Piloting Drones as a Reforestation Tool

Tree planting typically occurs two years after a fire. Alternatively, aerial drone seeding can occur a couple of months after a fire, once the seed vessels are ready and the winter rains arrive to water the seeds.

Post DOGE / AI job boom coming

Here are the DOGE steps and the order in which they are being carried out:

  1. Estimate the number of jobs that will become redundant if an agency standardizes on the same updated tools.
  2. Add in any jobs where DOGE people are unsure of their function or seem redundant, such as QA roles.
  3. Lay off that percentage of people, plus a few more if the numbers are not impressive, regardless of those positions relative to the above perceived inefficiencies. (aka people are people and interchangeable)
  4. Set a tight deadline to complete the transitions, assuming no layoffs.
  5. Inform the remaining staff about the new responsibilities they need to assume and learn, in addition to their existing tasks. Added bonus, many more will quit or retire at this point.
  6. Start the transition even if the tools needed for the transition are not ready yet.
  7. Look for a scapegoat when not only the transition fails to meet the deadline, but also when necessary work, such as system patches, fails to be completed.
  8. Decide to eliminate the agency or hire staff to above pre-DOGE levels to clean up the mess, depending on the level of rioting in the streets.

From my vantage point, we are rapidly approaching step 7. Granted, there will be some variance by project. Please don’t take my word for it. Reach out to anyone you know still working in or with a federal agency and ask.

Many private companies are using a similar game plan for AI adoption. Do not get me wrong, I’m all about automation. A lot of my over 40 years as a developer has been to automate my job away. The point is that you should get the new system working before laying off people, not after.

So on the plus side, despite the current state of the job market, the future for contract labor looks promising in the near future. Similar to the boom from Y2K. I think maintaining contact with your old project is key, since employers will be looking for people with the skill sets of those laid off, as bringing in new people generally takes a good while to get them up to speed.

Liberals started leaving a while back, with the governor trying to override/annex the liberal cities, but now it seems the right has had enough as well.

‘Moving to Texas is over’: Podcasters who followed Joe Rogan to Austin rail against state

Not boding well for jobs or paying bills

US inflation picks up again in June, rising at 2.7% annual rate

A clickbait going around: Scientists Find Alarming Link Between AI Use and Psychopathy

Be sure to read the study, which analyzed self-reported data from 504 Chinese university art students using structural equation modeling with the equally click-bait title of Dark personality traits are associated with academic misconduct, frustration, negative thinking, and generative AI use habits: the case of Sichuan art universities. Essentially, they “discovered” that students with “dark traits” are more likely to utilize AI tools to assist with their homework, achieve good results, and continue using them. Sounds like maybe the problem is the ones not using AI tools.

This is a great video to cut through the hype on AI from both sides.

Apple’s ‘AI Can’t Reason’ Claim Seen By 13M+, What You Need to Know

More than 460 laid-off employees at the nation’s top public health agency are being reinstated.

Hundreds of laid-off CDC employees are being reinstated

Think movies and shows entirely generated from AI are still a long way off? Check this video made with Veo 3 that starts at just $67/month

Veo3 test // non-existent car show

Another step toward generating “live action” movies and shows.

AMC Networks Is Teaming up with AI Company Runway

The administration is terminating leases for 11 OSHA offices, including the one in Houston. Trump has cut 10 percent of its workforce, and more layoffs could be coming. See Will Texas Workers Ever Get a Break from the Summer Heat?

Harper Reed on coding with AI

Harper Reed on coding with AI video

Some great tips, but it’s clear he’s rewriting the entire app to add a feature or fix a bug, which I don’t believe most companies will adopt, as they prefer the code to change as little as possible to avoid introducing new bugs. Since most of the work that paid programmers do involves fixing bugs, upgrading versions (like Java 8 to Java 17), and adding features, I foresee AI being an excellent tool for researching new functions instead of googling and clicking on numerous links to find a working example among all the unanswered and incorrectly answered question posts. I see the next step as utilizing tools to read your codebase and requirement documents to build a model that can “understand” your application. This model will collaborate with coding models to generate updates for your codebase and tests for those changes. Perhaps in a decade, management will feel comfortable removing the last human coder, at a senior or lead level, from the loop.