"I'm thinking now that maybe I should go into construction though. You make it sound great.:) If I understand you correctly, you can "throw your qualifications on the table," and find potential clients that will agree to cost plus. If this is true, I'm pretty impressed."
No, I did not say that. I was stating my qualifications to be saying the things I'm saying here on/.
"Actually, this leads me to a question which I hope isn't too off-topic... When a government agency is considering a choice between contractors who want to bill on a cost plus basis, how does that agency choose a contractor? Do people in your field supply non-binding estimates, or rate sheets for materials and services? Is it based on reputation and handshakes? Or is it all back rooms, family rooms, and college roommates?"
If we are supplying services, we bid on rates and margin. Qualifications are written and evaluated as part of the bid (experience, bonding capacity, etc.) A budget will often be provided, but it is just that - a budget. If an Owner wants something more concrete than that, a Guaranteed Maximum Price will be proposed. This is where a contractor says tehy will do the project on a cost-plus basis at X% overhead and Y% profit (BTW, probably single digits on both of those percentages), and the budget is $Z. However, if the costs exceed $Z plus a certain amount, the contractor will take the hit. It limits the Owner's exposure.
"This all comes down to how strict the oversight is. If I can invoice for a phenomenal amount and then cut and run when your review process scolds me (assuming you can even afford to fire me), and worse, our contractual arrangement makes determining whether I actually violated our agreement a rather subtle and complex process, so your legal remedies are curtailed... I think the description "blank check" still sounds pretty accurate; I hope you can help me understand why that's not the case."
Realize that you are skipping over the initial invoice review process. In order for an invoice to get paid, it first must be submitted to the Gov't officer in charge of construction, who then reviews it and either approves it or asks for revisions. After that official is satisfied, they submit it to the money people. And that official can require a LOT of backup material - subcontractor invoices, work tickets, daily reports, etc.
"Putting it as simply as I can, I guess what a construction layman like myself has trouble with, is that if I sent someone off to run a project for me, and then later found out the project was going wrong... and the punch line was that nobody had gone to the trouble of creating limits or an estimate for the work in advance (at least, any that was strong enough to go to court over)... wouldn't I fire that person? Even (or especially) if that person was the federal government?"
Certainly, if a Contractor isn't performing, you let them go. That is far easier under a cost plus arrangement than a fixed bid. But lack of oversight is a problem no matter what the contract structure. You just described a (reputable) Contractor's nightmare of an Owner: lack of knowledge, lack of skills, and just signs off on everything. Then when the final bill comes due, they want EVERYTHING explained before they pay up, even for work they have already signed off on. Yes, an unscrupulous contractor will tell an Owner that they did more work that actually happened, but the alternate is also true: unscrupulous Owners will attempt to renegociate the contract after the fact.
"All this is just because I have trouble imagining how often you really need to do cost plus, rather than your other contract scenarios. Keeping in mind that unexpected events and unreliable estimates are the norm in both of our fields... outside of your hypothetical example, why is it done?"
It is simply a matter of risk - how it is defined, and who bears the burden. Example: http://www.enr.com/news/transportation/archives/04
Do you actually work in construction? I can't believe you do, since you post is so off base I don't even know where to start.
I'll throw my qualifications on the table. I work for an ENR Top 20 contracting firm as a project manager. I have done cost plus work and hard bid work for BOTH government and commercial and commercial clients. My government work has been both negociated hard bid and competitive hard bid. My commercial work has been hard bid, negociated hard bid, cost plus, and cost plus with a guaranteed maximum price.
You are right in that no one writes blank checks, but you are wrong in equating "cost plus" with "blank check". On a cost-plus job, the work is evaluated with every invoice, and if costs or schedule are going out of bounds, the work gets stopped. On a hard bid project, the work is also checked over on a monthly basis.
As for your comment on my example: no, most contractors wouldn't bid on testing - that is properly the job of a testing firm, which contracts to the owner for liability purposes. Guess how testing firms bill? Cost plus.
As for balking at the Gov't taking contractors to court, I am all for it; yet at the end of the fiscal year, court is not a cost efficient process, and many private will do a great deal to stay out of court. The Gov't doesn't have this option - Government employees can't "cut deals," and for very good reasons.
You have a skewed view of what really happens in the private sector. First, cost plus work is still done. There are some jobs that are just too risky to take on a hard bid basis.
"Dig me a hole in the ground." "What is the soil like? "Don't know." "What is down there?" "Don't know." "Is the soil contaminated?" "Don't know. How about a hard bid?" "Drop dead, I'll do it T&M (Time and Material) if at all."
And yes, this kind of thing happens all of the time.
As for incentive under a cost plus vs. hard bid, you are correct that an unscrupulous contractor will drag the job out. That same unscrupulous contractor will also commit fraud under a fixed price bid: inferior materials, bogus change requests, shoddy workmanship.
Also, the US gov't is moving AWAY from strictly hard bid contracts and toward a combination of negotiated and bidding, at least in construction. This is to geta away from the situation that exists now: a contractor will bid the job at a loss, and then immediately start placing claims on the project to recoup profit via change order work. This almost always ends in court, with the Gov't. being worse off than if they had gone with the higher, but more reputable bid.
"The navy has been using it pretty much constantly for years, with no noticeable mishaps at least in the last 30 years(last one I could find was a release of contaminatd water in 1978)."
But you see, since the military is wholly populated by the spawn of Satan, OF COURSE they can use the Devil's Black Arts without being harmed by them.
Because the Patriot Act (as well as almost all other Acts of Congress) is not a fruit, but a basket of fruit. A bill before Congress is pages and pages of separate provisions, any one of which can be ruled invalid by a court without invalidating the rest, unless there is specific wording providing for it.
"I've got stitches in extremely uncomfortable places"
Generally, "uncomfortable places" is a euphemism for pubic areas, buttocks, armpits, etc. Places that don't generally see the light.
Also, I don't believe that "cut[ing] away every little precancerous mole" is standard practice. Were the moles showing precancerous signs, or was the mere fact that they were moles evidence enough?
Looking at your original post and this response, I get the impression that this is a subjective thing for you, i.e. "Even though I get 30mpg, it still feels like a waste." If looked at against actual criteria - pollution, convenience, etc - your current solution is probably your best. Regarding pollution, it is entirely possible that your car exhausts cleaner air than it takes in. That is assuming it is in good tune, and you live in an area with bad air quality.
I don't think what you want exists right now, unless you make it yourself. http://metricmind.com/ was the second hit on Google for "diy electric car"
If you can maintain your '90 chevy, you can probably build your own. You may even be able to use your current car.
"It's possible, in fact, that they'll bill for 500 hours of reading these papers when they don't bother to read any of it at all; how would SCO prove that they didn't do it? "
Actually pretty simple. Assuming there was a malpractice suit, SCO would subpoena the billing records of the people whowere supposed to be working on SCO's stuff. When you start finding associates billing 12 hours to SCO on the same day that they bill 12 hours to Client X, someone is getting screwed.
Actually, theologians argue all the time. But thanks anyway for the gratuitous shot at religion.
The people you are really thinking about are engineers. Scientists try to answer the whys and hows, engineers answer the question "Now that we know what it is, what the hell do we do with it?"
And now, to combine the topics: scientists:engineers::theologians:ministe rs
Is the current focus on a broad compatibility or making specific (but large userbase) applications work?
Where should the focus be?
Will your efforts be a success when Crossover and/or WINE have equal compatibility with WIN32 applications as does Windows (i.e. not very good except for MS products), or will you have to be better than MS at making applications work?
I don't know about the curative powers of positive thinking, but it can't hurt anything to have a patient blasting away cancer cells yelling "Die, muthafucka, die!!."
1)The average computer system consists of about a dozen parts that are effectively unrepairable, i.e. replacement is the only feasible option: MB, processor, memory, cards, HD, CD/DVD, case, power supply, cooling fan, monitor, printer.
A car has THOUSANDS of the equivalent level of parts. From the user standpoint, a processor is no different than a set of brake pads, no matter the level of complexity. Part fails, replace it or pay someone to do so.
2) There are the multitude of things one can do with computers, but it's the same for cars; my car in high school was a transportation machine to an infinite variety of places, race car, vehicle for seduction (not a very good one), emergency bed/hotel room, ambulance, moving van, etc. All of which worked to some degree, with some level of problems. Sounds a lot like software.
Here's the major difference - cars have had over 100 years to develop, and people have had the same amount of time to learn their use. Personal Computers - couple of decades, tops. Were doing the equivalent of driving Model T's and A's now. I don't think Henry Ford warned everyone about the multitude of ways cars could be a pain, and I'm glad he didn't.
"And no, the average user will never be able to cope with this. Most people just want to buy a computer and use it. They are no more interested in learning how to maintain a computer than they are in learning auto maintenance. It's up to the computer industry to deliver usable products to the end user."
Your analogy is close, but not quite. Regarding auto maintenance, you are right in that people don't want to learn how to do auto maintenance, bu most of them know that their cars NEED maintenance. So do computers, but the average computer users haven't realized this yet.
A better way to use the analogy between cars and computers would be to ask users the following question: "Would you open the hood of your car and add or replace parts that you found out on the street for free? And if you did, and your car started running crappy, would you get pissed off at the dealer or the mechanic?"
You are skipping over the time between the merger and now. After the merger, former AOL executives held all of the power in the company - they were the ones who ran it into the ground. It may have been a great deal up front, but it was the AOL side that failed to deliver, not TW.
Also, with Mobipocket you can tap the right side of the screen to advance the page, and the left to go back. I hold my palm III in my right hand and just roll my thumb to press on the screen and advance it - it becomes automatic.
Fair warning - if you fat finger it or drag a little, you will select text, and I haven't yet found a slick way to unselect.
Sorry, still have a problem with it. Basically, what the parent's quote says is that
1) they are acting on their own interpretation 2) "in today's world..." implies that they are OK with practical matters getting in the way of the rights of an individual - since overthrowing the government would be impossible with rifles, and handguns (opinion of the military experts in the ACLU?!), the amendment is irrelevant.
This is the exact opposite of their treatment of all of the other amendments, where the rights enumerated are: 1) the most liberal interpretation that they can get out of the wording, and 2) taken as absolute regardless of the practical consequences (the classic "murderer goes free on a technicality" bit)
So, you are correct in pointing out that the ACLU doesn't pretend the second amendment doesn't exist. However, by applying a different standard to it than any other amendment, and by deciding that it is not relevant, they can simply choose to ignore it with a clear conscience.
Got it wholly wrong. When the framers used the word "militia", they meant a body of men who already owned their own guns. The concept of the National Guard as it exists today didn't even exist.
There is a case to be made that the CAN SPAM act is unnecessary, and that other laws cover spammers actions.
HOWEVER, applying those laws would require judges to take an existing law and stretch it a little to cover a new (to them) situation. Judges are loathe to do this, as they get appealed on it.
But having passed a law *specifically* targetted at the conduct in question, the judge is off the interpretive hook. The law itself may be appealed, but not the judge's conduct.
Allow me to expand. Slander is when a speaker says something that he knows is untrue but presents it as the truth. There is intent to deceive. Same with libel, which is written.
A parody isn't presented as the truth; there is no intent to deceive. A parody can be mean, cruel, and damaging, but that doesn't make it illegal.
On the other side, people will commit slander and then hide behind the shield of parody, but the MC spoof in question certainly doesn't qualify.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm thinking now that maybe I should go into construction though. You make it sound great. :) If I understand you correctly, you can "throw your qualifications on the table," and find potential clients that will agree to cost plus. If this is true, I'm pretty impressed."
/.
No, I did not say that. I was stating my qualifications to be saying the things I'm saying here on
"Actually, this leads me to a question which I hope isn't too off-topic... When a government agency is considering a choice between contractors who want to bill on a cost plus basis, how does that agency choose a contractor? Do people in your field supply non-binding estimates, or rate sheets for materials and services? Is it based on reputation and handshakes? Or is it all back rooms, family rooms, and college roommates?"
If we are supplying services, we bid on rates and margin. Qualifications are written and evaluated as part of the bid (experience, bonding capacity, etc.) A budget will often be provided, but it is just that - a budget. If an Owner wants something more concrete than that, a Guaranteed Maximum Price will be proposed. This is where a contractor says tehy will do the project on a cost-plus basis at X% overhead and Y% profit (BTW, probably single digits on both of those percentages), and the budget is $Z. However, if the costs exceed $Z plus a certain amount, the contractor will take the hit. It limits the Owner's exposure.
"This all comes down to how strict the oversight is. If I can invoice for a phenomenal amount and then cut and run when your review process scolds me (assuming you can even afford to fire me), and worse, our contractual arrangement makes determining whether I actually violated our agreement a rather subtle and complex process, so your legal remedies are curtailed... I think the description "blank check" still sounds pretty accurate; I hope you can help me understand why that's not the case."
Realize that you are skipping over the initial invoice review process. In order for an invoice to get paid, it first must be submitted to the Gov't officer in charge of construction, who then reviews it and either approves it or asks for revisions. After that official is satisfied, they submit it to the money people. And that official can require a LOT of backup material - subcontractor invoices, work tickets, daily reports, etc.
"Putting it as simply as I can, I guess what a construction layman like myself has trouble with, is that if I sent someone off to run a project for me, and then later found out the project was going wrong... and the punch line was that nobody had gone to the trouble of creating limits or an estimate for the work in advance (at least, any that was strong enough to go to court over)... wouldn't I fire that person? Even (or especially) if that person was the federal government?"
Certainly, if a Contractor isn't performing, you let them go. That is far easier under a cost plus arrangement than a fixed bid. But lack of oversight is a problem no matter what the contract structure. You just described a (reputable) Contractor's nightmare of an Owner: lack of knowledge, lack of skills, and just signs off on everything. Then when the final bill comes due, they want EVERYTHING explained before they pay up, even for work they have already signed off on. Yes, an unscrupulous contractor will tell an Owner that they did more work that actually happened, but the alternate is also true: unscrupulous Owners will attempt to renegociate the contract after the fact.
"All this is just because I have trouble imagining how often you really need to do cost plus, rather than your other contract scenarios. Keeping in mind that unexpected events and unreliable estimates are the norm in both of our fields... outside of your hypothetical example, why is it done?"
It is simply a matter of risk - how it is defined, and who bears the burden. Example: http://www.enr.com/news/transportation/archives/04
Do you actually work in construction? I can't believe you do, since you post is so off base I don't even know where to start.
I'll throw my qualifications on the table. I work for an ENR Top 20 contracting firm as a project manager. I have done cost plus work and hard bid work for BOTH government and commercial and commercial clients. My government work has been both negociated hard bid and competitive hard bid. My commercial work has been hard bid, negociated hard bid, cost plus, and cost plus with a guaranteed maximum price.
You are right in that no one writes blank checks, but you are wrong in equating "cost plus" with "blank check". On a cost-plus job, the work is evaluated with every invoice, and if costs or schedule are going out of bounds, the work gets stopped. On a hard bid project, the work is also checked over on a monthly basis.
As for your comment on my example: no, most contractors wouldn't bid on testing - that is properly the job of a testing firm, which contracts to the owner for liability purposes. Guess how testing firms bill? Cost plus.
As for balking at the Gov't taking contractors to court, I am all for it; yet at the end of the fiscal year, court is not a cost efficient process, and many private will do a great deal to stay out of court. The Gov't doesn't have this option - Government employees can't "cut deals," and for very good reasons.
You have a skewed view of what really happens in the private sector. First, cost plus work is still done. There are some jobs that are just too risky to take on a hard bid basis.
"Dig me a hole in the ground."
"What is the soil like?
"Don't know."
"What is down there?"
"Don't know."
"Is the soil contaminated?"
"Don't know. How about a hard bid?"
"Drop dead, I'll do it T&M (Time and Material) if at all."
And yes, this kind of thing happens all of the time.
As for incentive under a cost plus vs. hard bid, you are correct that an unscrupulous contractor will drag the job out. That same unscrupulous contractor will also commit fraud under a fixed price bid: inferior materials, bogus change requests, shoddy workmanship.
Also, the US gov't is moving AWAY from strictly hard bid contracts and toward a combination of negotiated and bidding, at least in construction. This is to geta away from the situation that exists now: a contractor will bid the job at a loss, and then immediately start placing claims on the project to recoup profit via change order work. This almost always ends in court, with the Gov't. being worse off than if they had gone with the higher, but more reputable bid.
"The navy has been using it pretty much constantly for years, with no noticeable mishaps at least in the last 30 years(last one I could find was a release of contaminatd water in 1978)."
But you see, since the military is wholly populated by the spawn of Satan, OF COURSE they can use the Devil's Black Arts without being harmed by them.
Because the Patriot Act (as well as almost all other Acts of Congress) is not a fruit, but a basket of fruit. A bill before Congress is pages and pages of separate provisions, any one of which can be ruled invalid by a court without invalidating the rest, unless there is specific wording providing for it.
"I've got stitches in extremely uncomfortable places"
Generally, "uncomfortable places" is a euphemism for pubic areas, buttocks, armpits, etc. Places that don't generally see the light.
Also, I don't believe that "cut[ing] away every little precancerous mole" is standard practice. Were the moles showing precancerous signs, or was the mere fact that they were moles evidence enough?
Go to david-drake.com. He does ALL of his writing outside, on a computer. As in, if its raining, he doesn't write that day. And he writes a lot.
/. - he's one of the major authors involved.
Don't emulate him too closely - he apparently has a jinx that wipes out machines on a regular basis.
See also http://www.baen.com/library/ for the Baen Free library, previously referenced on
Your subject was your first mistake.
Remember, it is far easier to ask forgiveness than ask permission.
In the words of the immortal Sgt. Hulka:
"Lighten up, Francis."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083131/
Looking at your original post and this response, I get the impression that this is a subjective thing for you, i.e. "Even though I get 30mpg, it still feels like a waste." If looked at against actual criteria - pollution, convenience, etc - your current solution is probably your best. Regarding pollution, it is entirely possible that your car exhausts cleaner air than it takes in. That is assuming it is in good tune, and you live in an area with bad air quality.
I don't think what you want exists right now, unless you make it yourself. http://metricmind.com/ was the second hit on Google for "diy electric car"
If you can maintain your '90 chevy, you can probably build your own. You may even be able to use your current car.
Good luck.
"It's not googles principles that made them successful"
No, but it has allowed them to stay successful and continue to grow.
"It's possible, in fact, that they'll bill for 500 hours of reading these papers when they don't bother to read any of it at all; how would SCO prove that they didn't do it? "
Actually pretty simple. Assuming there was a malpractice suit, SCO would subpoena the billing records of the people whowere supposed to be working on SCO's stuff. When you start finding associates billing 12 hours to SCO on the same day that they bill 12 hours to Client X, someone is getting screwed.
Actually, theologians argue all the time. But thanks anyway for the gratuitous shot at religion.
e rs
The people you are really thinking about are engineers. Scientists try to answer the whys and hows, engineers answer the question "Now that we know what it is, what the hell do we do with it?"
And now, to combine the topics:
scientists:engineers::theologians:minist
Big deal - there was a robot patrolling our waterways years ago. I believe its name was Bruce.
BaaaDa...baada...dadadadadadadada...
Is the current focus on a broad compatibility or making specific (but large userbase) applications work?
Where should the focus be?
Will your efforts be a success when Crossover and/or WINE have equal compatibility with WIN32 applications as does Windows (i.e. not very good except for MS products), or will you have to be better than MS at making applications work?
I don't know about the curative powers of positive thinking, but it can't hurt anything to have a patient blasting away cancer cells yelling "Die, muthafucka, die!!."
Hogwash.
1)The average computer system consists of about a dozen parts that are effectively unrepairable, i.e. replacement is the only feasible option: MB, processor, memory, cards, HD, CD/DVD, case, power supply, cooling fan, monitor, printer.
A car has THOUSANDS of the equivalent level of parts. From the user standpoint, a processor is no different than a set of brake pads, no matter the level of complexity. Part fails, replace it or pay someone to do so.
2) There are the multitude of things one can do with computers, but it's the same for cars; my car in high school was a transportation machine to an infinite variety of places, race car, vehicle for seduction (not a very good one), emergency bed/hotel room, ambulance, moving van, etc. All of which worked to some degree, with some level of problems. Sounds a lot like software.
Here's the major difference - cars have had over 100 years to develop, and people have had the same amount of time to learn their use. Personal Computers - couple of decades, tops. Were doing the equivalent of driving Model T's and A's now. I don't think Henry Ford warned everyone about the multitude of ways cars could be a pain, and I'm glad he didn't.
"And no, the average user will never be able to cope with this. Most people just want to buy a computer and use it. They are no more interested in learning how to maintain a computer than they are in learning auto maintenance. It's up to the computer industry to deliver usable products to the end user."
Your analogy is close, but not quite. Regarding auto maintenance, you are right in that people don't want to learn how to do auto maintenance, bu most of them know that their cars NEED maintenance. So do computers, but the average computer users haven't realized this yet.
A better way to use the analogy between cars and computers would be to ask users the following question: "Would you open the hood of your car and add or replace parts that you found out on the street for free? And if you did, and your car started running crappy, would you get pissed off at the dealer or the mechanic?"
You are skipping over the time between the merger and now. After the merger, former AOL executives held all of the power in the company - they were the ones who ran it into the ground. It may have been a great deal up front, but it was the AOL side that failed to deliver, not TW.
Also, with Mobipocket you can tap the right side of the screen to advance the page, and the left to go back. I hold my palm III in my right hand and just roll my thumb to press on the screen and advance it - it becomes automatic.
Fair warning - if you fat finger it or drag a little, you will select text, and I haven't yet found a slick way to unselect.
Anyone in high school knows that if a wimp hits anything, no one notices. If someone did notice, he wouldn't be a wimp.
Sorry, still have a problem with it. Basically, what the parent's quote says is that
..." implies that they are OK with practical matters getting in the way of the rights of an individual - since overthrowing the government would be impossible with rifles, and handguns (opinion of the military experts in the ACLU?!), the amendment is irrelevant.
1) they are acting on their own interpretation
2) "in today's world
This is the exact opposite of their treatment of all of the other amendments, where the rights enumerated are:
1) the most liberal interpretation that they can get out of the wording, and
2) taken as absolute regardless of the practical consequences (the classic "murderer goes free on a technicality" bit)
So, you are correct in pointing out that the ACLU doesn't pretend the second amendment doesn't exist. However, by applying a different standard to it than any other amendment, and by deciding that it is not relevant, they can simply choose to ignore it with a clear conscience.
Got it wholly wrong. When the framers used the word "militia", they meant a body of men who already owned their own guns. The concept of the National Guard as it exists today didn't even exist.
There is a case to be made that the CAN SPAM act is unnecessary, and that other laws cover spammers actions.
HOWEVER, applying those laws would require judges to take an existing law and stretch it a little to cover a new (to them) situation. Judges are loathe to do this, as they get appealed on it.
But having passed a law *specifically* targetted at the conduct in question, the judge is off the interpretive hook. The law itself may be appealed, but not the judge's conduct.
Allow me to expand. Slander is when a speaker says something that he knows is untrue but presents it as the truth. There is intent to deceive. Same with libel, which is written.
A parody isn't presented as the truth; there is no intent to deceive. A parody can be mean, cruel, and damaging, but that doesn't make it illegal.
On the other side, people will commit slander and then hide behind the shield of parody, but the MC spoof in question certainly doesn't qualify.