a national transaction application that has to dip into numerous other federal data sources
This statement alone is scarier, than whatever was leaked by Mr. Snowden. Surprisingly, the President's cheerleaders — normally so suspect of government's invasions into our privacy — ignore this implication.
It needs to verify you are who you say you are, that you are eligible under the law for various subsidies, that you are covered by the regs. For this I believe it has to dip into social security and IRS databases.
Drag your eyes to the right and note that there is a separate product/service and award date. The nature of gov contracting means there is likely a base contract, and when a new job comes up (e.g. healthcare.gov) they mod the contract and issue a new award. These are 114 separate scopes of work, separate projects. ~113 of which have nothing to do with healthcare.gov.
I am a federal and state gov IT contractor. I am well versed in the idiosyncratic nature of implementing systems for bureaucratic applications designed by committee. I still don't doubt it could have been done for less, but I doubt it could have been done for the amounts many of the folks here think they could do it for.
That figure covers 114 separate contracts (see http://usaspending.gov/explore?tab=By+Prime+Awardee&fiscal_year=all&idvpiid=HHSM500200700015I&typeofview=transactions )
Not to suggest that it still wasn't overly expensive, but consider the fact that the system is a national transaction application that has to dip into numerous other federal data sources - and has a mission criticality above and beyond facebook. Still, many of us could have done it better and cheaper, but then again very few of us would actually enjoy working for the federal government and conducting our business the way any federal contractor is required to.
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but I just simulated an attack of far greater proportions. First, I simulated having the resources to simulate an attack of far greater proportions, then I simulated executing my far greater attack. If anyone is interested, the results showed that while I was adequately prepared to defend against a simulation, I need to beef up some protocols and institute some new processes.
We're going to have these shared spaces where 2D and 3D people can interact. All of this will come out in phases, with staged gameplay coming out. We're sort of blazing a path with this concept, and we're really interested in what this might mean for players of the two versions.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't Ultima Online available in 2D and 3D clients?
I see these comments blasting all bosses far too frequently. I have a job opening: pays in the range of 75k, comes with 6% pension that you don't have to match, full PPO, not HMO, flexible hours, training budget and training goals, i.e. you need to do training to get your full raise - which is 3.5% a year not including promotions, three weeks vacation, 9 public holidays, 5 sick days, one personal day. Job requirements are PHP and MySQL, I'd like PHP 5 but I'm willing to train anyone who can demonstrate 5 years of Web development in either PHP 4 or another FOSS environment. I refuse to give tests, and I don't require a degree. I've had the job open for a couple of months.
I don't personally value classroom training, but if that's your thing I'll pay for it. If not, I'll portion out 20% of your week to play with stuff until you understand it. Or I'll buy your books. I send staff to get certified, and occasionally they take their new skills and get a better job. That's cool with me.
I filled it at one point, with a guy who I really wasn't sure about but he showed me work and came with glowing references. Turns out he was IMing his mate who had actually done the work he was showing me and who actually knew PHP, I figured it out in about 4 days and he was gone by the end of the week. I still refuse to test at the interview.
So what's my problem? I need a developer, not a programmer. I need a problem-solver, not someone who follows orders. I need a creative thinker, not someone who grumbles about requirements.
All the resumes I get from online job searches are from Romania or Singapore. Any local talent I get has either a Microsoft background who plays with PHP at home but has the complete wrong mentality for open source development or wants to be VP of something and expects to walk in getting 120k.
I work with maybe a half-dozen contractors who are exactly the kind of people I want working for me, but they make what they perceive to be better money working short contracts with no benefits and no job security.
We're out there, there are good jobs, and in my experience very few people who have value get fired, that really only happens at the large consulting firms. I'm at a medium-sized company with 300 employees total, the Web team is about 8 people.
I have never once in my professional life met anyone who fired someone useful or valuable. If you're getting fired there's a reason. If you're at a company that isn't helping you grow, move on. If you're at a company with a boss that doesn't want you to learn more and stay abreast of technology, move on. But sitting here pissing on everyone because you haven't been coddled into a life of luxury merely demonstrates that you're probably not mature enough to hold a position of responsibility for too long, and therefore we won't put you into the higher-paying jobs and we won't spend 10 grand a year on your training if we think you're gonna jump ship in less than a year.
Good people are incredibly hard to come by, and when I see someone who is "good people" but doesn't have the skillset, I'll take that over the guy with the masters and the fancy job record.
Oh, and the job is real by the way, IPRO.org for applications:-)
Just a general reminder for everyone in case someone from the press calls: we are FOR the One Laptop Per Child program, we are AGAINST the laptops in school program.
The tunnel would reduce truck traffic by 5%, maybe 10. That's simply not enough of a dent. Come up with a way to reduce it by 25% or more and you'll have my vote to shovel these trains into my back yard in Bay Ridge. Until then, building a tunnel to reduce truck traffic by a measly 5%, which will likely be mopped up by smaller trucks making more deliveries now that traffic is almost noticeably better, is a waste of my tax dollars.
Not to mention the housing that would have to go if this were built. I don't know about the Jersey side, but I drive past the Brooklyn side of the plans, you'd have to re-track a very disrepaired rail system here, and move more than a few houses out of the way of double-stacked container cars.
* Do we really want to let people loose on Linux who can't [be bothered to] install it themselves?
As long as we maintain this sort of elitism, Linux will *never* make it as a viable desktop OS. Until Linux can pass the mother-in-law test, we're doomed to obscurity. So yes, we want people to use Linux with no fear of having to learn nasty words like "compile", "distro" and "drivers". Most people just want it to work out of the box.
The science is already in: more pirates equals less global warming. Assuming an average pirate salary of three shillings and sixpence, adjusted for inflation, carry the one, that's... erm... like a billion pirates.
Surprisingly, south NJ is full of great campsites for quick, kid-friendly weekenders. I usually camp somewhere around Barnegat, but that whole area inland from LBI is awash with various styles of camp grounds.
Am I the only one who likes being able to get my car out if the grid is down? In the last major blackout I had to drive home to NYC, the next day I figured if I had no electricity I may as well go camping so I drove to NJ. One fuse blown and my car could be stuck for no good reason.
I, for one, do *not* welcome our new robotic parking overlords.
I pay for it. I have several installs where MySQL is the right tool for the right job and it needs to be up, we need the security of vendor support and so does my client (a large US state government).
I have many more installs where I don't pay for it.
You said "So the odds are 1 in 1,000 that a user of your product would actually pay you anything? Those are TERRIBLE numbers...."
I say "So you get 1 person in a thousand to pay you for your product, even though it's totally free? Tell me more".
I definitely feel your pain, and you make some obvious and valid points, but I would like to clarify a couple of your observations.
I make no money from my Web pages being online directly, I work for a non-profit company that works on various funded contracts, those that are for federal customers and require 508 compliance get the full treatment. However, the big difference is the feds will fund the compliance, although they too have done their share of "comply or delete", and many companies in the same boat chose to delete.
It didn't take me five years, it took about a year to get the site and its staff to an acceptable point, and I've watched in the five years that followed.
Finally, I think the law states that if you sell bicycles, a quadriplegic customer should be able to enact the *purchase* of a bicycle with little or no hindrance compared to a fully-abled person, whether or not the customer can ride the bike is outside the bounds of the law. The purchase must be accessible, not the product.
In our case as publishers of information the means of accessing the content must be accesible, not necessarily the subject matter itself. I mean, you could post engineering content that I can easily access, but my not being able to comprehend it is not your concern. (Unless I'm paying you to help me comprehend it...)
As an addendum, if your Web site is this one: http://www.csun.edu/~jeffw/, all you need to do is add titles to your frames and you're pretty much done. That's an impressive site and full of very useful information.
I've been on a few Section 508 task forces and committees for state and federal agencies as well as training for site/content creators for federal contractors, and would happily sign off on that site as extemely accessible.
I run several Web sites that are required to be accessible, and have been doing so for nearly six years (just the accessible part, prior to that I was as inaccessible as the next guy). The first year was awful, and cost quite a bit, but the overall cost of maintenance has dropped considerably, mostly due to standards-compliant mark-up and solid, intelligent integration of CSS. Like your site, mine contains no commerce, and exists purely to impart information. I, too, was hard to convince at first, but after five years watching my sites flourish, I'd like to address some of the points in your comment, and hopefully some of the others listed on this page as well.
That policy reads, and I quote:
"Any person using any kind of standard Web browsing technology must be able to visit any site and get a full and complete understanding of the information contained there, as well as have the full and complete ability to interact with the site
Read that and parse it carefully... Now we can actually be sued by a non-diasabled student who went through my class and fails due to lack of effort, stupidity or both. They can argue that they studied from my web page and failed to "get a full and complete understanding of the information".
I believe you're mixing "a full and complete understanding of the information" with "a full and complete understanding of the information contained there"; one would imply the student can discern everything you impart from your slides, the other, which is a reasonable request, is that they can fully understand what is contained on the page/site. I imagine you'd agree with me that presentation slides are like speech notes, one cannot get the full information from either. If your entire lecture and its associated value is written on the slides then (a) those are very big slides and (b) you're fired.
I can make my pages fully compliant with the federal law and the university policy. I already work more than 40 hours a week, I do not understand the legal nuances of the federal law or the university policy and I do not know enough about web page development to reliably make 100% compliant pages nor do I known much about the breadth and depth of human disabilities or how to accommodate them effectively. My faculty responsibilities do not include, and I am not paid an additional salary, to learn and implement such knowledge
It's actually very simple. Instead of posting the presentation slide file, which in your case is most probably a Microsoft Powerpoint file, open the file, select all, copy, paste it into your Web page and spend maybe five minutes adding some simple HTML tags. HTML is what we use to mark up the content on the Web, if you want to publish on the Web, you need to know HTML. Cunningly, this will also make your content accessible to those readers who do not have MS Powerpoint installed on their computer. Some may have alternative officing suites, some may have none at all.
I can simply remove my web pages. When students ask if I can publish my lecture notes on line I will simply say "No." Problem solved to everbody's legal satisfaction
This may be a valid choice. In my experience, a lot of the content I had to deal with shouldn't have been online in the first place. Exactly how much value do your students gain from missing a lecture but reading the slides? If none, ditch it. If any, then go ahead and post the content in accesible HTML. I assure you, after six years of site redesigns, company overhauls and government mandates my content has proven to be cheaper to redeploy than any other site I've worked on simply because it was well marked up. Your content will then be accessible to future generations regardless of which version of which slide viewer they have.
You state quite clearly that you are not required to post Web content as part of your job. By enacting this policy, your employer has performed a graceful exit by forcing you to choose your o
Slashdot Mirror
This statement alone is scarier, than whatever was leaked by Mr. Snowden. Surprisingly, the President's cheerleaders — normally so suspect of government's invasions into our privacy — ignore this implication.
Drag your eyes to the right and note that there is a separate product/service and award date. The nature of gov contracting means there is likely a base contract, and when a new job comes up (e.g. healthcare.gov) they mod the contract and issue a new award. These are 114 separate scopes of work, separate projects. ~113 of which have nothing to do with healthcare.gov.
I am a federal and state gov IT contractor. I am well versed in the idiosyncratic nature of implementing systems for bureaucratic applications designed by committee. I still don't doubt it could have been done for less, but I doubt it could have been done for the amounts many of the folks here think they could do it for.
That figure covers 114 separate contracts (see http://usaspending.gov/explore?tab=By+Prime+Awardee&fiscal_year=all&idvpiid=HHSM500200700015I&typeofview=transactions ) Not to suggest that it still wasn't overly expensive, but consider the fact that the system is a national transaction application that has to dip into numerous other federal data sources - and has a mission criticality above and beyond facebook. Still, many of us could have done it better and cheaper, but then again very few of us would actually enjoy working for the federal government and conducting our business the way any federal contractor is required to.
I miss PointCast.
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but I just simulated an attack of far greater proportions. First, I simulated having the resources to simulate an attack of far greater proportions, then I simulated executing my far greater attack. If anyone is interested, the results showed that while I was adequately prepared to defend against a simulation, I need to beef up some protocols and institute some new processes.
We're going to have these shared spaces where 2D and 3D people can interact. All of this will come out in phases, with staged gameplay coming out. We're sort of blazing a path with this concept, and we're really interested in what this might mean for players of the two versions.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't Ultima Online available in 2D and 3D clients?
I see these comments blasting all bosses far too frequently. I have a job opening: pays in the range of 75k, comes with 6% pension that you don't have to match, full PPO, not HMO, flexible hours, training budget and training goals, i.e. you need to do training to get your full raise - which is 3.5% a year not including promotions, three weeks vacation, 9 public holidays, 5 sick days, one personal day. Job requirements are PHP and MySQL, I'd like PHP 5 but I'm willing to train anyone who can demonstrate 5 years of Web development in either PHP 4 or another FOSS environment. I refuse to give tests, and I don't require a degree. I've had the job open for a couple of months.
I don't personally value classroom training, but if that's your thing I'll pay for it. If not, I'll portion out 20% of your week to play with stuff until you understand it. Or I'll buy your books. I send staff to get certified, and occasionally they take their new skills and get a better job. That's cool with me.
I filled it at one point, with a guy who I really wasn't sure about but he showed me work and came with glowing references. Turns out he was IMing his mate who had actually done the work he was showing me and who actually knew PHP, I figured it out in about 4 days and he was gone by the end of the week. I still refuse to test at the interview.
So what's my problem? I need a developer, not a programmer. I need a problem-solver, not someone who follows orders. I need a creative thinker, not someone who grumbles about requirements.
All the resumes I get from online job searches are from Romania or Singapore. Any local talent I get has either a Microsoft background who plays with PHP at home but has the complete wrong mentality for open source development or wants to be VP of something and expects to walk in getting 120k.
I work with maybe a half-dozen contractors who are exactly the kind of people I want working for me, but they make what they perceive to be better money working short contracts with no benefits and no job security.
We're out there, there are good jobs, and in my experience very few people who have value get fired, that really only happens at the large consulting firms. I'm at a medium-sized company with 300 employees total, the Web team is about 8 people.
I have never once in my professional life met anyone who fired someone useful or valuable. If you're getting fired there's a reason. If you're at a company that isn't helping you grow, move on. If you're at a company with a boss that doesn't want you to learn more and stay abreast of technology, move on. But sitting here pissing on everyone because you haven't been coddled into a life of luxury merely demonstrates that you're probably not mature enough to hold a position of responsibility for too long, and therefore we won't put you into the higher-paying jobs and we won't spend 10 grand a year on your training if we think you're gonna jump ship in less than a year.
Good people are incredibly hard to come by, and when I see someone who is "good people" but doesn't have the skillset, I'll take that over the guy with the masters and the fancy job record.
Oh, and the job is real by the way, IPRO.org for applications :-)
Cheers Gary. Your vision, your work has left an indelible imprint on all of us in some way. No more needs be said.
No mod points, but dammit man I agree with you! It's getting to be nothing but blood-boiling nonsense. We want more happy news for nerds!
Just a general reminder for everyone in case someone from the press calls: we are FOR the One Laptop Per Child program, we are AGAINST the laptops in school program.
http://www.crossharborstudy.com/faq.htm
and
http://www.moveny.org/NUFC%20Presentation.pdf
The tunnel would reduce truck traffic by 5%, maybe 10. That's simply not enough of a dent. Come up with a way to reduce it by 25% or more and you'll have my vote to shovel these trains into my back yard in Bay Ridge. Until then, building a tunnel to reduce truck traffic by a measly 5%, which will likely be mopped up by smaller trucks making more deliveries now that traffic is almost noticeably better, is a waste of my tax dollars.
Not to mention the housing that would have to go if this were built. I don't know about the Jersey side, but I drive past the Brooklyn side of the plans, you'd have to re-track a very disrepaired rail system here, and move more than a few houses out of the way of double-stacked container cars.
* Do we really want to let people loose on Linux who can't [be bothered to] install it themselves?
As long as we maintain this sort of elitism, Linux will *never* make it as a viable desktop OS. Until Linux can pass the mother-in-law test, we're doomed to obscurity. So yes, we want people to use Linux with no fear of having to learn nasty words like "compile", "distro" and "drivers". Most people just want it to work out of the box.
The science is already in: more pirates equals less global warming. Assuming an average pirate salary of three shillings and sixpence, adjusted for inflation, carry the one, that's... erm... like a billion pirates.
Surprisingly, south NJ is full of great campsites for quick, kid-friendly weekenders. I usually camp somewhere around Barnegat, but that whole area inland from LBI is awash with various styles of camp grounds.
Am I the only one who likes being able to get my car out if the grid is down? In the last major blackout I had to drive home to NYC, the next day I figured if I had no electricity I may as well go camping so I drove to NJ. One fuse blown and my car could be stuck for no good reason.
I, for one, do *not* welcome our new robotic parking overlords.
I pay for it. I have several installs where MySQL is the right tool for the right job and it needs to be up, we need the security of vendor support and so does my client (a large US state government).
I have many more installs where I don't pay for it.
You said "So the odds are 1 in 1,000 that a user of your product would actually pay you anything? Those are TERRIBLE numbers...."
I say "So you get 1 person in a thousand to pay you for your product, even though it's totally free? Tell me more".
I know there's at least three other people besides me who are shocked at the complete lack of AmigaOS 4.0 coverage from the BBC.
nice one :o)
I definitely feel your pain, and you make some obvious and valid points, but I would like to clarify a couple of your observations.
I make no money from my Web pages being online directly, I work for a non-profit company that works on various funded contracts, those that are for federal customers and require 508 compliance get the full treatment. However, the big difference is the feds will fund the compliance, although they too have done their share of "comply or delete", and many companies in the same boat chose to delete.
It didn't take me five years, it took about a year to get the site and its staff to an acceptable point, and I've watched in the five years that followed.
Finally, I think the law states that if you sell bicycles, a quadriplegic customer should be able to enact the *purchase* of a bicycle with little or no hindrance compared to a fully-abled person, whether or not the customer can ride the bike is outside the bounds of the law. The purchase must be accessible, not the product.
In our case as publishers of information the means of accessing the content must be accesible, not necessarily the subject matter itself. I mean, you could post engineering content that I can easily access, but my not being able to comprehend it is not your concern. (Unless I'm paying you to help me comprehend it...)
As an addendum, if your Web site is this one: http://www.csun.edu/~jeffw/, all you need to do is add titles to your frames and you're pretty much done. That's an impressive site and full of very useful information.
I've been on a few Section 508 task forces and committees for state and federal agencies as well as training for site/content creators for federal contractors, and would happily sign off on that site as extemely accessible.
I run several Web sites that are required to be accessible, and have been doing so for nearly six years (just the accessible part, prior to that I was as inaccessible as the next guy). The first year was awful, and cost quite a bit, but the overall cost of maintenance has dropped considerably, mostly due to standards-compliant mark-up and solid, intelligent integration of CSS. Like your site, mine contains no commerce, and exists purely to impart information. I, too, was hard to convince at first, but after five years watching my sites flourish, I'd like to address some of the points in your comment, and hopefully some of the others listed on this page as well.
I believe you're mixing "a full and complete understanding of the information" with "a full and complete understanding of the information contained there"; one would imply the student can discern everything you impart from your slides, the other, which is a reasonable request, is that they can fully understand what is contained on the page/site. I imagine you'd agree with me that presentation slides are like speech notes, one cannot get the full information from either. If your entire lecture and its associated value is written on the slides then (a) those are very big slides and (b) you're fired.
It's actually very simple. Instead of posting the presentation slide file, which in your case is most probably a Microsoft Powerpoint file, open the file, select all, copy, paste it into your Web page and spend maybe five minutes adding some simple HTML tags. HTML is what we use to mark up the content on the Web, if you want to publish on the Web, you need to know HTML. Cunningly, this will also make your content accessible to those readers who do not have MS Powerpoint installed on their computer. Some may have alternative officing suites, some may have none at all.
This may be a valid choice. In my experience, a lot of the content I had to deal with shouldn't have been online in the first place. Exactly how much value do your students gain from missing a lecture but reading the slides? If none, ditch it. If any, then go ahead and post the content in accesible HTML. I assure you, after six years of site redesigns, company overhauls and government mandates my content has proven to be cheaper to redeploy than any other site I've worked on simply because it was well marked up. Your content will then be accessible to future generations regardless of which version of which slide viewer they have.
You state quite clearly that you are not required to post Web content as part of your job. By enacting this policy, your employer has performed a graceful exit by forcing you to choose your o
We Welsh have one too, and we're in the UK.