I might even pay ~$100. I want it on Linux, but if it's under my control and reliable, maybe I could do Windows or macOS. Maybe I should just install iTunes on Windows in a VM...

The contact via toothpaste or mouth wash isn’t all that much longer, so why would they be effective if fluoridated water isn’t? People intentionally wash out toothpaste and mouthwash after this short contact.

I don't support DOGE, but I have also wondered if all the roasting them for being young is fair. For now I landed on yes, it's a fair criticism -- these people are too young to be put in control of massive agencies that have been running for decades. If you believe they can make the right choice because it's so obvious, it seems like we may as well just fire everyone, and then we can save the time and expense of even having DOGE. It is not logical IMO to say that some discretion is needed but also unelected 20-year-olds have enough discretion.

Re "script kiddies": the term is a bit rude maybe. But given it means an unskilled programmer who is only barely able to use programs written by others, then yes, it is fair to criticize these DOGE people, whose primary qualification was supposedly being really smart programmers, if they don't appear to meet the mark. (I'm not taking a position on whether it's factual that they are unskilled, but simply whether a "script kiddie" belongs at a helm of the government.)

Regarding DEI, it does seem like DOGE might be more diverse than some people portray it, and not everyone is a 20-year-old. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/27/us/politics/d...

Regarding what's the right age, I think of Constitutional age limits and Congressional confirmations -- those are the ways we normally have to make sure people are old enough to work in the government. But the side that's been harping about "unelected bureaucrats" is now making the most powerful bureaucrats ever, not subject to election, legal qualifications, or Congressional oversight. Hmm.

> do they have to come from the same place that created the problems as well? This isn't sensible at all.

Well, no, but I have the impression the place they are coming from is "likes right-wing tech leaders like Elon Musk and has worked for them before." I'm not going to dig into investigating or presenting that now, but if it's true, then it's not sensible either. Even under a more charitable characterization of who they are, I don't think engineers, PMs, or MBAs are going to rapidly fix agencies that have been operating in a different sphere and scale. If they went at a more careful pace than DOGE has been doing, I might have more trust they would solve problems.

Suspected by Elon Musk, with no factual basis presented. Here's some real facts:

> ...22 of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) had some data on instances of time and attendance misconduct—including potential fraud—from fiscal years 2015 through 2019... Most (19 of 24) agency Inspectors General (IG) reported that they substantiated five or fewer allegations of time and attendance misconduct or fraud over the 5-year period. In total, these IGs substantiated 100 allegations, ranging from zero substantiated allegations at six agencies to more than 10 at four agencies.

No mention of fake dead workers.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-640.pdf

Do they think there is somebody out there making millions on fake federal paychecks? They should go find and prosecute them! Hopefully such a criminal is not smart enough to monitor the email accounts and respond, or DOGE's brilliant plan will be foiled.

Some other points:

* The second email came "late Friday" and the layoffs happened hours later at 1 am on Saturday, so it's not reasonable to count the second email as a warning or genuine attempt to find the "good" employees. I'm guessing it was just blasted out and happened to land in their inboxes before the firing notice did.

* Based on https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/01/general-services-ad... it appears the entire 18F unit was cut, so this doesn't seem targeted or predicated on email responses. Also, I'm not a leader, but if 100% of my organization didn't comply with an order, cutting them all is probably a much less effective decision than trying to meet them half-way. I guess if they've truly been doing nothing for years, there would be no loss, but that seems unlikely to be true in most cases including 18F's.

* Your initial comment appeared to be speaking generally on DOGE cuts, so it is fair for us to be responding accordingly. 18F seems to have been pretty small, but part of the reason this story is interesting is everything else DOGE is doing. As we've said, plenty of cuts happened before and independent of any email. Personally I'm doubtful that responding does much, but I'd be interested in any reporting on employee's experiences or what DOGE is saying about responses and how it affects their decisions.

Like I said above, I don't think TFA mentioned 18F's responses and there's not really a good reason to assume that the layoffs were due to no response.

(Edit: I accidentally pulled this from a different article not about 18F, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/02/24/musk-doge-fe... . I believe my broader point still true, but I'll elaborate more below.)

This email came AFTER thousands of layoffs!

You have implied every laid-off employee was given a chance to reply to the email and didn’t, which is contrary to TFA.

Convenient way to blame "the bureaucracy" for every problem that DOGE creates. Are you open to the possibility that DOGE will cause more problems than it fixes?

We’re not gaslit into thinking everything was fine with government spending, we’re angry that this is how they’re going to “fix” it.

My memory is, misogyny, cringey stories that were surely greatly exaggerated and just happen to make Feynman the smartest guy in every room, kind of a jerk in general, divorce due to claimed domestic violence, never did the work of writing a book personally but has the reputation of being a prolific author, his pop appeal makes people elevate him to the very top minds of physics when the work of others was much more impactful.

I do blame him. What harm of 2 years of status quo could be greater than the risks of completely breaking safety organizations?

> Elon who has to get rid of underperformers without credible data

No, this is not a valid solution to the problem, if there even are significant performance problems. “We don’t know exactly who the problematic people are, so let’s just fire every probationary employee, you know the ones who haven’t even been around long enough to be chronic underperformers?”

It’s either a very foolish attempt to solve the problem, and/or he actually just wants to destroy government.

> the real blame for this is with the previous administrators who neglected this problem for years

Trump was in charge 5-9 years ago, does he get some blame too?

> I believe that part of the problem is that it is written in C,

You know the Linux kernel, and probably most of your userspace, are also written in C? Why do you say systemd is a disaster solely based on its use of the C language but seem to be believe the rest of "Linux" is stable despite also using C?

I mean, there could be some argument here about everything systemd does actually being harder than a kernel's job... but you didn't say that.

I'm on the C-hate bandwagon as much as anyone else, but it doesn't make sense. I have mixed feelings about systemd though.