The real question is whether it ordered by a rogue official(s), or the governor himself. If information comes out that the governor was involved then he just lost himself a chance at being president.
No, the real question is, has politics stooped so low that political staff (and possibly politicians) feel entitled to act like petulant little children and expect to get away with it?
Yes it has. What do you think the IRS scandal was/is? At the very best the IRS scandal was almost exactly what Christie claims his "traffic study" was. Some appointed underling did something for the political advantage of their appointer in order to try and sway an election. Of course the person in charge "didn't know" and was "surprised to learn" that his appointee did it. I call it plausible deniability because it's very likely they actually didn't know, they just appointed people who just instinctively do stuff like this.
And, if so, why is society prepared to live with their politicians and staff acting like such douchebags?
I don't care what political stripe you are,
And slow rolling the tax approval of rival political groups is exactly the same kind of problem, albeit somehow more direct if you ask me. There is much to deride on both sides and the accepted political tactics they use.
Good luck getting elected now ya meathead.
Rand Paul can run circles around this guy.
Rand Paul? Ok, you are one of those people. Cruz has more name recognition and you won't find many confused Rand with Ron (his father) which is a serious problem because Ron is NUTS.
About Christie, All I can say is it really sucks being the perceived "front runner" because *everybody* is gunning for you. It's easier to fund raise, but at three years out you'd rather not draw such attention and fund raising is not exactly in full swing yet. Nobody would care about a "traffic study" if he was #3 or #4 on the list of contenders.
The fine article is incorrect. How an Ampere is defined does not change.
What may change is how you can measure current in the lab using other known standards because it's really hard to count electrons. Or perhaps the way a Coulomb is defined may change but the Ampere will not change.
One Ampere will remain defined as One Coulomb per second.
Apparently they *did* de-scope the project, with the back of house parts of the website being pushed to the left in the schedule. (Along with security and performance testing).
But you make my point, the requirements where in flux way late, CGI is going to walk away with a lot of cash and have little risk of legal action even though they didn't deliver much. Cost Plus, Plus, Plus contract in this case.
Oh, I get the cost constraints on "cost plus" contracts. I've worked on such contracts that where cancelled due to cost and schedule overruns.
But tell me how this administration could have said "Sorry, we are out of money, stop working!" on *this* project? This is the headline, premier achievement of Obama which won him two elections. There was no way they where going to let it fail, no matter what the cost. Sure they gave CGI a hard time about the cost and requirement slippage, but they had no choice politically but to pay what ever they asked and pray that something worked by the deadline. Further, in this case CGI is going to get away with the money they've already received and probably a bit more for the labor and materials needed to transition the project to the new company.
One can hope the new company will do better, but I'm guessing that won't happen. Yea, the website will get better over time, but we will still be paying though the nose for junk software.
they would more likely have to create a foundry and produce their chips themselves and doing so covertly would be difficult.
I'm positive that they easily could if they wanted. They've prototyped, flight tested, build and deployed whole squadrons of stealth aircraft without much evidence in the public domain, if they wanted to do this, they could.
But the real question is, *why* would they want to? I don't think they care.
Yea, CGI is just getting unhooked from the gravy train for show and another company is being coupled on.
"See? We slapped that messy company and sent them onto the siding! BAD contractor BAD!"
Literally NOTING (almost) will change, right on down to the people actually doing the work who will just swap companies. Results will be similar along with costs.
In the real word, there are two major types of contracts used for this kind of work.
1. Firm Fixed Price - This is where the contractor agrees to deliver a contracted set of requirements on a specified date at a fixed cost. There may be payout milestones, where the contractor delivers part of the system and gets an payment, but the end price is firm and fixed.
2. Cost Plus - This is where the contractor gets paid a percentage over their cost to deliver a system on the schedule. There may be an estimate of cost and fines for going over cost, but the contractor gets paid what ever it costs in hours and materials to deliver.
Both systems have their good points and bad points.
FFP Good points - a. Cost is fixed and delivery is at the price agreed. b. Incentives contractors to work more efficiently because they get to keep what they don't spend. Bad Points - a. You cannot change requirements without changing the contract (and likely the price will increase). So this only works well with small projects that can be fully defined in advance. b. Contractors will price in "risk" so the fixed price may be much higher for risky kinds of projects.
CP Good Points - a. Is much more flexible and easy to change requirements. b. Can be cheaper because the contractor doesn't have to price in "risk". Bad Points a. Are easy to abuse by the contractor by bulking up costs by interpreting requirements in the absolutely worst way and not being efficient in how they work.
So, unless they just did a bunch of unethical things, lied about a whole bunch of stuff and billed for hours and materials they didn't supply, I don't think the company could be forced to do what you say you'd force them to do. At least not legally.
Unless CGI did something blatantly illegal, they have the perfect "get out of jail free" card. If even one requirement changed, they have justification for additional charges on a fixed price contract. It's obvious that the requirements where changing up to the day of the roll out. But that only applies to fixed price contracts, which CGI wasn't on.
I believe they where on "cost plus" contract, which means they are going to get off Scott Free, unless the government can prove they purposely lied about their progress or committed fraud by billing hours not worked or for materials not delivered there will be nothing the government can claim. It is *really* hard to go back and recover payments you approved to be made unless there is provable fraud when doing cost plus work.
Face it, these kind of projects are huge bloated gravy trains where there is no incentive (beyond one's ethical desire to give the customer what they want) to actually get to your destination. Fixed Price just means that you have to know 100% of your requirements in advance because *every* contract change comes with a price increase and every changed requirement, no matter how minor, drives the price up and the schedule out. Cost Plus contracts are more flexible on the requirements, but there's no way to hold a contractor to an estimated price.
No CGI is off the hook... Off the Gravy train too, but off the hook.
And the next question is will these guys do any better?
Depends on what you mean by "better". But I don't think it matters much who gets hired to do this now.
I'm guessing that the website will continue to improve it's public face, but the back of office stuff (where the rubber really meets the road) will continue to be problematic. I don't think it will matter which company they hire now, the issues and solutions will be about the same. In fact, it's likely that the same people will be doing the work as the key contributors now get fired and hired by the new company. This kind of thing happens all the time, where company A looses contract to Company B. Then B snatches up the employees that A has to let go (If not the office space and equipment too). Yea, a few upper management types shuffle in/out, but nothing really changes except the logos on the letterhead.
To the tune of $1 Trillion a year they do effectively "print" money (some of it is physical currency, some is just digital). But to be honest, a lot of the money spent (Like about 70%) comes from Taxes, Duties, fees etc.
Yea, it wouldn't take that much $$ to pretty much sink BTC, at least from the perspective of a government that borrows 1 Trillion a year. Once you sink BTC, you can hand the assets over to the NSA for breaking crypto or take on some other crypto currency.
Seriously, I don't think the government cares about BTC, at least while you don't use it to break the law (not reporting income, laundering money etc).
The problem here is that 3.0 is not exactly friendly to 2.x scripts. I'm not going to argue the virtues of 2.4 verses 3.0, but I am going to say that if you break something when you upgrade your interpreter, expect to support the previous version for a LONG time.
ACES is Proposed, not existing. Lighting a LOx/LH motor in space is a lot more difficult than it seams at first and transferring liquid fuels is pretty hard too. Yes, it's possible, but for any kind of long term (deep space) mission that last for more than a few days, you are likely going to want some fuel that's a lot easier to store and use in the long term. You might get some customers who want to blast large payloads from orbit using your fuel, but right now there is substantial risk of failure built into such plans.
Deep space missions will use fuels like Hydrazine or solids, which are easier to store, easier to get burning and more reliable systems than LOx/LH can achieve. Getting LOx/LH from LEO might be useful for fuels you intended to burn within a few days, but beyond that there are a lot of issues.
L0x/LH fueled stages are *not* common anymore for on orbit use. That went out of style way back in the 70's because it was unreliable and extremely difficult to store. It is really hard to design liquid fuel feed systems that work in weightlessness and LOx/LH rocket engines do really bad things when being fed gas instead of liquid. Hydrazine is the current fuel of choice because it self ignites and is more easily stored and delivered to rocket motors. L0x/LH is usually used only for launch, where you can abort if the thing doesn't light and the liquid is collected by gravity at the bottom of the tanks, even before you light the fire.
Actually, the plan was to refurbish it over time by launching new modules and deorbiting ones that we do not want to maintain any more. That way you can slowly refresh the whole thing. In fact, the Russians already have a plan that uses parts of the ISS that they own as a basis for another totally Russian station more suited for servicing deep space craft and missions.
Pie in the sky, or perhaps a stack of Rasberry Pis. Refueling satellites is not usually part of their design nor is refreshing the electronics inside them. If you cannot do both, there is not much your orbiting garage and tow truck can do that anybody is going to pay for. All you'd be able to do is tow around really expensive scrap heaps. What you *might* be able to do is salvage parts from old hardware and use it on new stuff. Dish Antennas, Solar arrays, shields and other components might serve a new satellite and save launch weight, but we are *not* talking about mining asteroids now.
Yea, but right now there are extremely few customers willing to pay for and take delivery of fuel precursors in orbit. A situation I don't see changing any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Sucks to be the perceived front runner, especially if you have the "R" after your name.
No, the real question is, has politics stooped so low that political staff (and possibly politicians) feel entitled to act like petulant little children and expect to get away with it?
Yes it has. What do you think the IRS scandal was/is? At the very best the IRS scandal was almost exactly what Christie claims his "traffic study" was. Some appointed underling did something for the political advantage of their appointer in order to try and sway an election. Of course the person in charge "didn't know" and was "surprised to learn" that his appointee did it. I call it plausible deniability because it's very likely they actually didn't know, they just appointed people who just instinctively do stuff like this.
And, if so, why is society prepared to live with their politicians and staff acting like such douchebags?
I don't care what political stripe you are,
And slow rolling the tax approval of rival political groups is exactly the same kind of problem, albeit somehow more direct if you ask me. There is much to deride on both sides and the accepted political tactics they use.
I for one am shocked, shocked, to hear of political corruption in New Jersey.
Then you will be SHOCKED to hear there is a lot more in Washington DC..
Good luck getting elected now ya meathead. Rand Paul can run circles around this guy.
Rand Paul? Ok, you are one of those people. Cruz has more name recognition and you won't find many confused Rand with Ron (his father) which is a serious problem because Ron is NUTS.
About Christie, All I can say is it really sucks being the perceived "front runner" because *everybody* is gunning for you. It's easier to fund raise, but at three years out you'd rather not draw such attention and fund raising is not exactly in full swing yet. Nobody would care about a "traffic study" if he was #3 or #4 on the list of contenders.
The fine article is incorrect. How an Ampere is defined does not change.
What may change is how you can measure current in the lab using other known standards because it's really hard to count electrons. Or perhaps the way a Coulomb is defined may change but the Ampere will not change.
One Ampere will remain defined as One Coulomb per second.
Followed by Blue Screen of Death....
Apparently they *did* de-scope the project, with the back of house parts of the website being pushed to the left in the schedule. (Along with security and performance testing).
But you make my point, the requirements where in flux way late, CGI is going to walk away with a lot of cash and have little risk of legal action even though they didn't deliver much. Cost Plus, Plus, Plus contract in this case.
Oh, I get the cost constraints on "cost plus" contracts. I've worked on such contracts that where cancelled due to cost and schedule overruns.
But tell me how this administration could have said "Sorry, we are out of money, stop working!" on *this* project? This is the headline, premier achievement of Obama which won him two elections. There was no way they where going to let it fail, no matter what the cost. Sure they gave CGI a hard time about the cost and requirement slippage, but they had no choice politically but to pay what ever they asked and pray that something worked by the deadline. Further, in this case CGI is going to get away with the money they've already received and probably a bit more for the labor and materials needed to transition the project to the new company.
One can hope the new company will do better, but I'm guessing that won't happen. Yea, the website will get better over time, but we will still be paying though the nose for junk software.
they would more likely have to create a foundry and produce their chips themselves and doing so covertly would be difficult.
I'm positive that they easily could if they wanted. They've prototyped, flight tested, build and deployed whole squadrons of stealth aircraft without much evidence in the public domain, if they wanted to do this, they could.
But the real question is, *why* would they want to? I don't think they care.
Yea, CGI is just getting unhooked from the gravy train for show and another company is being coupled on.
"See? We slapped that messy company and sent them onto the siding! BAD contractor BAD!"
Literally NOTING (almost) will change, right on down to the people actually doing the work who will just swap companies. Results will be similar along with costs.
In the real word, there are two major types of contracts used for this kind of work.
1. Firm Fixed Price - This is where the contractor agrees to deliver a contracted set of requirements on a specified date at a fixed cost. There may be payout milestones, where the contractor delivers part of the system and gets an payment, but the end price is firm and fixed.
2. Cost Plus - This is where the contractor gets paid a percentage over their cost to deliver a system on the schedule. There may be an estimate of cost and fines for going over cost, but the contractor gets paid what ever it costs in hours and materials to deliver.
Both systems have their good points and bad points.
FFP Good points - a. Cost is fixed and delivery is at the price agreed. b. Incentives contractors to work more efficiently because they get to keep what they don't spend. Bad Points - a. You cannot change requirements without changing the contract (and likely the price will increase). So this only works well with small projects that can be fully defined in advance. b. Contractors will price in "risk" so the fixed price may be much higher for risky kinds of projects.
CP Good Points - a. Is much more flexible and easy to change requirements. b. Can be cheaper because the contractor doesn't have to price in "risk". Bad Points a. Are easy to abuse by the contractor by bulking up costs by interpreting requirements in the absolutely worst way and not being efficient in how they work.
So, unless they just did a bunch of unethical things, lied about a whole bunch of stuff and billed for hours and materials they didn't supply, I don't think the company could be forced to do what you say you'd force them to do. At least not legally.
Unless CGI did something blatantly illegal, they have the perfect "get out of jail free" card. If even one requirement changed, they have justification for additional charges on a fixed price contract. It's obvious that the requirements where changing up to the day of the roll out. But that only applies to fixed price contracts, which CGI wasn't on.
I believe they where on "cost plus" contract, which means they are going to get off Scott Free, unless the government can prove they purposely lied about their progress or committed fraud by billing hours not worked or for materials not delivered there will be nothing the government can claim. It is *really* hard to go back and recover payments you approved to be made unless there is provable fraud when doing cost plus work.
Face it, these kind of projects are huge bloated gravy trains where there is no incentive (beyond one's ethical desire to give the customer what they want) to actually get to your destination. Fixed Price just means that you have to know 100% of your requirements in advance because *every* contract change comes with a price increase and every changed requirement, no matter how minor, drives the price up and the schedule out. Cost Plus contracts are more flexible on the requirements, but there's no way to hold a contractor to an estimated price.
No CGI is off the hook... Off the Gravy train too, but off the hook.
And the next question is will these guys do any better?
Depends on what you mean by "better". But I don't think it matters much who gets hired to do this now.
I'm guessing that the website will continue to improve it's public face, but the back of office stuff (where the rubber really meets the road) will continue to be problematic. I don't think it will matter which company they hire now, the issues and solutions will be about the same. In fact, it's likely that the same people will be doing the work as the key contributors now get fired and hired by the new company. This kind of thing happens all the time, where company A looses contract to Company B. Then B snatches up the employees that A has to let go (If not the office space and equipment too). Yea, a few upper management types shuffle in/out, but nothing really changes except the logos on the letterhead.
To the tune of $1 Trillion a year they do effectively "print" money (some of it is physical currency, some is just digital). But to be honest, a lot of the money spent (Like about 70%) comes from Taxes, Duties, fees etc.
So "profit" step is pretty much not going to happen because the first step is not going to happen.
Yea, it wouldn't take that much $$ to pretty much sink BTC, at least from the perspective of a government that borrows 1 Trillion a year. Once you sink BTC, you can hand the assets over to the NSA for breaking crypto or take on some other crypto currency.
Seriously, I don't think the government cares about BTC, at least while you don't use it to break the law (not reporting income, laundering money etc).
How on earth do you short BTC?
It's not like BTC is currently traded by brokers and I don't know anybody who is selling BTC future contracts.
If you know a way to do this, let me know.. There is serious $$ to be made here.
tl;dr: If it aint' broke, don't fix it.
To that I would add, if it works, don't break it!
The problem here is that 3.0 is not exactly friendly to 2.x scripts. I'm not going to argue the virtues of 2.4 verses 3.0, but I am going to say that if you break something when you upgrade your interpreter, expect to support the previous version for a LONG time.
ACES is Proposed, not existing. Lighting a LOx/LH motor in space is a lot more difficult than it seams at first and transferring liquid fuels is pretty hard too. Yes, it's possible, but for any kind of long term (deep space) mission that last for more than a few days, you are likely going to want some fuel that's a lot easier to store and use in the long term. You might get some customers who want to blast large payloads from orbit using your fuel, but right now there is substantial risk of failure built into such plans.
Deep space missions will use fuels like Hydrazine or solids, which are easier to store, easier to get burning and more reliable systems than LOx/LH can achieve. Getting LOx/LH from LEO might be useful for fuels you intended to burn within a few days, but beyond that there are a lot of issues.
L0x/LH fueled stages are *not* common anymore for on orbit use. That went out of style way back in the 70's because it was unreliable and extremely difficult to store. It is really hard to design liquid fuel feed systems that work in weightlessness and LOx/LH rocket engines do really bad things when being fed gas instead of liquid. Hydrazine is the current fuel of choice because it self ignites and is more easily stored and delivered to rocket motors. L0x/LH is usually used only for launch, where you can abort if the thing doesn't light and the liquid is collected by gravity at the bottom of the tanks, even before you light the fire.
Who's going to call? Most satellites use hydrazine not water for fuel. So, do you know how hard it is to convert H20 into N2H4?
They where already planning for the demise of the ISS. They where going to salvage parts that they owned and create their own orbiting platform for deep space exploration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Piloted_Assembly_and_Experiment_Complex
Actually, the plan was to refurbish it over time by launching new modules and deorbiting ones that we do not want to maintain any more. That way you can slowly refresh the whole thing. In fact, the Russians already have a plan that uses parts of the ISS that they own as a basis for another totally Russian station more suited for servicing deep space craft and missions.
Pie in the sky, or perhaps a stack of Rasberry Pis. Refueling satellites is not usually part of their design nor is refreshing the electronics inside them. If you cannot do both, there is not much your orbiting garage and tow truck can do that anybody is going to pay for. All you'd be able to do is tow around really expensive scrap heaps. What you *might* be able to do is salvage parts from old hardware and use it on new stuff. Dish Antennas, Solar arrays, shields and other components might serve a new satellite and save launch weight, but we are *not* talking about mining asteroids now.
Yea, but right now there are extremely few customers willing to pay for and take delivery of fuel precursors in orbit. A situation I don't see changing any time soon.