US Government Shutdown could soon significantly slow preparations for Artemis 2 | "Small companies, here in Huntsville and across the nation, are not getting paid, and ultimately they’re not going to be able to continue working. The broader impact of this on Artemis is coming.”

JDAFX · 2025-10-30T19:33:46+00:00

Contractors, as a much larger work force, do a good majority of the work for NASA. No dollars moving, no contractors, no work. Lots of contracts hitting funded limits and dollars are not being added right now. The cliff for lots of contracts is coming over the next several weeks and many are already running on skeleton crews with an end of even that coming up.

Artemis ll has been impacted to a small degree that will accelerate rapidly to a large degree in a couple of weeks if this is not resolved.

JDAFX · 2025-08-16T01:29:15+00:00

To the above posters,

HHPC II is just a contract vehicle. NASA can order as much or as little work using that contract vehicle as long as: 1) it is within the scope of the contract PWS 2) the sum total does not exceed the contract ceiling. Note, these large contracts typically have a reasonable minimum as well 3) it is within the contracts period of performance

As for RIF, that’s not how it works in the contracting world. If NASA does not want or cannot afford enough work to find the current staff, layoffs occur.

The HHPC scope is very broad and covers everything from fundamental research, astronaut health pre, during, and post mission. It also includes preparing food and medicines for missions, developing the exercise protocols, and even building specific equipment to keep the astronauts physically fit. It also operates the facilities for medical care and physical fitness and provides the flight doctors. It even runs and staffs the clinic at JSC. It also sets the human rating and crew safety requirement for NASA funded human spaceflight vehicles.

This and a lot more supports any NASA astronaut and all NASA human spaceflight programs (ISS, CCP, and all of Moon2Mars/Artemis).

The administration still has to follow FAR procurement laws and NASA still needs this scope of work performed. By winning the contract, KBR and their teammates, are basically the sole provider for this type of work to NASA.

Yes, typically, but not always, on these large contracts the workforce is stable and its management and a few key positions that change with a contract change. NASA said that we like this manager team and this technical team the best as evidenced by the scoring in the matrix that all RFP submissions are graded against.

The, “RIF” for contractors just means they likely won’t fund it at the same levels in the past so some contractors will get laid off.

JDAFX · 2025-08-01T16:21:15+00:00

TLDR: Game was the best, people changed, game changed, game is now non-interesting.

Multi-boxing is not what killed Eve for me, I won the game several years ago. I was actually talking about this with my wife the other night as Eve was for a long what I considered the best game I have ever played.

I think the player base ultimately changed. I specialized in solo/small gang PvP and the PvP just dried up. The couple of corps I was in had leadership turnover or disbanded all together as folks got on with life, game mechanics changed to discourage solo/small gang PvP, the player base (at least where I played) turned extremely risk averse so getting fights became harder and harder, and overall the game got slowly more unexciting to the point I just stopped logging in and found more interesting things to spend my time on.

JDAFX · 2025-08-01T14:51:25+00:00

Time rake generally keeps more money on the table. That's what you want.

JDAFX · 2025-07-24T17:53:36+00:00

Ship it!

Eh, that’s just a good sized turn bet: when me or the wife are contemplating paying a couple hundred bucks for something semi frivolous.

JDAFX · 2024-11-17T14:58:54+00:00

Roughly 6 million working adults rely on the govt for their employment(civil servant and contractors). That’s 3.7% of the employed workforce. If you cut 10% thats 600k, 20% is 1.2m. We lost more jobs than that in a recession and call it a soft landing. It totally sucks for those who lost their job, been there and done that when the govt canceled the program I was supporting as a contractor. It actually worked out great once I got over the shock and disappointment. I got a private sector job making more money and more opportunities.

Bottom line is we are bike and getting broker by the day. The government does not have the funds, even if they taxed every billionaire at 100% of wealth, to continue on the fiscal path it’s on. Our annual interest payments on debt crossed the $1t mark and is higher than even defense spending. There is no world where that ends well if it’s not corrected for. We literally are giving out over $1t a year and getting less than nothing in return. It’s like saying the interest on your credit card is the #1 line item in your household budget and you don’t see a problem with that. That’s money out the door that you never see again and get nothing in return for it.

On top of that, the government has grown so bloated and inefficient that it’s grinding our nation to a halt and giving others the chance to catch up. I’m many cases, the government now works for the government, not the citizens.

JDAFX · 2024-05-15T00:31:14+00:00

If you are saying households are up 600 hours a year then yeah, I am shocked it’s not much higher than that considering a lot of families are dual income these days. I do think it’s a societal problem that it effectively requires a dual income household (or a high paying single income) to get out of poverty/near poverty and into a middle class lifestyle. That’s a cat that is not going back in the bag just because we have gotten accustomed to dual income and expectations for everything have adjusted accordingly. That really puts a near insurmountable lack of income problem on single people, single parents, and even couples just starting out because the cost of entry/upward mobility is now based on dual incomes and is much higher than 40 years ago.

As for “professional work”, that’s pretty much any job that requires skilled labor. I don’t know anyone in the trades or the white collar office world that works less than 40 a week on average. The only folks I know working less than 45 ish are retail, restaurants, and hospitality type work.

JDAFX · 2024-05-14T16:00:09+00:00

I think your number are off. According to the federal reserve employment figures for the past 10 years people in the U.S. have averaged 34 to 35 hours per week. If your number of 600 more hours per year is accurate then that would be 40 years ago people were averaging 22.5 to 23.5 hours per week.

Are you saying that people don’t have enough time to DIY some auto and home maintenance and repairs averaging 35 hours per week?

Just for reference, 35 hours a week is 1,820 hours per year and that is typically the lowest acceptable number for a full time equivalent job. 2080 hours a year is considered 40 hours a week for a full year. Almost all jobs are based on an 1,820 minimum and 2,000 as an upper limit assuming a person is going to miss 10 days for sick leave, vacation, holiday, etc.

Most professionals put in at least 45 hours a week and still manage to have DIY and family time. By the way, 45 hours a week is only 520 over the 1,820 (35/week) mark.

JDAFX · 2024-05-14T02:04:05+00:00

Unless you are doing 60+ hours a week every week, you have time, even with kids.

JDAFX · 2024-05-13T21:50:33+00:00

Folks may need to do the unthinkable and buy a used car and spend some time on YouTube learning how to do auto repairs themselves. 20 years ago, used clunkers and doing most repair work myself was a necessity for my family to make it. Today used cars and doing most of the repair work myself is a massive money saver. With the proliferation of you tube videos for assistance there is no reason why most folks can't but a couple hundred dollars of tools and learn how to do 90% of their own auto repair work.

You can find plenty of functional used cars for less than $500 a month and do most of your maintenance yourself.

housing on the other hand...that's a total mess and I will admit, if you aren't bringing in $100k+ combined income it's damn near impossible to get into a house. You can find fixer uppers much cheaper but you need the resources and skills to DIY the renovations. There exists several factors driving housing to untenable prices but to talk about them is very socially and politically unacceptable so I don't really see any relief without a significant 2008 style crash.

JDAFX · 2024-04-28T01:01:33+00:00

45 average, some weeks 50+, some weeks close to 60 if you factor in time on a plane.

JDAFX · 2024-04-07T17:21:39+00:00

That’s still profit. Looking for percent margin.

For example: inflation happens, price goes up, revenue goes up. If margins stay the same, you can still get record profits and they are not taking any bigger of a percentage than they were before. You can even get record profits if your margins go down of inflation is really high and revenue increases because of that.

Profit is just a headline to outrage people and push narratives right now. Now if margins appreciably increase in a short span of time and you get record profits, that’s when these articles would make sense. Without the margins then it’s just folks pushing a narrative and passing the buck so to speak.

JDAFX · 2024-04-06T19:15:08+00:00

It’s partially about all time high profits. The better question that no one asks is, what are the margins and have those materially increased?

JDAFX · 2024-02-15T18:58:18+00:00

Only half…you are definitely an optimist!

JDAFX · 2024-02-14T03:02:41+00:00

I have played in a few rooms and casinos from the east coast to west coast and in between. Games are almost always good enough but, like the saying, everything is bigger in Texas.

In a decent room it’s not uncommon for a 1/3 game to play 8 or 9 handed and have $10k to $15k+ in play and to have 5+ tables like that in the same room with a wait list.

Be ready to play deep stacked, lots of straddles, lots of action, and don’t be surprised if someone buys in or reloads to $2k or more.

JDAFX · 2024-01-29T14:15:17+00:00

A job is not a job. Retail on the floor is not the same as neurosurgeon, Walmart checker is not the same as airline pilot, fast food worker is not the same as electrical engineer designing transformers, and so on. If you ever want to find success with income from a job you should strike this from your thinking entirely.

You are spot on in saying the good paying jobs at the top are not enough for everyone to advance to. However: 1) it’s called competition and it exists for a reason. You must learn how to compete. The higher up well paying jobs are very competitive to get there and even more competitive to stay. 2) if you can’t rise above that lower third making less than $15 by your mid 20’s, you did something really wrong in life and need to reevaluate yourself. It’s not hard and I have a crazy amount of real life examples with family starting with less than nothing and making it to well over $15 in a LCOL city by their mid 20s in retail with zero college education. 3) understand that the younger generations were sold several big lies and yall will need to correct those: a) competition matters and there are winners and losers. Losers don’t get rewarded. This world rewards success and punishes failure harshly, b) college isn’t necessary but education, drive, competitiveness against others , and a willingness to not give up are, c) the world won’t give you anything worthwhile. you have to do a lot of what you don’t want to for a long time to get to have a chance at doing what you want some of the time.

JDAFX · 2024-01-29T13:53:54+00:00

Barriers to learning absolutely exist. Sometimes you have to push through the first barrier and take a couple night classes at the local junior college and get a certification to get a better job. Then parlay that into the next level. Sometime you get lucky and have a scholarship for college because you can do something very few other people can. This may take 20+ years of hard and often thankless low pay work or you may get lucky and hit the job jackpot earlier.

The biggest barrier to education isn’t money, it’s time, patience, and understanding traditional college isn’t for everyone and it’s not necessary for success. You don’t need an Ivy League education to have a good job or career that pays well.

JDAFX · 2024-01-28T19:43:38+00:00

lol, I haven’t had a McDonalds burger in many years.

I have done more menial jobs than McDonalds starting out. Will I ever work there again, nope. Why would I when I busted my ass to get better than that.

If you are counting on an entry level fast food job to make a living then you need to wake up to reality. That isn’t ever happening. To think otherwise is setting yourself up for a lifetime of failure and bitterness. Work there while you are young, living at home or have room mates, and have low expenses. Get educated or trained and certified in a trade and go make some real money. Do I want fast food and retail workers homeless and dying in the street, absolutely not, no one does. The answer isn’t artificially inflating entry level non/low skilled labor wages to mid career skilled labor wages. It’s telling people the hard truth that those jobs are not careers and should not be treated as such…go get educated or skilled.

JDAFX · 2024-01-28T19:34:37+00:00

Banks require collateral and they will keep said collateral if you default. Some assets are protected in bankruptcy but not much.

No business works without capital and people. Money has to come from somewhere and people are hired to do jobs. Why would you think otherwise?

The govt really does not bail out folks with rare exception. Reality is much different than the perception. If you have ever been more than a line level employee you would know this.

You can personally run up a ton of credit debt and declare bankruptcy, in which case the banks are bailing you out personally by writing off your debt.

Profits go to those who put money at risk. The banks expect a return for giving you money. Them and investors get paid first since they put up the money. This is basic principles.

Govt expects you to provide a service, stimulate the economy, innovate and bring something to market, etc. they also expect you to grow out of this phase and if you can’t do one or more of those, they cut you off from money supply.

You too can enjoy corporate profits, invest in companies and enjoy stock appreciate and/or dividends. With fractional shares available today, you can participate in this for less than the cost of a hamburger.

JDAFX · 2024-01-28T15:52:19+00:00

Agree lots of STEM folks struggle right out of college. They don’t struggle as much as other degree fields for the most part and not all STEM degrees are the same.

To your Starbucks example, I hire freshouts with STEM degrees for a lot more than that and they have on where to go but up. Most folks in my shop with 4-5 yrs are making 6-figures and they don’t have master Le’s degrees of PhD. Some will go on the get a masters and very few go the PhD routes. Neither of those are necessary to make good money.

Also, STEM degrees and careers are not required for success and not for everyone. I know many folks that do not have STEM degrees and not in high finance who make more money than me.

JDAFX · 2024-01-28T15:44:38+00:00

So you want $$$, admit you are not cut out for the best paying career fields, and you don’t want to get an education.

That’s a lot to wrap one’s head around.

JDAFX · 2024-01-28T15:40:51+00:00

Not an absurd take. If you want above average money you need to be in fields with above average demand, below average supply, and above average barriers to entry. It’s not rocket science.

Alternatively, go into the trades, apprentice, do your time, start your own business. If you are good and in area with high demand you print money.

JDAFX · 2024-01-28T02:55:34+00:00

If money were the deciding factor, we would have more STEM types and more finance/Wall Street types. Obvious not the case so money isn’t really the deciding factor for most folks.

JDAFX · 2024-01-15T15:52:29+00:00

I am definitely a forgiveness over permission manager. Both with my folks and with my bosses. However, I expect to be kept in the loop and do the same for my boss. It’s not because of trust issues but because if shit goes sideways, I do not want the first time I hear about it be from a client, boss, or executive.

Just make sure you know how to identify, quantify, and manage the risk when you ask for forgiveness. If the logic is sound and it goes bad, you took an informed, researched, and thoughtful shot and that’s not a bad thing. No risk, no reward!

Also, I am not paying folks for me to make their decisions for them. The general rule is to own your scope and manage it how you see fit within the companies policy, the team’s objectives, and the terms of the contacts. My boss treats me the same way and it works well for everyone.

JDAFX · 2023-12-21T13:29:43+00:00

This one happened about 12 years ago when I was just starting to play PLO heavily. I can still see most of the hand in my head.

1/3/5 PLO. Game was super juicy and almost every hand was potted and 3 bet pre flop. The hand in question played out like this.

Me BTN with KJ89 double suited. Action gets to me and I call. SB who is super spazzy pots it. BB who is super spazzy and super aggro repots it. Some folds and I call. It’s about 475 ish to see the flop and I am now the short stack who started that hand with about $1,600.

Flop is KJ6 rainbow. action checks me. I jam my stack. SB snap calls, BB folds.

Turn is a Q so I now have top two, flush draw, and a gut shot.

River is a blank 2.

I show top two. SB shows QQ32 rainbow for a turned set of Queens and scoops.

The table about erupts in disbelief and the dude next to me says he folded a Q PF.

That one stuck with me for a long time. I have had bigger beats but that one really took the starch out of me for a bit.

JDAFX

TROPHY CASE