How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist

Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by techlibertarian on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:06PM (#9507036)

Am I the only person who doesn’t give a shit about our government having a Chief Data Scientist, a CTO, and every other tech-related position? After what Snowden leaked to the world, the government, including some of these who the government has hired, are trying to convince us to spend a year or two working for the government? They’ve straight up lied to the American people about their capabilities. Why should I want to work for them if scrapping that isn’t within my power?

Also, pushing more people into community college isn’t inherently a good idea. Are people still unaware of the higher education bubble?

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Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by danso on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:16PM (#9507109)

Technology, and those who fully understand it, is absolutely vital in not only efficient government, but in efficiently monitoring and regulating it. You'll see the difference when trying to FOIA/FOIL an agency that gets it versus one that doesn't.

There's a lot more to technology and life than spying.

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Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by squidfood on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:39PM (#9507263)

Indeed. A huge push in my agency is to comply with the initiative to make research data publicly available (https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-...). This isn't lip-service, we have strict local deadlines for getting data online.

The hurdles are entirely technological, almost everyone who works here (scientists anyway) love the principle.

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Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by hippich on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:14PM (#9507533)

I already posted it somewhere else - government is just like any other type of groups - consist of people. If you decide to withdraw yourself, you essentially let others decide. And if there will be more "bad" guys deciding, it will be worse for everybody. You change it by bringing more "good" guys into government, not other way around.

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Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by dsg42 on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:20PM (#9507580)

The higher education bubble only applies to four-year degrees. There's actually a shortage of Americans with a community college degree any nothing more. It's referred to as the "middle skills gap." There are currently 69 million Americans working in middle skills jobs, but the population is gradually aging out of the workforce.

So yes, pushing more people into community college is exactly what we should be doing.

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Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by razer_tech08 on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:49PM (#9507346)

Why would you condemn millions of US gov't employees for the actions of a few. It is short sighted to make this broad statements about people considering you have no idea what they do, the bureaucracy that have to cut through, and finally the half-assed tools they have to use to do their jobs. By the time most are done with their work the last thing on their minds is how they can screw people over.

If you aren't interested in working for the government then fine, thats your prerogative. Also consider that some have joined the federal workforce to help change things as opposed to inaction.

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Re:How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist by squidfood on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:31PM (#9507205)

If you work in an agency, you have to deal with the fact that (for example), every separate Intranet web service was built by a separate low bidder.

So I log into one insane and poor system to do travel, a different one for purchases, a different one for HR forms, etc. etc. and they're all ugly, hideous and broken (and let's not get started on the 20 passwords with different complexity rules and change schedules).

Regardless of politics, there are people working for the government doing approved-of things who need better organizational support from the top.

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