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Health Exchange Sites Crushed By Demand; Shutdown Blanks Other Gov't Sites

An anonymous reader writes "The launch of a national health exchange site was marred by overloaded servers in several states around the country. In a White House press conference, President Obama said that by 7 a.m., there were over a million users, and he likened the capacity problems to the glitches that Apple experienced after discovering bugs in their rlease of iOS 7. 'I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads, or threatening to shut down company if they didn't,' the president argued." Meanwhile, a number government websites went blank as a result of the shutdown, instead of simply lying dormant until personnel could return. The National Science Foundation, NASA, the FCC, and the Library of Congress are a few examples.

14 of 565 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ridiculous stunt by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you stole cable TV all your life but the people working for the government are the parasites? Interesting interpretation.

  2. Bad Analogy by Cornwallis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads, or threatening to shut down company if they didn't,' the president argued."

    And Apple can't put us in jail for not buying their product. Although I'm sure they'd like to.

    1. Re:Bad Analogy by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually only 33% of americans oppose Romneycare.

      About another third like it and the rest wanted more. Forbes had a nice article about it.

  3. Re:ya, the IRS site is up and running by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Love it, taxation without representation. Your tax dollars on furlough.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  4. Where's the priority by Bucc5062 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the Government can send a few billion on a server farm in Utah for the NSA, but heaven help they send money on servers to handle 3 million people trying to log in at once.

    I am going to give the benefit of the doubt that there are smart people who set this up and even they could not anticipate the initial load factor. So the republicans tried everything in their power to make people afraid of the ACA and the result was overloaded systems. Perhaps that says something about the population as a whole. IT is easy to pull something down when you think you're not effected, but when you need it,real bad, then it becomes the most important thing to have.

    Anyway, the DBAs and Admins will figure this all out, the process will continue and within a week this will fade as the debt limit looms next.

    --
    Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
    1. Re:Where's the priority by gtall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "So the Government can send a few billion on a server farm in Utah for the NSA, but heaven help they send money on servers to handle 3 million people trying to log in at once."

      Apples vs. Oranges. That's like saying the Government put a man on the moon, how come they cannot cure cancer. NSA didn't build their system overnight, it took years and they had to learn a lot in order to pull it off. Very few large IT projects ever come in on time and under budget. Not only that, most aren't directly facing your basic American. If you want to see how embarrassing your systems can be, open them up to the general public. They will do things of which you never thought. And each person has their notion of what they want out of that system.

  5. Re:ya, the IRS site is up and running by bzipitidoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Shutting down websites is mostly political grandstanding. What does it cost to leave a website up, let it run on autopilot for a while, and not update any content? Just bandwidth and electricity. The new healthcare sites got over 1 million hits, but most of the time, most sites are nowhere near that busy. Probably cost more to have their website administrators change the sites to throw up a "sorry, we're closed" page. Saves a little on bandwidth. Doesn't save much on electricity.

    When Wikipedia and other majors sites went dark for 1 day, they didn't give us any bull about why. They said it was all about SOPA and PIPA, and they meant exactly what they said.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  6. Re:Most "shutdowns" are completely unnecessary by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can Obama possibly negotiate? Repubs are demanding he kick his grandest achievement to the curb or they won't negotiate. Sorry. Obama is the not the villain here.

  7. Re:Merica! by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because the greedy rich assholes make it impossible for an honest normal person to even run for office.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  8. Re:Here is the difference Mr. President by dywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    so thats what, attempt number 512094 by the republicans to refight the same fight they've already lost?

    at what point do the republicans admit that in a democracy you sometimes have to accept defeat, accept that the opposition has won, and move on?

    what hte republicans are doing is NOT democracy, it is extortion.

    they have co-opted the democratic process, using the Hastert Rule to prevent the true majority in the house from having any say, so that a minority of the ruling party can dictate the agenda, creating a flase middle ground, in order to hold the country, its economy, indead hte worlds economy, hostage over a ideological battle that they cannot win and have already lost 50 seperate times.

    they have put the gun to all our heads, and are threatening to pull the trigger and blow us all to hell unless they get what they want.
    they are acting like spoiled children who have no inlking of what living in a democracy entails, who refuse to accept that they can be on the losing side.

    they have created their red line, and unlike the other recent one, they refuse to back down even though they will not only destroy themselves, but take everyone else down with them. and if they do this, it is the end of the republican party for the next 50 years or more; no one will touch them with a 10ft, indeed, 1000km pole.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  9. Re:Here is the difference Mr. President by jareth-0205 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is the current proposal from the GOP. The Senate and president are REFUSING to even talk to them about it.

    THE DISCUSSION IS OVER. The senate and president don't *need* to talk to the crazies because IT IS ALREADY A LAW. You've already had this debate.

    Or is this up for debate every year? Every time an already existing and passed law needs funding, but some disagree with it, the whole country can be held to ransom by those who disagree?

    You people make me sick. You ignore your own system, you are destroying your own government for fringe interests.

  10. Re:Ridiculous stunt by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering the fact that I was never paid for the pole in my front yard or their adding of wires to it. I tend to see it in a rather bleak light. They have too many rights already. I do not subscribe, nor do I steal it, but I can see where the poster is coming from. They did reduce transmitter power to let cable work better, they do have rights of way they should not, and they both charge for the service and show commercials.

    They might have a right to protect their assets, but those assets are ill gotten gains.

  11. Re:Here is the difference Mr. President by dywolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The premise here is a false premise. Congress changes laws all the time. The Office of the President proposes changing laws all the time.

    Yes, and they vote.
    and then they abide by the votes.
    however they dont dont keep revoting 50 times trying to get the result they want.

    When the Executive branch stops refusing to enforce laws they don't agree with: Immigration laws, Marriage law, even this law itself, which the Executive branch has either delayed or ignored when politically convenient for them, then you can advance this argument.

    if a law's validity is in question it is completely within the enforcer's power to withhold enforcement in the face of an impending reversal, as happened with DOMA. besides which, there was nothing to stop enforcing there.

    and also, he never stopped enforcing immigration, in fact, more people were deported under obama's first 4 years than in the previous 12.

    As for funding. Constitutionally it is the job of Congress, specifically the House, to hold the purse strings. It is their job to refuse to fund endeavors which in their opinion the U.S. government should not be paying for. It has been used in the past to refuse to fund wars, programs and ill considered legislation passed by previous Congresses. It is the reason that many of these House members were elected.

    Again: they've tried to repeal it 50 times already
    They've lost each time.
    And now in denial of their losing side status, they've shutdown the government in a temper tantrum demanding to be given their way.

    SO. THE DISCUSSION IS NOT OVER. Not if the Senate and the President want to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. If they want those things to happen they better start talking, because they most certainly do *need* to.

    It is over. Voting once or twice to try and change minds is one thing.
    Voting FIFTS TIMES AND LOSING EACH TIME is something else.
    The discussion is over. They lost. Obamacare is here to stay. Get over it.

    We did not have this debate. When we tried members of Congress, specifically democrats, stopped talking to people, because they were being told in no uncertain terms this was unwanted. We did not have this debate because the law that was passed was not argued in detail in either house of Congress prior to it being voted on.

    We did have this debate.
    We had it for over a year before Obamacare was passed.
    We've had it each and every time they've tried to repeal it.
    We've gone over the bill in detail. Word by word, clause by clause.

    For some reason Republicans havent stopped having this debate, even though they have lost the debate each and every time, FIFTY TIMES SO FAR . The debate is over.

    Only republicans live in a fantasy world where there was "no debate" and the bill is this "giant mystery that no one understands". Those are lies, repeated by republicans over and over. But they are lies.

    We HAVE had this debate, and Republicans KEEP LOSING IT.
    We HAVE discussed the bill, in detail. But apparently Republicans keep forgetting whats those details are.

    Republicans are living in denial of reality.
    You dont have a clue what you're talking about.
    You're full of crap.

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  12. Re:Most "shutdowns" are completely unnecessary by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Republicans are asking for a one year delay for the individual just as Obama himself asked for a one year delay for corporate entities.

    Okay, let's say Obama took them up on that and game out what would happen. The individual mandate is delayed for a year, which removes much of the incentive for people without immediate health problems to sign up for health insurance (because why bother when you could save money by just waiting until you're sick?). The people who are sick (or likely to become sick), on the other hand, still have a big incentive to sign up for insurance, and the insurance companies are obligated to sell it to them. So with only expensive customers in their risk pool, the insurance companies are forced to greatly raise their premiums, which means that healthy people become even less willing to sign up, because now the premiums are too expensive. The ACA enters a death spiral, at the end of which it ends up as a system that offers only unaffordable insurance that nobody can buy. Everyone loses, except for the Republicans, who can now gloat about the "inevitable failure" of the ACA.

    No, I can't see Obama going for that, unless he's an idiot.

    Who's the villain here?

    I'm pretty sure it's the 30 or so Republicans who are holding the rest of the nation hostage, against the wishes of 80% of the American public.

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    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.