Over the course of the past year, I think we've seen more evidence that the federal workforce's collective bargaining rights aren't strong enough. Workers' employment contracts are being ignored, employees are being threatened, constructively terminated, all in an attempt to enact RIFs without following the law.

Things are happening to the federal workforce right now that aren't even legal in the private sector.

If contracts are violated then the impacted parties can seek redress through the courts. Government employee unions aren't needed for that.

You have to have your contract violated for a significant amount before you can notionally afford to hire a lawyer to fight it out. Below 5 figures it doesn't make much financial sense to do that for most people, so they just eat it instead. It's how a lot of "theft of wages" and other mistreatment happens so often. Lawyers don't take those cases for free, and court isn't free either. And you're not going to instantly appear at the top of the docket for something small like that especially if the government buries you in procedure. They can do that for years.

But sure, yeah you can seek redress through the courts.

Suing the federal government solo is an insurmountable task for most people -- even more so while they're being constructively terminated. Employee unions have been suing on their workers behalf over the past year, but the executive branch can drag out federal trials for a lot longer than people can stay without a job.

Are you under the impression that air traffic controllers only work at towers in commercial airports?

Your math is based on incorrect assumptions -- the well-documented ATC shortage actually exists.

Do you know how many towered facilities there are in New York state?

32.

Let's assume only 260 ATC for 32 towers. (Not true, but again, we're being friendly to the conspiracy nuts.) We'll further assume every tower is staffed equally. (Also not true, but again, friendly to the nuts.)

8 Controllers for each tower if those assumptions were true. Which they are not.

Why is one controller on duty in a commercial airport? Not a public-use airport, a commercial airport?

Please stop with the BS.

And for my next question: are you under the impression that air traffic controllers only work at towers?

Not at all.

But now that I know that you know a bit about ATC. Let's drop the pretense.

We're both fully aware that there are right around 1250 ATC controllers in New York state. I further suspect that both of us know exactly how many work LGA. So there's no need to speak in generalities any longer.

It's time to get serious about determining what happened in this instance. It appears, from the initial available information, that there was not even a relief on site.

That practice needs to stop, and please don't try to tell me we don't have the available staff to bring it to an end. You and I both know that's horse manure.

There are many people in America who do not know the difference, the mistake is fairly common.

At this point they are just American units, right? Since the UK has upgraded already.

The origin of US Customary units is British, even if the US, Liberia and Myanmar are the last countries still using it. The UK has almost entirely adopted metric (yards and miles are still used for measuring distances on roads and pints are still used for milk and beer, and the last government made the eccentric decision to permit pints for wine, which no producer used because they couldn't get the bottles), but these systems of units have identities beyond whether or not they're in use anywhere.

EDIT/CORRECTION: Milk is sold in multiples of 568 mL, so while the quantities are pints, the measurement is metric.

Beer and cider are the only drinks that are legally not sold by metric volume in the UK. They have to be served by the pint, 2/3, 1/2 or 1/3. Every other drink has to use metric.

That's why we call it the US Customary System.

45% of Americans have zero access to any public transport of any kind.

And the other 55% may have access but often it doesn't meet people's needs (it may not go when/where they need to go)

Only 11% of Americans use public transit at all on a weekly basis.

3.5% of Americans use public transit to commute.

Alcohol inhibits people's decision making skills

> a single physical switch that disables all vehicles radios

Disabling all of them would have silly consequences, and wouldn't be compatible with other safety regulations.

I don't think most people realize just how few people in the US obey license suspensions. Studies show the vast majority of people simply keep driving anyway.

This but replace Germans and British with Americans above and below some fairly fuzzy income level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3EBs7sCOzo

There is no proposal to require these janky ass aftermarket units, nor require any type of interlock at all.

NHTSA was directed to write some guidelines/rules around the implementation of passive impairment detection as OEM features. They have yet to do so, probably because it is flaky technology.

My guess is that the final rule implementation will be similar to the distracted driver detection that is already in many new vehicles.

There are plenty of ways to use openclaw that aren’t with your own data. You can use it with any kind of data.

The specs for the “exabox” scream “this is a joke” to me.

> 20,000 lbs

> concrete slab

Huge-scale IT systems are typically delivered in one or more 42/44u cabinets, and are designed to be installed on raised floors.

It's a shipping container. Look at the dimensions. They say concrete slab probably half as a joke, half because building code would require it to consider it a non-temporary structure.

It's a shipping container that you install outdoors.

Are you referring to the images of branded shipping containers on their Twitter page that have visible Gemini watermarks … and jokes in the comments about AI trailer parks?

20x8x8.5 ft is the dimensions of a half shipping container. You think that render is a joke but it's not. They don't have photos yet because it's a 2027 product (if it actually comes out which I would bet against).

It's also funny that they explicitly list driver quality as "good" for the base option and "great" for the intermediate one. You're really going to deliberately provide worse drivers for the machine I paid you for, just because I didn't buy the more expensive one?

I mean I'm sure lots of companies do this in practice because tickets for higher-paying customers naturally get prioritized, but directly stating your intention to do it on your home page is hilarious.

Nvidia drivers are better than AMD. It's not really something they have control over. Geohot is definitely obsessed with bitching about driver bugs though.

That may be, but then it's an inside joke that many of his customers won't get. It just looks like a "fuck you" to anyone buying the cheaper system.

This guy desperately needs a marketing intern to look over his copy. Or hell, anyone who knows how to talk to humans.

Not a joke. It's just true.

It doesn't matter if it's a joke. The non-technical manager or VP making this purchase will not understand it and will expect poor treatment from this vendor, an expectation that will be reinforced by numerous other things on this page. There is no reason to include it at all.

It doesn’t read as if they actually care about broad appeal, given their plain refusal to accommodate traditional procurement processes

So they're only interested in taking on customers who are OK with being treated poorly?

Anyone who can’t deal with their procurement process isn’t a customer.

There’s nothing remotely unusual about being selective about who or how to bring on new customer in B2B sales.

Their preference is for more simplicity than normal —- many businesses make it much harder

To me it signals honesty. But this is a subjective judgement. It really sounds like you subjectively disliked the page, and you're trying to present that dislike as objective fact. It really annoyed me the way you kept changing your argument to justify that. Why not just say "I dislike their marketing copy, it rubbed me the wrong way" and leave it at that?

> It seems that you work a lot with managers who have no clue what they are buying and why.

There are certain quirks of this platform's user base that always make me laugh. For example, HNers absolutely love to imply something condescending about the other guy's workplace in order to make their point.

Watch this, I can do it too: Working with managers who make $65,000 (or $10 million) purchases with no more due diligence than reading a marketing page and clicking "Buy it now" is not the flex you think it is.

I was involved in it-related deals on both purchasing and selling sides. Sums involved were larger than both numbers you mentioned.

And I honestly see almost no correlation between the amount of negotiation involved, and value received.

Some of the most useful things we've integrated were either free or meant that only the "buy it now" button had to be clicked.

Some of the absolutely worst systems I had to work with were purchased after making a call to that "let us know" number.

This tiny guy is mostly saying that he doesnt have the time for enterprise bla-bla. I am not sure he can organise enterprise sales with this attitude but can definitely relate to it!

I took that as a dig against AMD vs Nvidia driver quality.

I guess it is called ‘honesty’.