#data onboarding software

[simplifyworkforce]

Why VMS Systems Are Vital for Managing the Contingent Workforce and Scaling Direct Sourcing Recruitment

In today’s fast-moving talent market, companies are increasingly relying on contingent workers—freelancers, contractors, consultants, and gig professionals—to meet project-based demands and fill critical skill gaps. Managing this flexible workforce requires more than spreadsheets and email chains. That’s where a Vendor Management System (VMS) comes into play.

A VMS system is a centralized platform that streamlines the way organizations manage their contingent workforce, engage staffing vendors, and ensure compliance. It plays a crucial role in driving efficiency, reducing costs, and enabling smarter hiring decisions—especially when paired with direct sourcing recruitment strategies.

What Is a VMS System?

A VMS system is software designed to manage every step of the external workforce lifecycle, from vendor onboarding and job requisitions to time tracking, invoicing, and performance evaluation. It provides a transparent view of your entire contingent workforce operation—whether you’re working with multiple vendors or directly sourcing your talent.

A good VMS system offers:

Centralized vendor and worker database

Real-time performance analytics

Automated workflows for approvals and invoicing

Integrated compliance and audit tracking

Role-based access for procurement, HR, and hiring managers

This kind of visibility is crucial in industries like IT, healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics where contingent labor forms a large part of the workforce.

Managing the VMS Contingent Workforce

The VMS contingent workforce refers to all temporary or non-payroll workers who are managed through a Vendor Management System. By consolidating all vendor and talent data into one dashboard, companies can quickly track labor costs, monitor compliance, and make strategic sourcing decisions.

Benefits include:

Improved visibility: Know who’s working, where, and at what cost.

Compliance assurance: Ensure vendors and workers meet legal and policy requirements.

Cost control: Avoid overbilling and negotiate better vendor terms.

Faster onboarding: Automate paperwork and approval flows.

A VMS system acts as a bridge between procurement, HR, and staffing vendors—making sure everyone is aligned and accountable.

Powering Direct Sourcing Recruitment with a VMS

Direct sourcing recruitment is the practice of leveraging your company’s brand and internal tools to source and engage contingent talent—without third-party staffing agencies. This model reduces cost per hire and gives you more control over candidate quality.

When integrated with a VMS system, direct sourcing becomes even more powerful. You can:

Build and maintain a private talent pool

Automatically match requisitions with pre-vetted candidates

Track direct sourcing performance alongside vendor-sourced hires

Easily switch between sourcing channels based on cost and availability

In essence, your VMS system becomes the control center for both vendor-led and direct sourcing recruitment.

Why This Matters Now

As businesses face uncertain markets and evolving workforce models, agility is key. Companies need scalable solutions to manage hybrid workforces that include full-time employees, freelancers, and everything in between.

Investing in a VMS system enables you to:

Scale contingent hiring without administrative chaos

Increase transparency and reduce compliance risks

Leverage direct sourcing to cut costs and improve hiring speed

Final Thoughts

Managing a modern workforce requires modern tools. A VMS contingent workforce strategy supported by a reliable VMS system and empowered by direct sourcing recruitment can give your organization the edge in today’s competitive hiring landscape.

Whether you're managing thousands of contractors or just starting to explore direct sourcing, the right VMS software can streamline operations, save time, and boost ROI.

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

[techobase]

New Ways of Working Can Boost the Productivity of Your Team

Are you looking to improve your team productivity? It won't be easy, but there are ways to ensure that it happens Read more..

[technicalfika]

Mastering Accounts Payable: 15 Common Interview Questions and Expert Answers

Preparing for an Accounts Payable (AP) interview is a crucial step in securing a position in this vital finance function. To help you excel in your interview, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide that covers the 20 most common AP interview questions, each paired with expert answers. In this article, you’ll gain valuable insights into the world of AP and enhance your chances of acing your…

[charseraph]

Noosciocircus agent backgrounds, former jobs at C&A, assigned roles, and current internal status.

Kinger

Former professor — Studied child psychology and computer science, moved into neobotanics via germination theory and seedlet development.

Seedlet trainer — Socialized and educated newly germinated seedlets to suit their future assignments. I.e. worked alongside a small team to serve as seedlets’ social parents, K-12 instructors, and upper-education mentors in rapid succession (about a year).

Intermediary — Inserted to assist cooperation and understanding of Caine.

Partially mentally mulekicked — Lives in state of forgetfulness after abstraction of spouse, is prone to reliving past from prior to event.

Ragatha

Former EMT — Worked in a rural community.

Semiohazard medic — Underwent training to treat and assess mulekick victims and to administer care in the presence of semiohazards.

Nootic health supervisor— Inserted to provide nootic endurance training, treat psychological mulekick, and maintain morale.

Obsessive-compulsive — Receives new agents and struggles to maintain morale among team and herself due to low trust in her honesty.

Jax

Former programmer — Gained experience when acquired out of university by a large software company.

Scioner — Developed virtual interfaces for seedlets to operate machinery with.

Circus surveyor — Inserted to assess and map nature of circus simulation, potentially finding avenues of escape.

Anomic — Detached from morals and social stake. Uncooperative and gleefully combative.

Gangle

Former navy sailor — Performed clerical work as a yeoman, served in one of the first semiotically-armed submarines.

Personnel manager — Recordkept C&A researcher employments and managed mess hall.

Task coordinator — Inserted to organize team effort towards escape.

Reclused — Abandoned task and lives in quiet, depressive state.

Zooble

No formal background — Onboarded out of secondary school for certification by C&A as part of a youth outreach initiative.

Mule trainer — Physically handled mules, living semiohazard conveyors for tactical use.

Semiohazard specialist — Inserted to identify, evaluate, and attempt to disarm semiotic tripwires.

Debilitated and self-isolating — Suffers chronic vertigo from randomly pulled avatar. Struggles to participate in adventures at risk of episode.

Pomni

Former accountant — Worked for a chemical research firm before completing her accreditation to become a biochemist.

Collochemist — Performed mesh checkups and oversaw industrial hormone synthesis.

Field researcher — Inserted to collect data from fellows and organize reports for indeterminate recovery. Versed in scientific conduct.

In shock — Currently acclimating to new condition. Fresh and overwhelming preoccupation with escape.

Caine

Neglected — Due to project deadline tightening, Caine’s socialization was expedited in favor of lessons pertinent to his practical purpose. Emerged a well-meaning but awkward and insecure individual unprepared for noosciocircus entrapment.

Prototype — Germinated as an experimental mustard, or semiotic filter seedlet, capable of subconsciously assembling semiohazards and detonating them in controlled conditions.

Nooscioarchitect — Constructs spaces and nonsophont AI for the agents to occupy and interact with using his asset library and computation power. Organizes adventures to mentally stimulate the agents, unknowingly lacing them with hazards.

Helpless — After semiohazard overexposure, an agent’s attachment to their avatar dissolves and their blackroom exposes, a process called abstraction. These open holes in the noosciocircus simulation spill potentially hazardous memories and emotion from the abstracted agent’s mind. Caine stores them in the cellar, a stimulus-free and infoproofed zone that calms the abstracted and nullifies emitted hazards. He genuinely cares about the inserted, but after only being able to do damage control for a continually deteriorating situation, the weight of his failure is beginning to weigh on him in a way he did not get to learn how to express.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s minions—from trusted sidekicks to random college students and former Musk company interns—have taken over the General Services Administration, a critical government agency that manages federal offices and technology. Already, the team is attempting to use White House security credentials to gain unusual access to GSA tech, deploying a suite of new AI software, and recreating the office in X’s image, according to leaked documents obtained by WIRED.

Some of the same people who helped Musk take over Twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official GSA employees. Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter HQ as an unofficial member of Musk’s transition team, has high-level agency access and an official government email address, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Hollander’s husband, Steve Davis, also slept in the office. He has now taken on a leading role in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thomas Shedd, the recently installed director of the Technology Transformation Services within GSA, worked as a software engineer at Tesla for eight years. Edward Coristine, who previously interned at Neuralink, has been onboarded along with Ethan Shaotran, a Harvard senior who is developing his own OpenAI-backed scheduling assistant and participated in an xAI hackathon.

“I believe these people do not want to help the federal government provide services to the American people,” says a current GSA employee who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation. “They are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company.”

The team appears to be carrying out Musk’s agenda: slashing the federal government as quickly as possible. They’re currently targeting a 50 percent reduction in spending for every office managed by the GSA, according to documents obtained by WIRED.

There also appears to be an effort to use IT credentials from the Executive Office of the President to access GSA laptops and internal GSA infrastructure. Typically, access to agency systems requires workers to be employed at such agencies, sources say. While Musk's team could be trying to obtain better laptops and equipment from GSA, sources fear that the mandate laid out in the DOGE executive order would grant the body broad access to GSA systems and data. That includes sensitive procurement data, data internal to all the systems and services GSA offers, and internal monitoring software to surveil GSA employees as part of normal auditing and security processes.

The access could give Musk’s proxies the ability to remote into laptops, listen in on meetings, read emails, among many other things, a former Biden official told WIRED on Friday.

“Granting DOGE staff, many of whom aren't government employees, unfettered access to internal government systems and sensitive data poses a huge security risk to the federal government and to the American public,” the Biden official said. “Not only will DOGE be able to review procurement-sensitive information about major government contracts, it'll also be able to actively surveil government employees.”

The new GSA leadership team has prioritized downsizing the GSA’s real estate portfolio, canceling convenience contracts, and rolling out AI tools for use by the federal government, according to internal documents and interviews with sources familiar with the situation. At a GSA office in Washington, DC, earlier this week, there were three items written on a white board sitting in a large, vacant room. “Spending Cuts $585 m, Regulations Removed, 15, Square feet sold/terminated 203,000 sf,” it read, according to a photo viewed by WIRED. There’s no note of who wrote the message, but it appears to be a tracker of cuts made or proposed by the team.

“We notified the commercial real estate market that two GSA properties would soon be listed for sale, and we terminated three leases,” Stephen Ehikian, the newly appointed GSA acting administrator, said in an email to GSA staff on Tuesday, confirming the agency’s focus on lowering real estate costs. “This is our first step in right-sizing the real estate portfolio.”

The proposed changes extend even inside the physical spaces at the GSA offices. Hollander has requested multiple “resting rooms,” for use by the A-suite, a team of employees affiliated with the GSA administrator’s office.

On January 29, a working group of high-ranking GSA employees, including the deputy general counsel and the chief administrative services officer, met to discuss building a resting room prototype. The team mapped out how to get the necessary funding and waivers to build resting rooms in the office, according to an agenda viewed by WIRED.

After Musk bought Twitter, Hollander and Davis moved into the office with their newborn baby. Hollander helped oversee real estate and office design—including the installation of hotel rooms at Twitter HQ, according to a lawsuit later filed by Twitter executives. During the installation process, one of the executives emailed to say that the plans for the rooms were likely not code compliant. Hollander “visited him in person and emphatically instructed him to never put anything about the project in writing again,” the lawsuit alleged. Employees were allegedly instructed to call the hotel rooms “sleeping rooms” and to say they were just for taking naps.

Hollander has also requested access to Public Buildings Service applications; PBS owns and leases office space to government agencies. The timing of the access request lines up with Ehikian’s announcement about shrinking GSA’s real estate cost.

Musk’s lieutenants are also working to authorize the use of AI tools, including Google Gemini and Cursor (an AI coding assistant), for federal workers. On January 30, the group met with Google to discuss Telemetry, a software used to monitor the health and performance of applications, according to a document obtained by WIRED.

A-suite engineers, including Coristine and Shaotran, have requested access to a variety of GSA records, including nearly 10 years of accounting data, as well as detailed records on vendor payments, purchase orders, and revenue.

The GSA takeover mimics Musk’s strategy at other federal agencies like the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Earlier this month, Amanda Scales, who worked in talent at Musk’s xAI, was appointed as OPM chief of staff. Riccardo Biasini, former Tesla engineer and director of operations at the Boring company, is now a senior adviser to the director. Earlier this week, Musk cohorts at the US Office of Personnel Management emailed more than 2 million federal workers offering “deferred resignations,” allegedly promising employees their regular pay and benefits through September 30.

The email closely mirrored the “extremely hardcore” note Musk sent to Twitter staff in November 2022, shortly after buying the company.

Many federal workers thought the email was fake—as with Twitter, it seemed designed to force people to leave, slashing headcount costs without the headache of an official layoff.

Ehikian followed up with a note to staff stressing that the email was legitimate. “Yes, the OPM email is real and should be taken very seriously,” he said in an email obtained by WIRED. He added that employees should expect a “further consolidation of offices and centralization of functions.”

On Thursday night, GSA workers received a third email related to the resignation request called “Fork in the Road FAQs.” The email explained that employees who resign from their positions would not be required to work and could get a second job. “We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” it read. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

The third question posed in the FAQ asked, “Will I really get my full pay and benefits during the entire period through September 30, even if I get a second job?”

“Yes,” the answer read. “You will also accrue further personal leave days, vacation days, etc. and be paid out for unused leave at your final resignation date.”

However, multiple GSA employees have told WIRED that they are refusing to resign, especially after the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) told its members on Tuesday that the offer could be void.

“There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised,” the union said in a notice.

There is also concern that, under Musk’s influence, the federal government might not pay for the duration of the deferred resignation period. Thousands of Twitter employees have sued Musk alleging that he failed to pay their agreed upon severance. Last year, one class action suit was dismissed in Musk’s favor.

In an internal video viewed by WIRED, Ehikian reiterated that GSA employees had the “opportunity to participate in a deferred resignation program,” per the email sent by OPM on January 28. Pressing his hands into the namaste gesture, Ehikian added, “If you choose to participate, I offer you my heartfelt gratitude for your service to this nation. If you choose to stay at the GSA, we’ll work together to implement the four pillars from the OPM memo.” He ended the video by saying thank you and pressing his hands into namaste again.

[mysticstronomy]

WHY IS VOYAGER 1 SENDING GIBBERISH??

Blog#391

Wednesday, April 10th, 2024.

Welcome back,

For months now, the most distant spacecraft to Earth – Voyager 1 – has been talking gibberish on the interplanetary 'radio'.

The repetitive jumble of 1s and 0s it's sending back to our planet, 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) away, has made no sense to scientists until now.

Turns out, officials at NASA just needed to give the oh-so-distant craft a bit of a 'poke' to ask it how it was feeling.

In response to a coded command sent in March, a computer onboard the Voyager called the flight data subsystem (FDS) has revealed where it hurts. This system wraps up the mission's all-important observations before beaming them back to Earth.

The system returned a software readout to Earth that scientists have now used to confirm about 3 percent of its memory is corrupted. Which is why turning the FDS on and off didn't resolve the issue back in November of 2023.

Based on the gobbledygook data the FDS is currently packaging, engineers at NASA suspect that most of the corruption is confined to a single chip in the computer's memory system.

In March, the Voyager mission team at NASA sent a so-called poke command to the FDS. Poke commands modify specific memory addresses, which is why gamers sometimes use them to cheat, by giving themselves unlimited lives or some such similar advantage.

In this case, the command allowed the engineers to prompt the system into using different readout sequences in its software packages in an effort to circumvent the problem.

Thanks to the FDS' response to the poke command, received 22.5 hours later, engineers noticed that one part of the system was returning some strange readings. They appeared to be in the wrong format, and an engineer on the team was able to decode them.

The mumbo jumbo signal contained a readout of the entire FDS memory system. Comparing this readout to one received before the issue arose, the Voyager team was able to locate the source of corruption.

No one yet knows what originally caused the corruption, but it could have come from energetic particles in space sparking damage, or simply sheer age.

Voyager 1 has gone above and beyond its initial mission, both figuratively and literally speaking. It was designed to explore Jupiter and Saturn and was launched all the way back in 1977, which means its computers are wildly outdated.

Originally published on www.sciencealert.com/

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, April 13th, 2024)

"HOW DID THE MOON FORM??"

[piratesexmachine420]

Copy and pasting the following from a discussion of this video in a discord server I'm in, because I think it's a point worth making:

It's very annoying to see how telephone game'd the Mars Climate Orbiter failure has become.

It didn't crash into Mars, it was simply too low when it went for an aerobrake pass. It definitely didn't leave "a scar that you can see from the other orbiters". Mark is probably either thinking of Beagle 2 or Mars Polar Lander, or maybe one of the more recent unmanned lunar landers (Beresheet, maybe?).

It wasn't a mixup of inches and centimeters, it was a mixup of pound force-seconds and newton-seconds.

Lockheed weren't idiots, and it's frankly insulting to all teams involved to claim so. The actual MCO mishap investigation report -- which Mark clearly either hasn't read or hasn't read thoroughly -- clearly states throughout that while the direct cause of failure was the faulty data in the Angular Momentum Desaturation modeling file (not just incorrect units, but also formatting issues and just plain errors), the root causes were multivalent:

The ops. team were understaffed and running three missions simultaneously.

Team members were inadequately trained.

Inadequate onboard navigation ("total reliant on [the] Earth-based Deep Space Network")

Contingency maneuvers that could have saved the mission, weren't taken because the teams weren't prepared (or able to prepare) for them.

End-to-end testing of the software stack, which should have been performed beforehand, never occurred.

And more! You can read the MCO phase I mishap report here and phase II here, if you're interested in learning what actually happened, instead of just blaming Lockheed for being stupid degenerate Americans with no safety culture.

You might notice with a sense of dramatic irony that the MCO phase I report makes a lot of recommendations for the concurrent MPL program; that mission would similarly fail less than a month after the report's publication for related reasons (not the units mixup part, the other ones).

MCO was not an isolated incident and it's frankly malpractice to ignore that (by omission or otherwise). The 90s were bad for space programs, mostly down to budget pressures. The MCO phase II report goes deep into the problems with NASA "Faster, Better, Cheaper" philosophy at the time.

Let me summarize: MCO was not a failure of software design. It was not a failure of unit conversion, either. It was a failure of project management. While the course (in)corrections were what doomed MCO directly, it was always going to be something. The team running MCO simply could not have succeeded given the conditions they were in. If it was anyone's fault, it was Congress' fault for not funding the deep space program enough.

[bloodgulchblog]

I have a question! If it's okay to ask.

Do we know if the remains of the Covenant speak English? Or do Chief and co just have a built in translator by that point? I'm thinking especially of the first Blue Team mission in Halo 5, on the Argent Moon.

By Halo 5 the UNSC has really good translation software for Covenant languages and you can safely assume Spartans have it onboard. (Cortana actually was huge for this, the UNSC had some translation capabilities but after she helped steal a Covenant ship between CE and Halo 2 she got her hands on the data needed for much more complete translation.)

Aliens that work with humans often pick up a human language. A bunch of sangheili have been described as speaking English and there are human characters that have learned Sangheili. In general the Covenant used Sangheili as its lingua franca so it's the most useful one to learn if you want to talk to aliens.

[usafphantom2]

B-2 Gets Big Upgrade with New Open Mission Systems Capability

July 18, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has been upgraded with a new open missions systems (OMS) software capability and other improvements to keep it relevant and credible until it’s succeeded by the B-21 Raider, Northrop Grumman announced. The changes accelerate the rate at which new weapons can be added to the B-2; allow it to accept constant software updates, and adapt it to changing conditions.

“The B-2 program recently achieved a major milestone by providing the bomber with its first fieldable, agile integrated functional capability called Spirit Realm 1 (SR 1),” the company said in a release. It announced the upgrade going operational on July 17, the 35th anniversary of the B-2’s first flight.

SR 1 was developed inside the Spirit Realm software factory codeveloped by the Air Force and Northrop to facilitate software improvements for the B-2. “Open mission systems” means that the aircraft has a non-proprietary software architecture that simplifies software refresh and enhances interoperability with other systems.

“SR 1 provides mission-critical capability upgrades to the communications and weapons systems via an open mission systems architecture, directly enhancing combat capability and allowing the fleet to initiate a new phase of agile software releases,” Northrop said in its release.

The system is intended to deliver problem-free software on the first go—but should they arise, correct software issues much earlier in the process.

The SR 1 was “fully developed inside the B-2 Spirit Realm software factory that was established through a partnership with Air Force Global Strike Command and the B-2 Systems Program Office,” Northrop said.

The Spirit Realm software factory came into being less than two years ago, with four goals: to reduce flight test risk and testing time through high-fidelity ground testing; to capture more data test points through targeted upgrades; to improve the B-2’s functional capabilities through more frequent, automated testing; and to facilitate more capability upgrades to the jet.

The Air Force said B-2 software updates which used to take two years can now be implemented in less than three months.

In addition to B61 or B83 nuclear weapons, the B-2 can carry a large number of precision-guided conventional munitions. However, the Air Force is preparing to introduce a slate of new weapons that will require near-constant target updates and the ability to integrate with USAF’s evolving long-range kill chain. A quicker process for integrating these new weapons with the B-2’s onboard communications, navigation, and sensor systems was needed.

The upgrade also includes improved displays, flight hardware and other enhancements to the B-2’s survivability, Northrop said.

“We are rapidly fielding capabilities with zero software defects through the software factory development ecosystem and further enhancing the B-2 fleet’s mission effectiveness,” said Jerry McBrearty, Northrop’s acting B-2 program manager.

The upgrade makes the B-2 the first legacy nuclear weapons platform “to utilize the Department of Defense’s DevSecOps [development, security, and operations] processes and digital toolsets,” it added.

The software factory approach accelerates adding new and future weapons to the stealth bomber, and thus improve deterrence, said Air Force Col. Frank Marino, senior materiel leader for the B-2.

The B-2 was not designed using digital methods—the way its younger stablemate, the B-21 Raider was—but the SR 1 leverages digital technology “to design, manage, build and test B-2 software more efficiently than ever before,” the company said.

The digital tools can also link with those developed for other legacy systems to accomplish “more rapid testing and fielding and help identify and fix potential risks earlier in the software development process.”

Following two crashes in recent years, the stealthy B-2 fleet comprises 19 aircraft, which are the only penetrating aircraft in the Air Force’s bomber fleet until the first B-21s are declared to have achieved initial operational capability at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. A timeline for IOC has not been disclosed.

The B-2 is a stealthy, long-range, penetrating nuclear and conventional strike bomber. It is based on a flying wing design combining LO with high aerodynamic efficiency. The aircraft’s blended fuselage/wing holds two weapons bays capable of carrying nearly 60,000 lb in various combinations.

Spirit entered combat during Allied Force on March 24, 1999, striking Serbian targets. Production was completed in three blocks, and all aircraft were upgraded to Block 30 standard with AESA radar. Production was limited to 21 aircraft due to cost, and a single B-2 was subsequently lost in a crash at Andersen, Feb. 23, 2008.

Modernization is focused on safeguarding the B-2A’s penetrating strike capability in high-end threat environments and integrating advanced weapons.

The B-2 achieved a major milestone in 2022 with the integration of a Radar Aided Targeting System (RATS), enabling delivery of the modernized B61-12 precision-guided thermonuclear freefall weapon. RATS uses the aircraft’s radar to guide the weapon in GPS-denied conditions, while additional Flex Strike upgrades feed GPS data to weapons prerelease to thwart jamming. A B-2A successfully dropped an inert B61-12 using RATS on June 14, 2022, and successfully employed the longer-range JASSM-ER cruise missile in a test launch last December.

Ongoing upgrades include replacing the primary cockpit displays, the Adaptable Communications Suite (ACS) to provide Link 16-based jam-resistant in-flight retasking, advanced IFF, crash-survivable data recorders, and weapons integration. USAF is also working to enhance the fleet’s maintainability with LO signature improvements to coatings, materials, and radar-absorptive structures such as the radome and engine inlets/exhausts.

Two B-2s were damaged in separate landing accidents at Whiteman on Sept. 14, 2021, and Dec. 10, 2022, the latter prompting an indefinite fleetwide stand-down until May 18, 2023. USAF plans to retire the fleet once the B-21 Raider enters service in sufficient numbers around 2032.

Contractors: Northrop Grumman; Boeing; Vought.

First Flight: July 17, 1989.

Delivered: December 1993-December 1997.

IOC: April 1997, Whiteman AFB, Mo.

Production: 21.

Inventory: 20.

Operator: AFGSC, AFMC, ANG (associate).

Aircraft Location: Edwards AFB, Calif.; Whiteman AFB, Mo.

Active Variant: •B-2A. Production aircraft upgraded to Block 30 standards.

Dimensions: Span 172 ft, length 69 ft, height 17 ft.

Weight: Max T-O 336,500 lb.

Power Plant: Four GE Aviation F118-GE-100 turbofans, each 17,300 lb thrust.

Performance: Speed high subsonic, range 6,900 miles (further with air refueling).

Ceiling: 50,000 ft.

Armament: Nuclear: 16 B61-7, B61-12, B83, or eight B61-11 bombs (on rotary launchers). Conventional: 80 Mk 62 (500-lb) sea mines, 80 Mk 82 (500-lb) bombs, 80 GBU-38 JDAMs, or 34 CBU-87/89 munitions (on rack assemblies); or 16 GBU-31 JDAMs, 16 Mk 84 (2,000-lb) bombs, 16 AGM-154 JSOWs, 16 AGM-158 JASSMs, or eight GBU-28 LGBs.

Accommodation: Two pilots on ACES II zero/zero ejection seats.

[historysurvivalguide]

Debugging Code 15 Billion Miles Away

NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).

Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.

The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.

So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.

The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22 ½ hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 ½ hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Caleb Ecarma and Judd Legum at Popular Information:

Several of Elon Musk’s associates installed at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have received unprecedented access to federal human resources databases containing sensitive personal information for millions of federal employees. According to two members of OPM staff with direct knowledge, the Musk team running OPM has the ability to extract information from databases that store medical histories, personally identifiable information, workplace evaluations, and other private data. The staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly and feared professional retaliation. Musk Watch also reviewed internal OPM correspondence confirming that expansive access to the database was provided to Musk associates.

The arrangement presents acute privacy and security risks, one of the OPM staffers said. Among the government outsiders granted entry to the OPM databases is University of California Berkeley student Akash Bobba, a software engineer who graduated high school less than three years ago. He previously interned at Meta and Palantir, a technology firm chaired by Musk-ally and fellow billionaire Peter Thiel. Edward Coristine, another 2022 high school graduate and former software engineering intern at Musk’s Neuralink, has also been given access to the databases.

Other Musk underlings embedded at OPM following President Donald Trump’s inauguration include the agency’s new chief of staff, Amanda Scales, who until January was a human resources staffer at xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, and Brian Bjelde, who has spent the past 21 years at Musk's SpaceX, including the last 10 leading the human resources department. They are joined by Gavin Kliger, a former Twitter software engineer serving as a special advisor to the director of OPM, and Riccardo Biasini, a former software engineer at Musk’s tunneling venture, the Boring Company. OPM did not respond to a request for comment. Shortly after Trump took office, OPM installed Greg Hogan to serve as its new chief information officer (CIO). Hogan was tapped to replace OPM CIO Melvin Brown, who had accepted the job less than a month ago. The civil servants who oversee the OPM’s information technology services were then instructed to provide access to Musk's associates, according to the OPM staffers who spoke to Musk Watch. One of the OPM staffers received an email from the agency’s new leadership instructing them to give Musk’s team “access [to] the system as an admin user" and "code read and write permissions." “They have access to the code itself, which means they can make updates to anything that they want,” the staffer explained. USAJOBS, the federal government’s official hiring site, was one of the systems that Musk's associates were given access to. The database stores personal information — Social Security numbers, home addresses, employment records — provided by private individuals who have applied for federal jobs, regardless of whether the applicants went on to work for the government. Musk’s aides were also given access to the OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system. Contained within the EHRI are the Social Security numbers, dates of birth, salaries, home addresses, and job descriptions of all civil government workers, along with any disciplinary actions they have faced. “They’re looking through all the position descriptions… to remove folks,” one of the OPM staffers said of Musk’s team. “This is how they found all these DEI offices and had them removed — [by] reviewing position description level data.” Other databases Musk’s team has access to include USA Staffing, an onboarding system; USA Performance, a job performance review site; and HI, which the government uses to manage employee health care. “The health insurance one scares me because it's HIPAA [protected] information, but they have access to all this stuff,” the OPM staffer noted.

[...] A new server being used to control these databases has been placed in a conference room that Musk’s team is using as their command center, according to an OPM staffer. The staffer described the server as a piece of commercial hardware they believed was not obtained through the proper federal procurement process. There is a legal requirement that the installation of a new server undergo a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), a formal process to ensure the change would not create any security vulnerabilities. But in this instance, the staff believes there was no PIA. “So this application and corresponding hardware are illegally operating,” they added. On Friday, Reuters reported that some senior civil servants have been blocked from accessing the EHRI and other OPM systems, making it difficult for career OPM employees to know what Musk’s team has been examining or modifying. In the same report, the outlet revealed the team had moved sofa beds into the agency's headquarters to continue their work around the clock.

This should be a major national news scandal.

Elon Musk and the underlings he put in place at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have jeopardized data privacy and national security.

[stevenketterman2]

The Evolution of DJ Controllers: From Analog Beginnings to Intelligent Performance Systems

The DJ controller has undergone a remarkable transformation—what began as a basic interface for beat matching has now evolved into a powerful centerpiece of live performance technology. Over the years, the convergence of hardware precision, software intelligence, and real-time connectivity has redefined how DJs mix, manipulate, and present music to audiences.

For professional audio engineers and system designers, understanding this technological evolution is more than a history lesson—it's essential knowledge that informs how modern DJ systems are integrated into complex live environments. From early MIDI-based setups to today's AI-driven, all-in-one ecosystems, this blog explores the innovations that have shaped DJ controllers into the versatile tools they are today.

The Analog Foundation: Where It All Began

The roots of DJing lie in vinyl turntables and analog mixers. These setups emphasized feel, timing, and technique. There were no screens, no sync buttons—just rotary EQs, crossfaders, and the unmistakable tactile response of a needle on wax.

For audio engineers, these analog rigs meant clean signal paths and minimal processing latency. However, flexibility was limited, and transporting crates of vinyl to every gig was logistically demanding.

The Rise of MIDI and Digital Integration

The early 2000s brought the integration of MIDI controllers into DJ performance, marking a shift toward digital workflows. Devices like the Vestax VCI-100 and Hercules DJ Console enabled control over software like Traktor, Serato, and VirtualDJ. This introduced features such as beat syncing, cue points, and FX without losing physical interaction.

From an engineering perspective, this era introduced complexities such as USB data latency, audio driver configurations, and software-to-hardware mapping. However, it also opened the door to more compact, modular systems with immense creative potential.

Controllerism and Creative Freedom

Between 2010 and 2015, the concept of controllerism took hold. DJs began customizing their setups with multiple MIDI controllers, pad grids, FX units, and audio interfaces to create dynamic, live remix environments. Brands like Native Instruments, Akai, and Novation responded with feature-rich units that merged performance hardware with production workflows.

Technical advancements during this period included:

High-resolution jog wheels and pitch faders

Multi-deck software integration

RGB velocity-sensitive pads

Onboard audio interfaces with 24-bit output

HID protocol for tighter software-hardware response

These tools enabled a new breed of DJs to blur the lines between DJing, live production, and performance art—all requiring more advanced routing, monitoring, and latency optimization from audio engineers.

All-in-One Systems: Power Without the Laptop

As processors became more compact and efficient, DJ controllers began to include embedded CPUs, allowing them to function independently from computers. Products like the Pioneer XDJ-RX, Denon Prime 4, and RANE ONE revolutionized the scene by delivering laptop-free performance with powerful internal architecture.

Key engineering features included:

Multi-core processing with low-latency audio paths

High-definition touch displays with waveform visualization

Dual USB and SD card support for redundancy

Built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet for music streaming and cloud sync

Zone routing and balanced outputs for advanced venue integration

For engineers managing live venues or touring rigs, these systems offered fewer points of failure, reduced setup times, and greater reliability under high-demand conditions.

Embedded AI and Real-Time Stem Control

One of the most significant breakthroughs in recent years has been the integration of AI-driven tools. Systems now offer real-time stem separation, powered by machine learning models that can isolate vocals, drums, bass, or instruments on the fly. Solutions like Serato Stems and Engine DJ OS have embedded this functionality directly into hardware workflows.

This allows DJs to perform spontaneous remixes and mashups without needing pre-processed tracks. From a technical standpoint, it demands powerful onboard DSP or GPU acceleration and raises the bar for system bandwidth and real-time processing.

For engineers, this means preparing systems that can handle complex source isolation and downstream processing without signal degradation or sync loss.

Cloud Connectivity & Software Ecosystem Maturity

Today’s DJ controllers are not just performance tools—they are part of a broader ecosystem that includes cloud storage, mobile app control, and wireless synchronization. Platforms like rekordbox Cloud, Dropbox Sync, and Engine Cloud allow DJs to manage libraries remotely and update sets across devices instantly.

This shift benefits engineers and production teams in several ways:

Faster changeovers between performers using synced metadata

Simplified backline configurations with minimal drive swapping

Streamlined updates, firmware management, and analytics

Improved troubleshooting through centralized data logging

The era of USB sticks and manual track loading is giving way to seamless, cloud-based workflows that reduce risk and increase efficiency in high-pressure environments.

Hybrid & Modular Workflows: The Return of Customization

While all-in-one units dominate, many professional DJs are returning to hybrid setups—custom configurations that blend traditional turntables, modular FX units, MIDI controllers, and DAW integration. This modularity supports a more performance-oriented approach, especially in experimental and genre-pushing environments.

These setups often require:

MIDI-to-CV converters for synth and modular gear integration

Advanced routing and clock sync using tools like Ableton Link

OSC (Open Sound Control) communication for custom mapping

Expanded monitoring and cueing flexibility

This renewed complexity places greater demands on engineers, who must design systems that are flexible, fail-safe, and capable of supporting unconventional performance styles.

Looking Ahead: AI Mixing, Haptics & Gesture Control

As we look to the future, the next phase of DJ controllers is already taking shape. Innovations on the horizon include:

AI-assisted mixing that adapts in real time to crowd energy

Haptic feedback jog wheels that provide dynamic tactile response

Gesture-based FX triggering via infrared or wearable sensors

Augmented reality interfaces for 3D waveform manipulation

Deeper integration with lighting and visual systems through DMX and timecode sync

For engineers, this means staying ahead of emerging protocols and preparing venues for more immersive, synchronized, and responsive performances.

Final Thoughts

The modern DJ controller is no longer just a mixing tool—it's a self-contained creative engine, central to the live music experience. Understanding its capabilities and the technology driving it is critical for audio engineers who are expected to deliver seamless, high-impact performances in every environment.

Whether you’re building a club system, managing a tour rig, or outfitting a studio, choosing the right gear is key. Sourcing equipment from a trusted professional audio retailer—online or in-store—ensures not only access to cutting-edge products but also expert guidance, technical support, and long-term reliability.

As DJ technology continues to evolve, so too must the systems that support it. The future is fast, intelligent, and immersive—and it’s powered by the gear we choose today.

[generouslywanderingpriest]

Video Agent: The Future of AI-Powered Content Creation

The rise of AI-generated content has transformed how businesses and creators produce videos. Among the most innovative tools is the video agent, an AI-driven solution that automates video creation, editing, and optimization. Whether for marketing, education, or entertainment, video agents are redefining efficiency and creativity in digital media.

In this article, we explore how AI-powered video agents work, their benefits, and their impact on content creation.

What Is a Video Agent?

A video agent is an AI-based system designed to assist in video production. Unlike traditional editing software, it leverages machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to automate tasks such as:

Scriptwriting – Generates engaging scripts based on keywords.

Voiceovers – Converts text to lifelike speech in multiple languages.

Editing – Automatically cuts, transitions, and enhances footage.

Personalization – Tailors videos for different audiences.

These capabilities make video agents indispensable for creators who need high-quality content at scale.

How AI Video Generators Work

The core of a video agent lies in its AI algorithms. Here’s a breakdown of the process:

1. Input & Analysis

Users provide a prompt (e.g., "Create a 1-minute explainer video about AI trends"). The AI video generator analyzes the request and gathers relevant data.

2. Content Generation

Using GPT-based models, the system drafts a script, selects stock footage (or generates synthetic visuals), and adds background music.

3. Editing & Enhancement

The video agent refines the video by:

Adjusting pacing and transitions.

Applying color correction.

Syncing voiceovers with visuals.

4. Output & Optimization

The final video is rendered in various formats, optimized for platforms like YouTube, TikTok, or LinkedIn.

Benefits of Using a Video Agent

Adopting an AI-powered video generator offers several advantages:

1. Time Efficiency

Traditional video production takes hours or days. A video agent reduces this to minutes, allowing rapid content deployment.

2. Cost Savings

Hiring editors, voice actors, and scriptwriters is expensive. AI eliminates these costs while maintaining quality.

3. Scalability

Businesses can generate hundreds of personalized videos for marketing campaigns without extra effort.

4. Consistency

AI ensures brand voice and style remain uniform across all videos.

5. Accessibility

Even non-experts can create professional videos without technical skills.

Top Use Cases for Video Agents

From marketing to education, AI video generators are versatile tools. Key applications include:

1. Marketing & Advertising

Personalized ads – AI tailors videos to user preferences.

Social media content – Quickly generates clips for Instagram, Facebook, etc.

2. E-Learning & Training

Automated tutorials – Simplifies complex topics with visuals.

Corporate training – Creates onboarding videos for employees.

3. News & Journalism

AI-generated news clips – Converts articles into video summaries.

4. Entertainment & Influencers

YouTube automation – Helps creators maintain consistent uploads.

Challenges & Limitations

Despite their advantages, video agents face some hurdles:

1. Lack of Human Touch

AI may struggle with emotional nuance, making some videos feel robotic.

2. Copyright Issues

Using stock footage or AI-generated voices may raise legal concerns.

3. Over-Reliance on Automation

Excessive AI use could reduce creativity in content creation.

The Future of Video Agents

As AI video generation improves, we can expect:

Hyper-realistic avatars – AI-generated presenters indistinguishable from humans.

Real-time video editing – Instant adjustments during live streams.

Advanced personalization – AI predicting viewer preferences before creation.

[one24hrms]

One24: The All-in-One Platform Transforming Business Operations for IT Companies

Key Features That Set One24 Apart 🧠 Smart HRMS Handle everything from hiring, onboarding, attendance, and leave to appraisals and payroll. Say goodbye to spreadsheets and hello to automation.

📊 Project & Task Management Keep projects on track with real-time updates, sprint boards, deadline tracking, and team collaboration tools—all visible in a single dashboard.

💻 IT Asset & Hardware Management Track and manage your entire hardware inventory, software licenses, and IT tickets. Prevent asset loss, improve compliance, and control costs.

📈 Sales CRM Manage leads, pipeline stages, and client communication. Get real-time insights into your sales cycle and close deals faster.

📉 AI Analytics & Business Intelligence Leverage powerful, AI-driven analytics that turn raw data into smart decisions. Identify trends, predict risks, and track team performance with ease.

🔄 Automation & Notifications Automate repetitive workflows like approvals, reminders, and compliance checks so your teams can focus on what really matters—innovation and growth.

[mariacallous]

Engineers who work for Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been brought on as senior advisers to the acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), sources tell WIRED.

On Sunday, Sean Duffy, secretary of the Department of Transportation, which oversees the FAA, announced in a post on X that SpaceX engineers would be visiting the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia to take what he positioned as a tour. “The safety of air travel is a nonpartisan matter,” Musk replied. “SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer.”

By the time these posts were made, though, according to sources who were granted anonymity because they fear retaliation, SpaceX engineers were already being onboarded at the agency under Schedule A, a special authority that allows government managers to “hire persons with disabilities without requiring them to compete for the job,” according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

These new hires come after the terminations of hundreds of FAA probationary employees, and the most deadly month of US aviation disasters in more than a decade.

According to a source with knowledge of the situation, none of the SpaceX engineers were fully vetted by their start date. Unlike the very young technologists associated with Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who have been given access to critical systems at agencies ranging from OPM and the Treasury Department to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in recent weeks, though, the engineers identified by WIRED—Ted Malaska, Thomas Kiernan, Sam Smeal, and Brady Glantz—do appear to have experience relevant to the FAA.

Malaska is currently, according to his LinkedIn profile, a senior director of application software at SpaceX, where he started working in May 2021. Formerly the senior director of data engineering at Capitol One and a senior architect at FINRA, he graduated from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2000 and cowrote a 2015 book on Hadoop application architectures.

Kiernan is currently a lead software engineer at SpaceX, according to his LinkedIn page. Before joining SpaceX in May 2020, he worked at Wayfair and is a 2017 Dartmouth graduate.

Smeal is a software engineer who has worked at SpaceX since September 2021, according to his LinkedIn. He graduated from Saint Vincent College in 2018.

Glantz is a software engineer who has worked at SpaceX since May 2024 and worked as an engineering analyst at Goldman Sachs from 2019 to 2021, according to his LinkedIn, and graduated from the University of Michigan in 2019.

Malaska, Kiernan, Smeal, and Glantz did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FAA also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In his post on X, Duffy wrote, "Because I know the media (and Hillary Clinton) will claim Elon’s team is getting special access, let me make clear that the @FAANews regularly gives tours of the command center to both media and companies.”

But on Wednesday, FAA acting administrator Chris Rocheleau wrote in an email to FAA staff, viewed by WIRED, that DOGE and the teams of special government employees deployed in federal agencies were “top-of-mind,” before noting that the agency had "recently welcomed” a team of special government employees who had already toured some FAA facilities. “We are asking for their help to engineer solutions while we keep the airspace open and safe,” he wrote, adding that the new employees had already visited the FAA Command Center and Potomac TRACON, a facility that controls the airspace around and provides air traffic control services to airports in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas.

In a Department of Transportation all-hands meeting late last week, Duffy responded to a question about DOGE's role in national airspace matters, and without explicitly mentioning the new employees, suggested help was needed on reforming Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) alerts, a critical system that distributes real-time data and warnings to pilots but which has had significant outages, one as recently as this month. “If I can get ideas from really smart engineers on how we can fix it, I’m going to take those ideas,” he said, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by WIRED. “Great engineers” might also work on airspace issues, he said.

SpaceX functioned as the pre-inauguration staging ground for the DOGE team, according to reporting from The New York Times and sources who spoke to WIRED. In the months between November 5 and January 20, members of DOGE including Steve Davis (president of Musk’s Boring Company) and the young engineer Luke Farritor were operating out of the company’s DC office, according to a source with knowledge.

The company did not respond to questions about whether these employees will retain their salaries and positions at the company during their time with DOGE. Many of the so-called department’s operatives have joined as “special government employees,” who are limited to working 130 days in a year. Last week WIRED reported that Tom Krause, a DOGE operative at the Treasury Department, would continue to maintain his position as CEO of the Cloud Software Group while also performing the duties of fiscal assistant secretary. Other members of Musk’s companies, including xAI and Tesla, have also taken on positions with DOGE.

Late last week, the Trump administration laid off 400 FAA workers, according to their union, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists. The union says these included probationary employees who worked on air traffic control communications and related radio and computer systems. Air traffic controllers were not affected by the layoffs, Duffy said in an X post.

Just two weeks before that, the US suffered its most deadly aviation incident in more than a decade, when 67 people died after an Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet in Washington, DC. Though initial findings suggest complex equipment and communications issues possibly played roles in the disaster, President Trump was quick to blame “DEI,” railing against a decade-old program that helps the FAA identify talent among populations with disabilities. People with disabilities hired into the FAA and other federal agencies are often accepted under the Schedule A authority—exactly the route these new engineers have taken into the agency.

The FAA has frequently tangled with Musk’s SpaceX, as the rocket company and others fight to operate their own interests in crowded American airspace. In January, the FAA temporarily grounded SpaceX’s program after one of its Starship rockets broke apart midflight, reportedly damaging public property on Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. The FAA diverted dozens of commercial airline flights following the explosion and announced an investigation into the incident, which is ongoing and being led by SpaceX. Musk, however, characterized the failure as “barely a bump in the road” and did not seem to indicate that the investigation would slow SpaceX’s launch cadence. Last year, the company indicated it was aiming for 25 launches of the Starship in 2025.

FAA spokesperson Steven Kulm told WIRED that “the FAA is overseeing the SpaceX-led mishap investigation.” The FAA did not respond to further questions about whether the presence of SpaceX engineers at the agency would constitute a conflict of interest.

In September, the FAA proposed $633,000 in fines following two 2023 incidents in which SpaceX allegedly did not follow its license requirements, violating regulations. Responding to an X user posting about the penalties, Musk wrote, “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!” Shortly afterward, Musk called for FAA head Mike Whitaker to resign.

In January, more than three years before his term was due to end, Whitaker did resign.

“I told Elon, any conflicts, you can’t have anything to do with that,” said President Trump in a press conference this week, in response to a question about Musk, SpaceX, the FAA, and conflicts of interest. “So anything to do with possibly even space, we won’t let Elon partake in that.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SpaceX is directly regulated by a small FAA agency called the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which since 1984 has licensed the launch of US space rockets. “The purpose is to ensure public safety,” says George Nield, a former associate administrator of the office. “People on the ground did not consent” to rocket launches above them, he says. ”We absolutely need to keep them safe. The office has done a great job of that.” The office oversaw 157 launches in 2024 alone.

On February 10, several days after Musk posted on X that DOGE “will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system,” a group of Democratic legislators wrote to Rocheleau—a career civil servant whose ties to the FAA go back to 1996—requesting information about any planned changes to FAA systems.

“We are extremely concerned that an ad hoc team of individuals lacking any expertise, exposure, certifications, or knowledge of aviation operations being invited, or inserting themselves, to make ‘rapid’ changes to our nation’s air traffic systems,” they wrote. “Aviation safety is not an area to ‘move fast and break things.’”