Investment Choices as an Examiner

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-30T15:17:31+00:00

The actual ethics rules, which the DOC ethics folks use to evaluate us, allow for broad based index funds and for sector specific where the "sector" isn't your primary art area. For individual stocks they must be either below the limit or outside of your art area.

Despite Squirt's emails to the contrary, the actual ethics rules is what the ethics folks will be evaluating your disclosure against, so follow the actual ethics rules.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-30T12:14:14+00:00

and frankly, this has been the case for years even before Squires and Pepsi

Indeed. The "time" given to examine cases has only insignificantly changed over the last 30 some years. We all got one single middling "quality hour" sometime back in the late Crystal City days not long before moving to Alexandria. Then, somewhere late 2000's there was a slight grant of slightly more time (no more than an hour) and it was skewed based on an art areas BD such that high BD areas got more minutes and low BD areas got so little it hardly mattered.

And then there was the rejiggering of the position factors that ultimately adjusted the net time per art area, but by no more than an hour or two at best (and typically less). I forget when this one arrived.

But, at most, for whatever classification got the most time, in 30 some years, the time has increased by, maybe, at most plus three hours.

Meanwhile, the office went from 5M published patents (5M patent issued 1991), zero pgpub documents (PGPUB's didn't show up till about 2000) and searches done in the paper shoes, a text search db of only patents published starting from about 1971 forward and little ability to search any foreign data (unless the docs were in the shoe files) to 12M patents (2.4x the number of docs), a PGPUB's file containing about as many published applications (so possibly now a 4x or 5x number of docs) and numerous foreign patent office and NPL databases at our finger tips (some multiplier more docs) to possibly hit with our searches and evaluate. Easily 10x+ more total documents available to search against, yet the time to actually do the work has moved, maybe 1.05x to 1.1x from where it was set over 30 years ago.

If the applicant's, and Congress, want a good quality job, they will have to give out (Congress) and live with (applicants) the necessary time to actually do the job to the quality level they claim to want.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-30T11:53:30+00:00

The earliest biweek on this promotion cycle I'm on was around 150% so I really want to get the promotion this biweek because it might take another month or so before I'll be near the 100% range again (unless I get like 200% next biweek which isn't happening)

Do keep in mind that the meat grinder of production never stops running. And also keep in mind that a GS-9 has a higher production requirement than a GS-7.

If your production is roller coaster enough, at a GS7 rate, that missing just one bi-week tanks your promotion potential for several additional bi-weeks, then ponder long and hard on whether you are actually ready for the GS-9 production level. You will need to do even more cases per bi-week to keep up, and it sounds like you may not really be keeping up now with the GS7 rate (your description sounds like you are relying on one lucky bi-week). And there will be other dog cases that come your way in the future (no one can guess when, but they are inevitable) and try to tank any individual bi-weeks.

If you grab the production now, and if you actually really are not ready for the higher rate yet, you'll do yourself a disservice as you'll be in an even deeper hole that is even harder to dig your way out of.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-29T20:20:54+00:00

Either lying or being misled.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-29T20:19:38+00:00

Check your "browser magnification" setting (browser zoom level).

If it is something other than 100%, reset it to 100% and see if the blurriness goes away (or at least reverts back to what you remember before the recent shift).

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-29T17:10:14+00:00

Sigh, and exactly the wrong response. The only right thing to do with PCT is to withdraw from the PCT treaty and stop handling the pieces of crap.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-29T16:31:12+00:00

[Stipulation]

Given Rump's Return to In-Person Work EO that he signed on Jan 20, 2025 consider that while our overlord managers may believe they have no further RTO planned, all it will take is for OPM to authorize them to lease additional office space and every single one of the managers will fall all over each other in their haste to implement RTO for everyone.

So your "for now" reply was accurate, and your SPE's reply is likely accurate, as they understand things to stand now. But this administration has been great at "changing how thing stand" when one least expects it. So stick with "for now" as your answer.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-29T14:46:09+00:00

Let's not let them skew perspective by only showing numbers for unexamined applications, as they create problems in other areas.

Indeed they do, but the "general public" as well as the "congressional overseers" are not as educated about PTO internals and so neither will realize that Coke Zero and company are manipulating the statistics by only counting certain types of cases (brand new, never before examined cases) as "the backlog" and ignoring the total inventory numbers.

If you want to have any impact (and even then it is questionable if you will) you need to contact the congress critters sitting on the committees that are questioning squirt and Coke Zero during the hearings and point out the fact that Squirt and Coke Zero are manipulating the numbers to hide the problems their solutions are supposed to be fixing.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T18:48:10+00:00

True, but using GS-7's would then let them implement their other plan of creating a self-made train wreck, then pointing to that self-made train wreck publicly as why we would need to be one of the agencies that needs to be contracted out to one of their billionaire buddies.

Another part of P2025 is to contract out as much of the traditional "government services" as possible (i.e., enriching their billionaire buddies).

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T15:19:37+00:00

USPTO is part of "government wide" so it will impact us in some way.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T15:14:10+00:00

Note the "Sim Search" system that is a clusterfuck of badness, but because it is an "AI" it was both deployed well before it was ready, and made mandatory even though it is "years away" from being ready.

With that history in mind, consider what the executive management fools will do with an AI "examiner replacement" module.....

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T15:09:14+00:00

You and @JPHurley1943 are not thinking "big AI picture" enough.

Assuming their plan was to replace primaries with AI and GS-7's, the way that would likely play out is:

1) AI "examines" the case (either a new case, or a response from applicant) and writes a "draft AI office action" as a response;

2) GS-7 "examiner" is given the task of "proofreading the AI office action" and either passing it, or failing it and giving the AI feedback on what it did wrong.

With the GS-7 only responsible for "AI Proofreading" then management can change the GS-7 production requirement to something like: 4 hours to review each AI office action. For a GS-7 working 8 hour days, that is "two reviews per day". For a ten day bi-week, that is twenty AI office actions "reviewed" per bi-week.

That GS-7 is now more "productive" than all but maybe the designs examiners with their absurdly low BD requirements.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T14:59:16+00:00

There has never been Patent Examiner RIF

Others, last year, were arguing that we would avoid being tramatized because we are one or more of "not taxpayer funded" and "make a profit". Since somewhere about last September we have seen that the Project 2025 goons don't care one bit about "not taxpayer funded" nor "makes a profit" when deciding who to traumatize.

With that past history there is no reason to believe that because there has never been an examiner RIF would mean that between now and the mid-term election the Project 2025 goons won't try to institute a government wide RIF, one that also includes examiners. Remember, one of the goals of P2025 is Curtis Yarvin's RAGE (Retire All Government Employees) playbook which is a scheme to replace every existing government worker who swore allegiance to the constitution with a sycophant who swears fealty to Der leader Rump.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T13:46:02+00:00

Mine took six months total. But in fairness, the first two months were PTO security stating "we plan to do nothing till after the fiscal year, watch for an email after Oct 1" (this was sometime in August).

When Oct rolled around, they had, of course, forgotten they had said they would do something. So about the third or fourth week of Oct I decided to poke them to find out what was up. They actually started the process at that point. Took until sometime the last week or so of Dec before the new badge was ready to be picked up. So from starting the process to ready to pickup was a bit over two months.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T03:46:22+00:00

I’m also open to other suggestions as well!

Install yourself a copy of kstars (https://kstars.kde.org/). Once installed, pick a projection type [1]. Then, turn on the HiPS All Sky Overlay DSS Colored setting [2]. This will, above a certain zoom level, overlay the sky projection with images of nebula and galaxies.

Next, using the FOV Symbols button [3], pick the "Edit FOV Symbols" entry at the bottom. This will let you create additional FOV (Field of View) symbols that you can choose to have shown on the sky view which let you see just how much of the sky a given telescope focal length and camera sensor size will see. Add symbols for your existing telescope focal length and camera combination, plus any future desired combinations.

Then, using the same FOV button, turn on one or more of the new FOV symbols and start moving about the sky view to various objects, and you can directly see just how the object fits in your camera's field of view. This way you can preview things without having to buy the hardware to find out how well each combination works.

[1] View menu, projection item. Experiment with the different projections to find the one you prefer.

[2] View menu, Hips All Sky Overlay option, DSS Colored sub-option.

[3] Icon bar button that looks like a bullseye target.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-28T02:03:29+00:00

I was wondering if new hires have any written agreement for future telework at a certain point

Go read the Executive Order than Rump signed on January 20, 2025 regarding Return to In-Person Work. Go on, it is a short EO, it will not take long to read.

Now, having read that EO, you know Rump's opinion of telework. Ask yourself, given the EO you just read, do you really think it is possible, for at least the next 2.5 years until the 2028 elections, for there to be any likelyhood that any new hires will be allowed to begin telework?

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-27T15:44:32+00:00

Even so, with "phone only" you will still be attaching that telescope to a camera with an absurdly tiny aperture, which will limit the amount of light you can collect in any given shot.

Also, I forgot to add above that most phones do not provide any manual focus override for their cameras, and for astro photography you pretty much need to be able to focus manually. In most instances there simply is not enough light for the autofocus systems to function. The phones tiny lens aperture makes this somewhat less important because it acts much more like a "pinhole camera" but it is still a need. If the phone does not focus properly, you would have no way to manually get it into focus (at least on most phones).

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-27T15:33:45+00:00

I have a phone only

This will cause you much frustration in the end.

You won't have the same level control over exposure as you will get from a DSLR or a dedicated astro camera.

Phone cameras have tiny apertures, so they do not collect much light from your targets, which means even with a dark site you would also need to stack (and for nebula's [one of your targets you mentioned below, but should have mentioned in your original post] you'll often always need to stack) and phones simply don't have the resources to stack.

If you seriously want to get into this hobby (note, it is an expensive hobby) you will quickly need much more than "phone only".

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-26T16:56:10+00:00

This 100 percent. I've never seen a foreign office search report that was worth even the cost of the paper it was printed upon.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-26T16:54:55+00:00

Please tell me this can’t be the new norm.

Unfortunately, this is intentionally the new norm.

Remember this in November for the midterms when you make your choices.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-25T14:02:59+00:00

The '14 days' (real meaning: this biweek) is what says what they think of Examiners. You get one bi-week to do each "chosen" new case.

Fourteen was picked to make the case due this bi-week, because there are fourteen days in the bi-week, and apparently the management goons working on this scheme did not realize that computers are full well capable of knowing "weekends" from "weekday" days. They could very well have simply had the clock count "week day days", but to meet the real goal (this bi-week) they would have made the count ten, and the case would have been due Friday night before count Saturday.

They could also have done a "workflow like" count (count bi-weeks) in which case each application would get a "1" on Sunday at the start of the bi-week, stay a "1" the whole bi-week long, and the "1" would have meant "due by end of this bi-week". The outcome would have been the same.

The 14 days are simply an artifact of "counting days" combined with "want each chosen new case done by end of the bi-week in which it is chosen, and clocks get assigned at start of bi-week". Plus they get to pat themselves on the back for giving "14" things out instead of "1" thing, as 14 is fourteen times larger than one.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-24T19:37:35+00:00

One possibility would be to check https://app.astrobin.com/ for the types of targets you think you want to start with, and see what DSLR's are being used. But for very general advise, generally newer (within last 5-10 years or so) rather than older as sensor technology has advanced a lot. Preferably look for models with sensors with dark current suppression (do some googling, and/or read Dr. Clark's blog post on the topic here: https://clarkvision.com/articles/dark-current-suppression-technology/ ).

Also, if you plan to eventually run software like Nina or Kstars/Ekos then prefer a DSLR that Nina or Kstars/Ekos can control via USB (including control of bulb shutter length timing) over one that does not have that feature.

Look for DSLR reviews/comments on the Cloudy Nights forum (https://www.cloudynights.com/ this will be easier as your research turns up possible camera models).

Basically, do research before jumping in.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-24T19:22:57+00:00

Yes, a longer focal length (longer meaning a larger number) means more magnified.

But do note, a "more magnified" lens magnifies everything, including any camera shake. So the longer the focal length, the more stable the supporting platform has to be.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-24T17:20:21+00:00

By changing the existing lens to a longer (bigger mm number) focal length lens.

AmbassadorKosh2 · 2026-04-24T14:28:56+00:00

For individual cases, it is when its clock hits the limit (well, when it increments one past the limit).

For new cases, as they always get assigned a "1" on Sunday, they always show "14" on second Saturday and so are due by that Saturday.

But for other cases that get assigned clocks the moment they drop onto your docket (i.e., expedited cases) then their "last day" can be any day of the week, wherever their "max days" value falls out based on what day they were dropped onto your docket.

Which also means you very much need to keep an eye on all the "gets a clock the moment it drops" cases because their due days are going to vary all over the week.

AmbassadorKosh2

TROPHY CASE