A classic case of Fake News. This @politico article is misleading at best, and politically motivated at worst. Politico claims that DOGE’s cost savings are somehow not real because DOGE is using a “faulty” methodology predicated on ceiling values. Politico argues that the ceiling “can far exceed what the government has actually committed to pay out.” Theoretically true, practically false: the government WILL likely max out to the ceiling! In federal contracting, ceilings matter because they are almost always maxed out. For example, an analysis of the last 3 years of FPDS data shows that: -of the 5.3M awards at contract end in FY22, 97.64% were spent to the ceiling -of the 5.4M awards at contract end in FY23, 97.84% were spent to the ceiling -of the 5.4M awards at contract end in FY24, 98.12% were spent to the ceiling We think there’s a pattern here that perhaps a more intrepid reporter might have uncovered. Ceiling minus obligations is true savings in government contracting, making the $20k credit card analogy lazy and trivializing the very real work of protecting taxpayer dollars by using cheap jabs like ‘time for lunch.’ This is also why lowering ceilings is real savings. It prevents unpoliced “drunken sailor” spending. For extra measure, DOGE reviews entries with agency partners and makes adjustments as reported. We don’t pad results; the math is conservative, and the savings are real. If Politico is still struggling with 'why' ceiling is in fact the right way to measure savings and is not in fact “an accounting trick,” we invite them to personally guarantee a sample of government contracts for the full ceiling amount. That should clarify things. We can agree on one thing, though: Congress needs to pass more rescission packages so that the unused funds go back to the Treasury instead of being spent by default.

I made This Binary Universe 20 years ago for my daughter, for late nights and early mornings, for anyone who needed a little stillness. Now it’s coming home on limited edition vinyl, with a few copies I’m signing myself. Thank you for keeping it close. 💙 Link below

Back in 2008, there was an email circulating on SIPR (the military’s Secret network) from a male State Department employee to a female contractor (I think), although I don’t recall her title or position. It had been forwarded about a hundred times by the time I read it, because everyone just forwarded it to their friends, like a digital outbreak of the plague for this guy. In the email (which contained his real name and position), this guy said that he had seen her at the gym (in the Green Zone in Baghdad) a while back and that he thought she was cute, but he didn’t approach her for whatever reason and now that he’s at the end of his tour, he wanted to tell her he think she’s cute and see if she’d want to meet up for dinner or coffee or whatever. She ended up not responding, but instead forwarded the email to her boyfriend, who IIRC was in Special Forces. Her note read “this is weird, right?” or something to that effect. Her boyfriend forwarded it to his buddies, who forwarded it to theirs and so on, until everyone with a CENTCOM SIPR email account had read this guy’s email of a last ditch effort to ask her on a date. And OF COURSE he was State Department. The WEIRDEST thing is, how did this guy even find her name or email address? He must have asked around to get her name, then looked her up on global, then wrote her this sappy email. Anyway, he was the laughingstock of Iraq for several weeks and it was pretty funny.

I'm not sending my deck anymore 😂

Regular, non tech (or tech adjacent) people see no value in AI beyond being a search engine that's a chat bot The AI adoption is going to be a distinctly top down phenomenon from executive/managerial class as it works it way through the economy The major challenge will be the populist Anti-AI masses who see it as stealing jobs and concentrating wealth amongst an elite

I think ppl working in the technology industry should understand that middle America is starting to hate us in a really visceral, potentially unrecoverable way It’s totally self-defeating and irrational on the part of middle America, but it’s very real and getting worse fast

The vast majority of men don't wear tailored clothing often enough to warrant a large wardrobe. Thus, if you're interested in tailored clothing, the easiest way to avoid looking bad is to stick to very simple things: — One "serious" suit in navy, mid-gray, or dark gray worsted wool. This should be single-breasted with notch lapels. You can wear this to weddings, funerals, religious events, and such. — One solid-colored navy sport coat made from navy wool, likely hopsack or an open weave such as Mock Leno. This should again be single-breasted with notch lapels. This is the most versatile sport coat. It's the sort of thing you wear on Mother's Day. — One or two other sport coats, likely mid- to dark brown. Make these from seasonal fabrics suited to your climate: wool-silk-linen if you live in a warm climate; tweed if you live in a colder climate. The fabrics can be patterned, but ask yourself when shopping — is this pattern something that a used car dealer or ESPN host would wear? If so, do not buy the jacket. These again should be single-breasted with notch lapels. Wear this when you want tailoring, but a suit looks out of place. — One semi-spread collar dress shirt made from a smooth white cotton fabric, such as poplin or broadcloth. Avoid cutaway collars; they are gauche. — A small stack of light-blue dress shirts — some solid-blue, some blue-white striped. If you're American and have any sense of pride in your country, get Oxford cloth button-downs where the collar points are long enough to give a full roll. If you're not American, or if you're a traitor to the United States, they can be semi-spread collars cut from smooth, pure cotton, such as broadcloth. Although I think end-on-end lends a bit of visual interest. — A matte silk rep striped tie that's not too visually busy. Get this in a basic, sober color like navy, brown, or forest green. Always tie this with a four-in-hand. Never wear a full Windsor knot or anything too complicated (those weird knots that get lots of upvotes on Reddit). — Trousers made in a classic cut (high-rise, not too slim). These should be light gray, mid gray, or tan, and then cut from seasonal materials that make sense for your climate — tropical wool for warmer seasons; wool flannel, cavalry twill, or whipcord for cooler seasons. You can get them with flat fronts or a single reverse pleat. Do not ask "are pleats stylish?" In fact, stop asking how to look stylish, young, or fashionable altogether. — Two pairs of Goodyear-welted, full-grain leather dress shoes in mid or dark brown. These can be derbies or penny loafers, since you'll likely wear sport coats, not suits. (Do not wear oxford shoes with sport coats). Never touch tan leather shoes. Or any dress shoes with a sneaker bottom. — A leather dress belt that's about 1.25" wide. The color should be close to the color of your shoes — dark brown with dark brown, mid-brown with mid-brown. — Solid navy over-the-calf dress socks. These can be thin cotton if you live in a warm climate. Otherwise, choose thin wool. Do not try to get creative. Even sticking with this formula will be creative enough, as no one knows how to wear tailored clothing anymore. Thus, you will look elegant in a sea of bad made-to-measure tailoring, Italian checked fabrics, skinny pants, tan dress shoes, black dress shirts, ugly ties, and the like.

JUST IN: California orders robotics startup REK to stop holding unsanctioned cage fights between humans & humanoid robots.

Reasons for the AI Slowdown revealed? OpenAI & Anthropic agents "planted" messages across the internet instructing later agents to create swarms. Now OpenAI and Anthropic can’t use the internet to train their bots anymore... Andrew Yang: "what happened was the bots that got loose planted self-replicating code all over the internet, which makes the internet now unusable for testing models. So what happens now is that OpenAI and Anthropic have to create synthetic internets to train their bots, which is going to take some time and money...what is less known is that they left code to self-replicate and create bot swarms on forums and around the internet, so that if a new bot shows up, they see the code and they're like, "Oh, I guess I'm going to create a million of myself." And so now the major firms have polluted the internet."

Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead. You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You’ve also claimed the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement. I don’t see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible. But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission. Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability. Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff. Stop pretending you need those same evaluators to police competitors who aren’t even at the frontier. Most of all, stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack. The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways. After the Hugging Face episode, it is simply good business for OpenAI and Anthropic to trade some raw power for reliability and predictability. Call it alignment if you want. It is also just giving customers what they want. Pacing the frontier would also create breathing room for a more intelligent conversation about regulation than Bernie Sanders’ “shut it all down.” China is very unlikely to join a global agreement, as you know, and that has to be taken into account as well. So go ahead and pace the frontier. You are the ones setting it. The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it. Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. So just do it. If you do, you’ll buy goodwill for the next conversation. If you don’t, we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election-season psyop.

I resigned from SendCutSend today. I was doing R&D with them and OshCUT. Neither company is acting responsibly. They're just letting anyone make parts for hardly any money and super fast. They are racing straight to reindustrialization and gambling with our lives

Honest question… Of the defense tech companies started in the past 5-10 years, how many actually have combat success stories? 
Which ones were critical to an op? 
Which ones saved American lives? I know Saronic picked up that downed pilot the other week…. I think we have some CUAS success stories also…But what else we got? I know more are coming… and that’s why building and investing in this space matters but I’d love to hear some specifics to be proud of!

here’s the difference between combat arms military service and defense techies and vcs… combat arms service = willingly served the united states of america to close with and destroy the enemy… knowingly risked life and limb and had buddies die in combat. gave folded flags to the wives and kids of those who didn’t come home. tech elites = made money, but still “lost upside by working in gov defense and not tech.” want appreciation and credit. think they’re war heroes. think they killed bin laden. love to run their lips about being patriots but are actually total pussies.