Artanthos

Artanthos t1_jab80zt wrote

>I am not really sure how large or small federal offices can be.

It's agency dependent. When I was Department of Labor, it was tiny cubicles for 11s and 12s.

With my current agency? You can tell how important someone is by the size and placement of their office. As a GS5 to GS7, my desk was in the hallway. When I changed job titles at GS7 I moved to an interior office. When I made GS11 I got a window office. My supervisor has an office 3x my offices size. My Director has a corner office 2x the size of my supervisors.

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>I am unsure what opportunity there is for advancement

This is very agency dependent. But a foot in the door allows you to change agencies eventually.

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>What kind of free trainings could exist, broadly speaking? Do you mean leadership training

Leadership training does exist, but also professional writing courses, online self-study, mental health, emotional health, general professional courses. Most last 2-3 days, some longer.

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>My absolute dream job (from my college days wargaming at GWU) would be to work in State at some small obscure desk

I'm unsure what exactly they would be looking for. That said, I mentioned networking and training opportunities. I've taken classes at the state department once or twice, and that would be a good topic to bring up during a break. There are also occasional opportunities for detachments, where you temporarily work somewhere else to broaden your experience. Usually it's withing the same agency, but not always.

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Artanthos t1_jab1m7y wrote

>I'll be coming in at a GS5-1, with Excepted Schedule A service.. You think it's impossible for me to make GS10 by the time I'm in my early 30s?

It took me 7 years to go from GS5-1 to GS 12-1, with one change in job title.

What is they range for your position? My first position started at GS5 with promotions to GS6 and GS7 at one year intervals. I changed jobs within the same office to a job that had a pay scale range of GS7 to GS12 about 9 months into GS7, to early to get bumped to GS9 right away and had to wait another full year for that bump. After that I got annual promotions to 9 / 11 / 12, where I've been for a while. Positions above 12 don't open up that frequently and have a lot of competition. That said, GS12-4 hits 100k/year.

This is with a small agency, so I don't know how things will work for you. Worst case, build your resume, take all the free training you can get, and if your advancement stalls, keep an eye on usajobs.com It's usually fairly easy to get a lateral change with a higher promotion potential if you don't mind changing agencies once or twice and have good performance evaluations.

Don't burn bridges, stay on good terms with everyone, and network. People, especially senior people, network and people talk. Having a good reputation will go a long ways.

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Artanthos t1_jaa8rma wrote

There is a lot here to think about. As a background; I started with the federal government ~12 years ago, am currently a GS 12, and have a good shot at being a GS13 in the next month (let my interview go well).

  1. Look at room rentals if you want to be in the DMV. Areas like Temple Hills are cheaper, but have much higher crime rates.
  2. The further out you live, the cheaper housing gets. I commute ~50 miles by train and pay less than half DC rates. Nearly all of my coworkers commute by rail.
  3. The fed subsidizes rail/bus/subway. I pay nothing for transportation to and from work and never have.
  4. Promotion potential: there’s no real upper limit given personal ability and time. My current Director is someone I helped train. My desk today sits ~10’ from where my desk was 12 years ago.
  5. Work life balance. Generally you can make more outside the government. Getting better work life balance and job security is much more difficult. When 5:00 hits, most positions require you to stop working. Not accounting for alternate work schedules (AWS)
  6. AWS: most agencies will allow you to set your work schedule, within certain broad limits. Generally not before 6am and not latter than 6pm. Four 10 hour shifts per week is a common choice.
  7. If you want to job hop a little, it’s much easier to get a federal job if you already have a federal job.
  8. Benefits: They tend to be very good. Vacation time is separate from sick time, health insurance is very good, subsidized commute, pension + 401K
  9. High job satisfaction. People don’t tend to leave federal employment without good reason. Retirement is a popular reason. You’ll find a lot of coworkers with 20-40 years of experience.
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Artanthos t1_jaa0xo2 wrote

Reply to comment by aspheric_cow in Magnetic pole reversal by Gopokes91

Airplanes use several different systems.

Yes, they do use gyroscopes, and they do get periodically recalibrated.

Doppler radar is another system. On airport approaches you have TACAN.

All of these systems allow the pilot to make course corrections.

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Artanthos t1_ja7t7e5 wrote

You would have to make your argument to the Chinese government.

Also: this is not China’s only chatGPT rival. Baidu is almost ready to launch ERNIE.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.12731

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/02/07/baidu-shares-leaps-as-it-reveals-plan-for-chatgpt-style-ernie-bot.html

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Artanthos t1_j9z1p6b wrote

You assume AGI will be sentient, possess free will, a be hostile, and have access to the tools and resources to act on that hostility.

That’s a lot of assumptions.

I would be far more worried about an alignment issue and having everything converted into paperclips.

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Artanthos t1_j9vphbo wrote

>I don't know who you're kidding, maybe yourself? The conservative platform is about 95% of the issues I named and gun control

I'm not talking about the conservative platform, and I've tried to make this very clear.

I'm talking about the hive mind classifying anything and everything that disagrees with it as conservative and downvoting it while ignoring their own issues and any real data that contradicts their own biases.

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