitude for your service to this nation. If you choose to stay at the GSA, we’ll work together to implement the four pillars from the OPM memo.” He ended the video by saying thank you and pressing his hands into namaste again.

[mothtarts]

can someone write a hilson teacher-au or am i going to have too? CAN SOMEONE WRITE A HILSON TEACHER AU OR AM I GOING TO HA-

anyways i have a rough idea for what they would teach. i was like “oh should i make them science teachers?” but that felt boring and i think this fits their vibes and personalities more (this is also very american so im sorry)

*house - ap world history /ap gov (he’s the teacher ppl say is evil and insane but you will learn the most from and pass the ap exam)

*wilson - ap language/ asb/ coach for varsity basketball ( he always has his class open and it’s full of gay kids and the athletes failing their subjects)

*cuddy- principle (duh) (she always goofs off during assemblies and will call out kids in front of the whole school for talking)

*chase - art teacher/ soccer coach (he was a sub at first but after the old teacher retired he stayed. hes the teacher that is supervising TO many clubs)

*foreman - all the super hard math classes (he always lets kids retake his tests and if your a senior lets you skip out on class)

*cameron - chemistry/ yearbook (all the kids love her and go to her class to vent about their family and relationship life) (she’s in charge of gsa)

*thirteen- psychology/ Econ/basketball coach (she is often spotted in the faculty parking lot taking a nap in her car. students are terrified of her but she’s rlly attuned with youth culture and gets them to warm up to her)

*kutner- councilor( deadass think he would be so good at being a councilor. he has favorite students and gives them good schedules)

*amber- english/ journalism/volleyball coach (she usually hangs out in the halls and yells at kids for doing pda has the BEST tutoring labs ever you will pass her class.)

*taub- on campus sub- (ppl audibly groan when they see him subbing their class)

pls pls lemme know if yall have any good ideas for this possible au im like fully gonna write it

[mercyillustrator]

Is sir/lady nebula open to giving lessons?

🌌 Nebula Samurai Lesson 🌌

She’s back and available after taking long vacation so she is available for samurai lessons and while Dotty is here as a visit. Lady Nebula been pretty busy on her schedule with her members to train them by helping to be strong and they’re allies with GSA, Kirby and others at some point ^^

Forgive me for my absence. I haven’t been active as much then I used to. I’ve been taking a huge break from social media cause barely post X(

anyways I’ll be working on projects that I’m still cooking so on. stay tuned for her next samurai lessons and rest of my art projects that is coming from my Kirby fan-comic TKCTT everyone ^^’ - 💠🎨Mercy🎨💠

[partisan-by-default]

Jeremy Lewin, one of the DOGE employees tasked with dismantling USAID, who has also played a role in DOGE’s incursions into the National Institutes of Health and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is listed as making just over $167,000 annually, WIRED has confirmed. Lewin is assigned to the Office of the Administrator within the General Services Administration.

Kyle Schutt, a software engineer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is listed as drawing a salary of $195,200 through GSA, where he is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Administrator. That is the maximum amount that any “General Schedule” federal employee can make annually, including bonuses. “You cannot be offered more under any circumstances,” the GSA compensation and benefits website reads.

Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur who has taken a visible internal role interviewing GSA employees as part of DOGE’s work at the agency, is listed as being paid just over $120,500 per year. According to DOGE’s official website, the average GSA employee makes $128,565 and has worked at the agency for 13 years.

When Elon Musk started recruiting for DOGE in November, he described the work as “tedious” and noted that “compensation is zero.” WIRED previously reported that the DOGE recruitment effort relied in part on a team of engineers associated with Peter Thiel and was carried out on platforms like Discord.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ahmed Baba at Ahmed Baba's Newsletter:

This week, the Trump Administration escalated its assault on the federal bureaucracy and effort to twist the federal government into a tool of the far right. On Thursday, a mass purge of federal workers began, with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) instructing federal agencies to begin firing most of their estimated 200,000 employees in a probationary status. Already, thousands of employees have received termination notices across at least seven federal agencies, according to Politico. These employees are federal workers who were hired within the past 1-2 years and are in a probationary status, meaning they don’t have the typical robust civil servant protections and can be fired at will.

After just over 75,000 federal employees accepted the Trump Administration’s deferred resignation offer, Trump’s team is now ramping up firings to hit closer to the 10% churn of the workforce they’re aiming for. There are about 2.4 million federal employees in total. The mass layoffs are impacting agencies across the federal government, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the General Services Administration (GSA). It’s not clear exactly how many federal employees have received termination notices so far, but multiple news outlets are reporting numbers ranging from hundreds to thousands per agency. Some critical staffers have already been targeted.

ABC News reported that 1,300 federal workers at the CDC have been fired, 1/10 of its workforce. CBS News reported that “about 14% of US staff who safeguard nuclear weapons were let go just ahead of the Russian military flying an exploding drone into the Chernobyl sarcophagus.” Reuters reported that at the CFPB in particular, there have been dozens of non-probationary, full-time employees being fired. All reports indicate White House officials are saying the purge will continue to escalate in the coming days and weeks. These firings come after Trump signed an executive action on Tuesday, with Elon Musk hovering over him, that ordered a large-scale reduction in the federal workforce. On January 20, OPM issued a memo instructing agencies to provide a list of probationary employees; now it appears they’re purging that list. President Trump also reinstated “Schedule F,” an executive order that reclassifies thousands of federal workers as “at-will” employees, making them easier to fire for no cause. This is straight from the Project 2025 playbook.

This is all occurring in the context of President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE team ignoring laws, unilaterally attempting to dismantle agencies, accessing sensitive data, sidelining civil servants, and testing the limits of executive power. Musk’s efforts go beyond oligarchy. Even Putin doesn’t let his oligarchs have this much influence over his government. This is a co-presidency, as I outlined on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday night.

[...] Those of us who have been paying attention have been warning about how Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47 call for a purging of civil servants so loyalists can be installed to do Trump’s bidding. Donald Trump and his allies want to avoid what happened in Trump’s first term. Civil servants and members of Trump’s Cabinet pushed back on Trump’s unlawful actions. This term, they’re going agency by agency and carving out any pockets of independence. Trump blames the chaos of his first term not on himself but on career civil servants who kept the government running. Trump has for years been talking about how he wants to “dismantle the Administrative State” or “dismantle the Deep State,” as Trump described it in his Agenda 47 platform. Both Trump’s plan and Project 2025 called for the purging of federal workers. In October 2020, during the final months of his presidency, Trump signed a Schedule F executive order that reclassified tens of thousands of federal workers as “at-will” employees, making them easier to fire for no cause. Non-political federal workers usually have civil service protections that prevent them from being directly fired by the president. This protection prevented Trump from purging vast swaths of federal workers who, at times, questioned or refused to implement some of his often illegal proposals. President Biden rolled that executive order back when he took office. Now, Trump has reinstated Schedule F, and he’s also going after federal employees who don’t have civil service protections as low-hanging fruit to target. Starting with probationary employees would draw the fewest legal challenges. The next part of the plan after the purge, as Project 2025 outlines, is to replace these thousands of civil servants with loyalists. Project 2025 has a detailed plan for how to accomplish this quickly. That is why they created their database of conservatives eager to serve in the federal government. They spent the past year recruiting and training thousands of right-wing professionals so they’d be ready for this moment. I discussed this recruitment effort in October on MSNBC.

The Project 2025-inspired mass purge of federal workers under the Trump/Musk regime is a massive insult to America.

See Also:

MMFA: Fox joins the Trump administration’s war on the veteran-heavy federal workforce

[whoa-where-did-the-pancakes-go]

I should start a gsa and have all the meetings also scheduled for 7 a.m. friday and then start a fight club between my queer ppl and the christian club.

[diroxide]

Father Aeon, Founder/leader of the original GSA (it will be called something different because this is the distant past but bear with me I have no ideas atm) with his child, Galacta

Gala was a particularly special case because his horns/wings grew in way before a normal scheduled/expected period of growth, hinting to the latent power that lay dormant within his body. Most Astrals don’t grow these appendages until they reach maturity (adulthood and beyond).

Life caring for little Gala was hell on Aeon as he was an older man learning how to parent a kid. He still loved the lad with every part of his being, even if he didn’t emotionally show it very well.

Aeon was also the original owner of the mask Galacta wears, he passed it down to his son when he felt he was ready to handle the mantle of being a star warrior :)

[bookwyrminspiration]

One of my friends just broke up with someone else in the friend group/social network, and I didn't realize they were dating until like a week ago. I did think for a solid THREE MONTHS that one of them was secretly dating / crushing on an entirely different person and was absolutely incorrect. No one in the group knows I thought this and they'll never find out

👀👀a breakup you say? how close in the social network are we talking. is this gonna mess up the group or does it just mean everyone is awkwardly aware of it.

this also reminds me of the time when i was like 14 when a friend of mine shared they'd gone on a date with/made out with someone we'd met at the gsa. and then like the next week they'd broken up and i was just like. what is happening here. when did you two even have the time to talk outside the gsa let alone do all that so fast?? different grades (they were one grade above us) had like ZERO overlap at that school due to a few funky scheduling things. which probably says something about me that that was my primary thought at the time

i actually still follow the both of them on ig (ig's singular purpose to me is to be nosy in other people's (like old classmates') lives)

anyway. best of luck to your friend group in these times !!

[usbri]

The Business Assets Getting Secured From GSA Certification

The contemporized conceptualization of risk to business operations and supply chains, especially those that deliver services to the federal government substratum, reveals that organizations are currently operating in a precarious environment that is highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change and the frequency of severe weather occurrences. 

These risks are classified by the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List as threats that negatively affect government operations by harming facilities and communication networks and raising energy and water costs. Therefore, the protection of business assets is now deemed crucial. A detailed approach towards this is to attain GSA credentialing that entails rostering on the GSA Schedule.

GSA certification is given by the General Services Administration that lets companies be vendors to the federal government. This certification simplifies ordering and purchasing the products government agencies need from certified suppliers. It is vital to be on the GSA Schedule – the government’s qualified list of pre-vetted vendors who pass specific regulatory, quality, price, and reliability tests.

The GSA Schedule or the Federal Supply Schedule is a general list of items and services available for direct purchase for governmental agencies from certified suppliers. This listing is valuable to a company in increasing its credibility and provides a huge opportunity to sell to the government. The position in the GSA Schedule is regarded as a specialized consultation on the reliability and ability of businesses, which is conducive to gaining an advantage in the federal market.

The Role of GSA Certification in Securing Business Assets

There are many advantages of acquiring the GSA certification, all of which play critical roles in ensuring positive results regarding safeguarding and the preservation and augmentation of business valuables. 

Here are several ways in which this certification helps businesses safeguard their assets:

Access to a Stable Market: The federal business market is economically secure; an organization can become GSA-certified. Business with government entails that government contracts are more extended and more reliable as far as the company is concerned because the revenues generated by the industry are rendered constant; this is especially important when expanding a business.

Enhanced Credibility and Trust: Getting on to the GSA Schedule informs potential buyers or contractors that a business is qualified in terms of quality and reliability. Thus, such an intensified credibility increases the measure of getting new contracts and cooperation, strengthening the company’s assets and positions in the market.

Risk Management and Mitigation: Climate change and natural disasters are increasing, and the GSA assists federal customers in protecting property from such events. Knowing how to manage and diminish the identified risks is as important as implementing risk management practices in the operations of the GSA-certified business. The preceding action plans are strategic measures to guarantee the sustainability and efficiency of the companies’ services and products.

Improved Operational Efficiency: GSA certification generally involves a set of qualifications that force companies to reduce their complexity and stick to efficiency benchmarks. From this process, organisaorganizationsa position achieves enhanced efficiency and productivity as well as improved costs and control of resources, hence promoting the security of business assets.

[crazylittlejester]

Mandating warriors here 👋

(Sorry ive been so quiet I was in the hospital and then had actually to human for a while and got very busy 😭)

I’ve come to realize that no amount of assurance will stop the guilt you have over your posting schedule so I’ve instead decided to infodump a lil about the school au me and my friend (Nurse Lori Anon) have been making:

They all go to the same HS but were in a few very different groups and therefore didn’t know eachother before attending

Wilde + Twilight/Tyler are adopted siblings and live together so they know eachother

Thyme, Warriors, + Wendell (the only middle schooler) are foster siblings, + Thyme and warriors are bio sibs

Four/(idk yet), Hyrule/Henry, + Shelby/Legend are friends from living in the same neighborhood as kids

Thyme meets skylar through student council, since warriors is going through stuff and has isolated his brother from his social life

Warriors is dealing with erm… issues… with his ex GF and he’s not dealing well at all, leading her to spread rumors about him and purposely snitch (lie) to admin and make them think warriors needs to be hospitalized. (This was sorta Mentioned in the previous post) war’s new counselor sees right through that but can’t leave him unsupervised bc of saftey regulations, so she makes him join the “Men & Young Boy’s Introduction To Cognitive Health” (Shelby loves that acronym) even though a) he’s not a cis boy, b) he definitely doesn’t need it wdym?? c) he initially refuses because his BROTHER IS IN IT and that’s… ✨akward✨

but impa tells him to grow tf up because she has bigger issues and then gives him a trusting look and says “I believe you.” And wars DEFINITELY DOES NOT CRY

When he gets to the group he realizes that everyone else there is queer and has got shit going on and since they end unsupervised most of the time, since Thyme and Skylar are seen as “responsible” they make a unanimous vote to just make its chill and do whatever they want twice a week for and hour in the games rooms

Think of it as like, high school GSA but actually okay and people aren’t bad

(⊃｡•́‿•̀｡)⊃��

-🍊

Oh shit dude, I really hope you’re doing okay!! No need to apologize at all, your health and wellbeing is the most important thing 💜

This is a really cool au idea!! I love the names you gave them all, they work sooo well. My high school didn’t have a GSA so I don’t know what those are like, but I really love this au!! 2 hours a week in a games room with friends sounds epic

[mariacallous]

Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned.

Jeremy Lewin, one of the DOGE employees tasked with dismantling USAID, who has also played a role in DOGE’s incursions into the National Institutes of Health and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is listed as making just over $167,000 annually, WIRED has confirmed. Lewin is assigned to the Office of the Administrator within the General Services Administration.

Kyle Schutt, a software engineer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is listed as drawing a salary of $195,200 through GSA, where he is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Administrator. That is the maximum amount that any “General Schedule” federal employee can make annually, including bonuses. “You cannot be offered more under any circumstances,” the GSA compensation and benefits website reads.

Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur who has taken a visible internal role interviewing GSA employees as part of DOGE’s work at the agency, is listed as being paid just over $120,500 per year. According to DOGE’s official website, the average GSA employee makes $128,565 and has worked at the agency for 13 years.

When Elon Musk started recruiting for DOGE in November, he described the work as “tedious” and noted that “compensation is zero.” WIRED previously reported that the DOGE recruitment effort relied in part on a team of engineers associated with Peter Thiel and was carried out on platforms like Discord.

Since Trump took office in January, DOGE has overseen aggressive layoffs within the GSA, including the recent elimination of 18F, the agency’s unit dedicated to technology efficiency. It also developed a plan to sell off more than 500 government buildings.

Although Musk has described DOGE as “maximum transparent,” it has not made its spending or salary ranges publicly available. Funding for DOGE had grown to around $40 million as of February 20, according to a recent ProPublica report. The White House did not respond to questions about the salary ranges for DOGE employees or how the budget is allocated to pay them.

Some DOGE team members, including Musk, are designated as “Special Government Employees,” an advisory role limited to a 130-day work period. These positions can be paid or unpaid; SGEs drawing salaries above a certain grade have to file financial disclosure forms, but the volunteer workers do not. This type of employee is not beholden to the same rules as typical federal workers; they are allowed to keep drawing outside salaries and in some cases do not need to disclose conflicts of interest. Other prominent SGE staffers associated with DOGE include top aide Katie Miller, who continued her prior public relations work through the transition and more than a month into the current administration. Her firm’s clients had included Apple and a Saudi-funded golf league, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Other prominent DOGE staffers appear to be unpaid volunteers. Edward Coristine, Ethan Shaotran, Luke Farritor, Derek Geissler, and Nicole Hollander draw no salary through their assignments at the General Services Administration. (It is not currently known whether they are drawing salaries elsewhere within the government.) The agency now openly discusses the idea of compensation on its recruitment page, which describes “full-time, salaried positions for software engineers, InfoSec engineers, and other technology professionals.”

In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News last month, Musk claimed that "the software engineers at DOGE could be earning millions of dollars a year and instead of earning a small fraction of that as federal employees." In Silicon Valley, the median salary for a software engineer hovers around $184,000, with workers a decade into their careers earning over $220,000, according to Glassdoor.

DOGE honcho Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of over $350 billion. Although Musk does not draw a salary for his work with DOGE, his business ventures often enjoy government support. The Washington Post recently reported that his companies have received more than $38 billion in government funding over the past two decades.

“It does seem worth understanding what these employees are being paid,” says Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan. “Especially if they are being paid significantly more than technologists who have been fired, given that many of the DOGE staff have less relevant experience.”

[birdbrainweekly]

Research blog until GSA: Day 3 of 25

Today, it was boiling hot, and it will continue to be boiling hot for the next week at least. It wouldn't be so devastating if the nearest parking lot wasn't a mile away and the walk wasn't entirely uphill, but ya know, starting your day drenched in sweat does kinda set the tone when you are talking about busting your ass.

When I first get to work, if it isn't already abundantly clear what I need to do that day, I usually spend the first 30 minutes planning my expectations for the day. If you have anxiety, I recommend this wholeheartedly. I used to feel like I was wasting time initially when I started doing this, but I have learned that I end my day less anxious when I do it.

Today I generally knew I had to continue handpicking, I had to teach 2 labs today (goodbye 4 hours of my workday), and begin the first dry down of the samples I began dissolving yesterday.

I started handpicking and really felt I was cruising along with that so I decided to continue until 2hrs went by. Nothing really to say about it other than that.

I checked on my samples and by some miracle the magnetite actually dissolved overnight instead of being a pain in my ass, so I could put them in drydown boxes and forget about them for the rest of the day.

When I got back I only had 1 hour until I had to teach, so I opened up the model I edited last night and tried to figure out why it was so messed up (I think I forgot to turn off lagged-speciation, but honestly I could have just looked at it wrong).

Honestly, I got home at 7pm after finishing teaching at 5:30, tucking my samples in for the night, and getting general groceries. I ate food for the first time at that time and it hit like a tranquilizer dart. So I am gunna just get rest for the night and start fresh tomorrow. Also, I took a video of opening my digested samples this morning so you could see the gas leaving the beaker.

(Disclaimer: obviously I don’t recommend doing this, it was just a miscalculation of my schedule, I have struggled with an eating disorder in high school and I really don’t want this to sound like this is a cool thing to do, it makes you feel like garbage, it makes it harder for you to focus, and it isn’t an aesthetic or vibe to ‘forget to eat’. The only reason I am bothering to mention a bad habit is to also say that I am taking care of myself for the night to try to make up for it)

[sammysshadowself]

Post 1, 10/31/23 - 11/15/23

Hey! My name is Sam (or Sammy,) and I'm 17. I wanted to start a sort of daily/weekly journal about my life and what I'm doing, mainly because one of my other friends did the same thing and i thought that was cool :0. I was attending a public school in Virginia for my whole life but, recently, I had to move up northwest to Washington with my uncle, Jack. I transferred schools (I'm not saying where I'm going to school, obviously.) I'm mainly typing here as a sort of blog/schedule. I have some things I need to get off of my mind. Stuff about moving, new friends, and my new school. More specifically, a dream I had both before and after moving here. I was in a carriage, sitting on a wood bench that was facing the horses. In front of me, between the horses, was a cloaked man. To his left was a large cage with a tarp over it. I could hear a faint growling coming from it. The man spoke, "Welcome to the Velvet Room. My name is Igor." There was something familiar about the wooden carriage. I look to my left and right and there were only stars. The universe was around me, existing in the carriage. I remember that he gave me a fortune telling session with Tarot cards. He drew The Fool, The Chariot, and The Moon. "The fool shall use their natural drive to uncover a large secret." I took another look at the carriage I was in and then I heard a bell ring. "Our time is up. We will meet again." I heard that same ringing transition into the sound of my alarm. I don't often have dreams, let alone dreams as vivid as this one. Anyone able to tell what this is or what it means? I've researched Tarot to know what the cards meant. The Fool seemed to represent openness and a new journey, the chariot being drive and enervation, and the moon being secrecy and introspection.

The second dream saw me in the "Velvet Room" again. This dream happened after I moved in with Uncle Jack. "Igor" welcomed me back in his same cheery, almost light and playful voice. "It appears the fool has started their adventure, their leap of faith." The universe around the carriage twinkled, responding to his words, almost affirming them. I recognized one planet amongst the stars around us: Saturn and its many rings. "The next time we meet will be on your own accord." The cage stopped growling and I awoke to the same bell to alarm transition. Any answers are appreciated. But enuf about cryptic dream talk The past 15 days have just been me getting settled into my new life. I've been talking to my therapist about the move. Recently, she's been more open about herself and her personal thoughts too, almost like we're friends and not a mentally ill teenager and their doctor.

Uncle Jack got me my own small apartment. He works for some sort of construction company that specializes in homes and apartments. They also do repairs. In other words, he's like a repair wizard. That being said, the only reason I'm able to have this three-bedroom apartment is because it was deemed "unlivable" by the landlord. It's not unlivable, just nowhere near pretty or polished enough to rent. Apparently, Uncle Jack has a good bond with the owner of the complex. It's pretty dope having not just my own room but my own apartment. Uncle Jack also visits me once a day to ask how I'm holding up and whatnot.

On top of that, there's this kid named Axel who runs the gardening club at school. He is a cool guy and I like gardening too so we got along pretty well. And he's also HELLA good at gardening, especially with such a shabby school greenhouse to work with. He's like some sort of damn magician. The only other person in the gardening club is his boyfriend, Alan. It's a small club and I lowkey feel like I'm third wheeling. Then again, they make me feel welcome.

EDIT: I'm writing this on the 14th of November 2023. Apparently, our principal, Dr. Lindus, plans to cut funding to a LOT of different programs and clubs. This also includes the gardening club, the GSA, the drama department, and more. This will be decided on the 30th of November for sure, but like, what a shitty thing to do??

I met my homeroom teacher, Mr. Conquer (not his actual name but that's what everyone calls him? Idk) and I went home. From that day out, I just attended class as normal and got well acquainted. I'm not used to city life whatsoever (i'm from the western tip of Virginia) so this is like an entirely different setting. I can literally WALK to school that's so cool.

Anywho, hi guys :D I don't know how many people I'm going to reach. Hopefully i reach a witch or psychic who can interoperate my dream for me because I am genuinely at a loss. Thanx for tuning in! See ya soon.