From what I have heard/read most of the problems seemed to be of the following nature:
1. Poll workers who didn't open polls on time, or who ignored the order from Gov. Bush to keep the polls open later. Janet Reno apparently was waiting until someone arrived to open the polling location. These are discipline issues, and should be dealt with accordinginly.
2. Poll workers who couldn't operate the power switch (!). My children at 4 and 7 can use the remote control, power switches, even turn on their Video Games and hit the correct Input number for it on the Remote. It's both frightening and scary that these *ADULTS* had problems of this nature.
3. Poll workers who were unable/unwilling to instruct user on how to use the new system. Sad, but true.
4. Voters who didn't understand the Touch Screen. I can't say much about this because I didn't see any representations of the 'screen'. One would think they would be like the touch screens I've seen at a local convienence store for ordering food. This has a picture of the food with a large button-looking picture underneath and the item name in the button.
Also, AFAIK, the problems only appear to be in the three counties noted the last time: Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. This seems to say a lot, doesn't it??
I would concede that if I own a business, then I have a 'right to try to acheive a profit', but not necessarily a 'right to profit'.
It's just a 'New-new-New Economy', being driven by the monopoly out of Redmond.
What does this mean for the consumer? Well, it's east to project that you won't be able to let your kids play {Insert game here}on your PC or Game console without buying their own copy first. This would generate more revenue for everyone; including M$, if it's their trusted system things are running on.
What a crock.. Security and M$ just doesn't go together, unless they can profit from it.
Just my.02.
My wife actually educated me on the fact that DeBeers runs the whole show concerning Diamonds. Then, she implored me to buy her sapphires, since she likes them better..
Anonymous Coward, that was the shortest commentary I've seen yet on what is an exteremely complex problem.
I believe the one issue sorely missing from your commentary is the one on Civil Litigation. This issue affects the entire health care industry from the pharmaceuticals to your primary care physician. Multi-million dollar lawsuits have added a significant burden to the health care industry, which in many cases, is resulting in a significant drop in professionals in the industry.
While this doesn't affect the pharma/biotech industry as significantly as it does the providers--at least not in a visible manner, it still is a significant problem, which leads to longer development time for medicines due to the need for increased testing.
Increased testing in and of itself is not necessarily a 'bad thing'; unless it is applied in a less than judicious manner. It's quite one thing to perform long term tests on an analgesic that causes liver damage in a high percentage of those it is administered to. However, to have the same testing period for an analgesic that causes stomach discomfort in a low percentage of those being administered the drug is a quite expensive, not to mention ludicrous behavior. Yet, we have only the courts who are *trying* to protect us to blame for this.
The multi-million dollar lawsuits need to be more tightly regulated to prevent what is occuring in Pennsylvania and other states from becoming widespread. Many physicians here are shutting down their practices and moving away in order to avoid paying high malpractice premiums. Being a physician is as much a business as it is being a retail store. With the HMO/PPO industry dictating the cost of services rendered, and the Malpractice Insurance agencies charging high premiums due to high civil litigation payoffs, many physicians can no longer afford to be a physician and are quitting. The end result is fewer doctors available for treating patients in an area.
I'm not advocating removal of civil litigation as a means of redress of grievances against those who are at fault, regardless of the reason. What I do advocate is *sensible* litigation. Save the high dollar awards for those people truly injured---be it disabled or dead--and make the awards truly indicitive of the fault of the physician/pharmaceutical company.
I would tend to agree with the Anonymous Coward's posting. I work for a company that underwent a merger two years ago. The first thing they did was adopt the in-house IT from the smaller subsidiary that was merged into the larger company. The reason? The outsourced company would do things, but there would be a 'cost associated with that' mentality with them. Everything had a 'cost' if it went beyond the scope of ordinary duties. Couple that with an 'average' bandwidth of 32K, the fact that they used 'experts' at each site to do routine work (people who were employed to do other tasks, but were tapped to work on computer problems) and the 'experts' were spending most of their time not working on 'billable' projects, then you get complete dissatisfaction with the outsourcing.
The other issues would be:
1. Lack of familiarity with the American brand of English (in the case of outsourcing to Asia) resulting in communication problems.
2. Lack of the ability of the end-user to adequately communicate with technicians.
I'm a currently employed System/Network Administrator jack of all trades kind of guy. I have a couple of certs (A+, HP CZ {printers}, MCP) but my two biggest skills are communication and tenacity. I can converse with a blue-collar worker as easily as I can a Senior Executive. When a problem presents itself, I don't quit until I've either solved it, or discovered that it had no real solution.
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From what I have heard/read most of the problems seemed to be of the following nature:
1. Poll workers who didn't open polls on time, or who ignored the order from Gov. Bush to keep the polls open later. Janet Reno apparently was waiting until someone arrived to open the polling location. These are discipline issues, and should be dealt with accordinginly.
2. Poll workers who couldn't operate the power switch (!). My children at 4 and 7 can use the remote control, power switches, even turn on their Video Games and hit the correct Input number for it on the Remote. It's both frightening and scary that these *ADULTS* had problems of this nature.
3. Poll workers who were unable/unwilling to instruct user on how to use the new system. Sad, but true.
4. Voters who didn't understand the Touch Screen. I can't say much about this because I didn't see any representations of the 'screen'. One would think they would be like the touch screens I've seen at a local convienence store for ordering food. This has a picture of the food with a large button-looking picture underneath and the item name in the button.
Also, AFAIK, the problems only appear to be in the three counties noted the last time: Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. This seems to say a lot, doesn't it??
I would concede that if I own a business, then I have a 'right to try to acheive a profit', but not necessarily a 'right to profit'. It's just a 'New-new-New Economy', being driven by the monopoly out of Redmond. What does this mean for the consumer? Well, it's east to project that you won't be able to let your kids play {Insert game here}on your PC or Game console without buying their own copy first. This would generate more revenue for everyone; including M$, if it's their trusted system things are running on. What a crock.. Security and M$ just doesn't go together, unless they can profit from it. Just my .02.
My wife actually educated me on the fact that DeBeers runs the whole show concerning Diamonds. Then, she implored me to buy her sapphires, since she likes them better..
Anonymous Coward, that was the shortest commentary I've seen yet on what is an exteremely complex problem.
I believe the one issue sorely missing from your commentary is the one on Civil Litigation. This issue affects the entire health care industry from the pharmaceuticals to your primary care physician. Multi-million dollar lawsuits have added a significant burden to the health care industry, which in many cases, is resulting in a significant drop in professionals in the industry.
While this doesn't affect the pharma/biotech industry as significantly as it does the providers--at least not in a visible manner, it still is a significant problem, which leads to longer development time for medicines due to the need for increased testing.
Increased testing in and of itself is not necessarily a 'bad thing'; unless it is applied in a less than judicious manner. It's quite one thing to perform long term tests on an analgesic that causes liver damage in a high percentage of those it is administered to. However, to have the same testing period for an analgesic that causes stomach discomfort in a low percentage of those being administered the drug is a quite expensive, not to mention ludicrous behavior. Yet, we have only the courts who are *trying* to protect us to blame for this.
The multi-million dollar lawsuits need to be more tightly regulated to prevent what is occuring in Pennsylvania and other states from becoming widespread. Many physicians here are shutting down their practices and moving away in order to avoid paying high malpractice premiums. Being a physician is as much a business as it is being a retail store. With the HMO/PPO industry dictating the cost of services rendered, and the Malpractice Insurance agencies charging high premiums due to high civil litigation payoffs, many physicians can no longer afford to be a physician and are quitting. The end result is fewer doctors available for treating patients in an area.
I'm not advocating removal of civil litigation as a means of redress of grievances against those who are at fault, regardless of the reason. What I do advocate is *sensible* litigation. Save the high dollar awards for those people truly injured---be it disabled or dead--and make the awards truly indicitive of the fault of the physician/pharmaceutical company.
I would tend to agree with the Anonymous Coward's posting. I work for a company that underwent a merger two years ago. The first thing they did was adopt the in-house IT from the smaller subsidiary that was merged into the larger company. The reason? The outsourced company would do things, but there would be a 'cost associated with that' mentality with them. Everything had a 'cost' if it went beyond the scope of ordinary duties. Couple that with an 'average' bandwidth of 32K, the fact that they used 'experts' at each site to do routine work (people who were employed to do other tasks, but were tapped to work on computer problems) and the 'experts' were spending most of their time not working on 'billable' projects, then you get complete dissatisfaction with the outsourcing.
The other issues would be:
1. Lack of familiarity with the American brand of English (in the case of outsourcing to Asia) resulting in communication problems.
2. Lack of the ability of the end-user to adequately communicate with technicians.
I'm a currently employed System/Network Administrator jack of all trades kind of guy. I have a couple of certs (A+, HP CZ {printers}, MCP) but my two biggest skills are communication and tenacity. I can converse with a blue-collar worker as easily as I can a Senior Executive. When a problem presents itself, I don't quit until I've either solved it, or discovered that it had no real solution.