the obamacare website the contractors had to build in a few months and code hundreds of pages of law and regulations into logical business rules and a database schema. and no time was there testing or a ramp up of opening up the site to a few people and then allowing more people access as they work out the bugs
But doesn't this just show that there are very many people against the bill as passed?
(And before I'm modded down for stating a personal opinion, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have healthcare reform. Quite the contrary. I'm saying that many people like me believe the ACA did little to help. And because the political atmosphere at the time was ignored, now the partisanship has been ignited like never before and we have little chance for real, good change to occur.)
Every hypothesis has a focus. Are you suggesting that all science is biased?
Well, if you are, you'd be somewhat correct. It may not be an evil or self-serving bias, but it exists. The best you can do is eliminate as much as possible, but sometimes we need to recognize our bias instead of simply dismissing it.
Well, it could be "Forcibly take a portion of my personal property (taxes) and hand it over to some lazy people who don't want to work who aren't beholden in any way whatsoever to me, the taxpayer."
The mythical man month does not directly cover the case of being under-manned until a month after release, then bringing staffing up to where it should be.
The primary message of The Mythical Man-Month is that adding people to a late project, counterintuitively, makes it finish later. I'd say that putting out an unfinished project, because you were "under-manned until a month after release", qualifies as late.
But an unrealistic schedule, again, is not the mythical man month.
I'm sorry, that's just wrong. The schedule has everything to do with it. The term "late" establishes that the schedule was unrealistic given all other conditions.
Now I would agree that those other conditions did not work in favor of meeting the schedule. I think this is the point Brooks was trying to make; you can't just tweak staffing levels to improve timeframes, but you must consider ideas like reducing scope of work, creating more effective communication channels between vendors, etc.
Which would cause safer driving: a steering-wheel airbag, or a steering-wheel machete pointed at the face?
Of course, the machete would also result in incredibly slow traffic. Speed kills... but if speed drives the economy, the government will usually focus on reducing the dangers of speed instead of reducing the speed itself.
I'm looking forward to the automated cars that don't drive over the limit (speed or alcohol) and don't drive in the bike lane or in other unsafe ways.
Yeah, by the headline you'd think Google is providing support for Windows XP itself. You know, if you take any headline coming from this site without a grain of salt.
I like this list, and I'll propose a few alternatives. (Not to go against yours, but because alternatives are useful if only for engaging people to think.)
1. Political advertising allowed, but 100% paid for by taxes and split evenly with all candidates. No campaign contributions allowed.
2. Use an alternative election system like range voting or a Condorcet method.
3. Because of #2 , no political party primaries are needed nor are they allowed. All party candidates are on the final ballot.
And for Congress, my main proposal:
- No voting for your district representative, who could win/lose by just a few votes out of several thousand. Instead, you appoint your representative from among all the choices in the state. The first X appointed representatives, ordered by number of people represented, are the state's delegation (where X is the number of representatives/appointees for your state).
Nonsense. Our plurality voting system favors two parties. Voting for a third party candidate is like throwing your vote away; people vote for the lesser of two evils, not the best candidate.
Slightly off topic, but I feel the need to push this now more than ever...
The US needs a new voting system, one that doesn't favor two-party control. This bickering and extremism in Congress today, and in the White House, starts at campaign time and leaves us with fewer moderates every year.
Imagine what might happen in the US if the Democrats and the Republicans couldn't push their agenda on the American people just because they have a slim majority. What if, heaven forbid, there were a third party with no ties to the other two, and a bill actually were judged on its merits rather than on the party that proposed it?
The Tea Party should not hold the economy hostage to force people to accept their legislative agenda.
The Tea Party is a small portion of the Republican party. But a clear majority of the house of Congress made up of proportional representation has approved this budget; it's certainly not the Tea Party doing it, it's the representatives of the people. (How well they represent you, I don't know... but if you don't like it, let them know on your next ballot.)
How would you feel if the Democrats declared that the 2nd amendment is repealed, all workers must be unionized, and income in excess of $250k will be taxed at 95%, or else they'll force the country to default and plunge the world into a depression? Would you think the Republicans should agree to that deal? Would you say "the ball's in their court"?
I would say, if they had a majority in one of the houses of Congress, and they felt those issues to be this important, then there would clearly be a need to negotiate.
Anyway, where was the negotiation when the ACA was shoved through to begin with? Maybe if the Democrats had been willing to negotiate at that time, the (sane) Republicans would be more willing to tolerate it now. Of course, the Democrats didn't think about what might happen if the Republicans actually gained enough power to push back.
(FWIW, I don't care for either party, especially right now. I voted against both Romney and Obama in the election. We need independents, and we need to change our election system to allow independents to get real power.)
Voyager has simply entered the quantum superposition layer of our solar system, where it is inside the solar system, in interstellar space, maybe somewhere between, a dead cat, and a live mega-spaceship, all at the same time.
You complain about the lack of backwards compatibility for very old applications. Others complain about bloat. Microsoft has done very well in keeping backwards compatibility, but there are limits even for them.
They are still seeking FAA approval. By the expected time for approval, this tablet will be battle tested. Plus, it'll be relatively recent tech compared with the original.
Slashdot Mirror
the obamacare website the contractors had to build in a few months and code hundreds of pages of law and regulations into logical business rules and a database schema. and no time was there testing or a ramp up of opening up the site to a few people and then allowing more people access as they work out the bugs
But the ACA has been law for 3 1/2 years.
But doesn't this just show that there are very many people against the bill as passed?
(And before I'm modded down for stating a personal opinion, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have healthcare reform. Quite the contrary. I'm saying that many people like me believe the ACA did little to help. And because the political atmosphere at the time was ignored, now the partisanship has been ignited like never before and we have little chance for real, good change to occur.)
Every hypothesis has a focus. Are you suggesting that all science is biased?
Well, if you are, you'd be somewhat correct. It may not be an evil or self-serving bias, but it exists. The best you can do is eliminate as much as possible, but sometimes we need to recognize our bias instead of simply dismissing it.
Well, it could be "Forcibly take a portion of my personal property (taxes) and hand it over to some lazy people who don't want to work who aren't beholden in any way whatsoever to me, the taxpayer."
Oh, wait.
Taxpayer-funded research should be accessible by taxpayers.
The mythical man month does not directly cover the case of being under-manned until a month after release, then bringing staffing up to where it should be.
The primary message of The Mythical Man-Month is that adding people to a late project, counterintuitively, makes it finish later. I'd say that putting out an unfinished project, because you were "under-manned until a month after release", qualifies as late.
But an unrealistic schedule, again, is not the mythical man month.
I'm sorry, that's just wrong. The schedule has everything to do with it. The term "late" establishes that the schedule was unrealistic given all other conditions.
Now I would agree that those other conditions did not work in favor of meeting the schedule. I think this is the point Brooks was trying to make; you can't just tweak staffing levels to improve timeframes, but you must consider ideas like reducing scope of work, creating more effective communication channels between vendors, etc.
Sounds like a lot of mythical man-months to me.
Which would cause safer driving: a steering-wheel airbag, or a steering-wheel machete pointed at the face?
Of course, the machete would also result in incredibly slow traffic. Speed kills... but if speed drives the economy, the government will usually focus on reducing the dangers of speed instead of reducing the speed itself.
I'm looking forward to the automated cars that don't drive over the limit (speed or alcohol) and don't drive in the bike lane or in other unsafe ways.
What if the NSA injected a Ken Thompson hack into our human compilers? Our DNA may have an NSA backdoor!
Incidentally, income and property taxes out here more than makes up for the lack of sales tax.
So this gas tax/per-mile tax are just extra unneeded taxes? If so, why not just repeal them?
I've been under the impression that the oceans are all equally soggy, regardless of hemisphere.
Hands Up, who thought of Windows 3.1 when they saw the article?
I... did not. I don't see the resemblance (other than "8.1" looks a bit like "3.1").
Yeah, by the headline you'd think Google is providing support for Windows XP itself. You know, if you take any headline coming from this site without a grain of salt.
There's no way to edit Slashdot comments. So the GP has no way of saying "Sorry... it's fixed!"
Perhaps that should be viewed as a limitation of /. and not of a being that can't travel backwards in time.
A fusion reactor would be able to power itself... so I guess the headline is actually correct.
I like this list, and I'll propose a few alternatives. (Not to go against yours, but because alternatives are useful if only for engaging people to think.)
1. Political advertising allowed, but 100% paid for by taxes and split evenly with all candidates. No campaign contributions allowed.
2. Use an alternative election system like range voting or a Condorcet method.
3. Because of #2 , no political party primaries are needed nor are they allowed. All party candidates are on the final ballot.
And for Congress, my main proposal:
- No voting for your district representative, who could win/lose by just a few votes out of several thousand. Instead, you appoint your representative from among all the choices in the state. The first X appointed representatives, ordered by number of people represented, are the state's delegation (where X is the number of representatives/appointees for your state).
Nonsense. Our plurality voting system favors two parties. Voting for a third party candidate is like throwing your vote away; people vote for the lesser of two evils, not the best candidate.
Slightly off topic, but I feel the need to push this now more than ever...
The US needs a new voting system, one that doesn't favor two-party control. This bickering and extremism in Congress today, and in the White House, starts at campaign time and leaves us with fewer moderates every year.
Imagine what might happen in the US if the Democrats and the Republicans couldn't push their agenda on the American people just because they have a slim majority. What if, heaven forbid, there were a third party with no ties to the other two, and a bill actually were judged on its merits rather than on the party that proposed it?
Practice makes perfect.
It always amazes me how I can go back to a language I knew so well 5 years ago, yet I make mistakes you'd see from a first year CS student.
The Tea Party should not hold the economy hostage to force people to accept their legislative agenda.
The Tea Party is a small portion of the Republican party. But a clear majority of the house of Congress made up of proportional representation has approved this budget; it's certainly not the Tea Party doing it, it's the representatives of the people. (How well they represent you, I don't know... but if you don't like it, let them know on your next ballot.)
How would you feel if the Democrats declared that the 2nd amendment is repealed, all workers must be unionized, and income in excess of $250k will be taxed at 95%, or else they'll force the country to default and plunge the world into a depression? Would you think the Republicans should agree to that deal? Would you say "the ball's in their court"?
I would say, if they had a majority in one of the houses of Congress, and they felt those issues to be this important, then there would clearly be a need to negotiate.
Anyway, where was the negotiation when the ACA was shoved through to begin with? Maybe if the Democrats had been willing to negotiate at that time, the (sane) Republicans would be more willing to tolerate it now. Of course, the Democrats didn't think about what might happen if the Republicans actually gained enough power to push back.
(FWIW, I don't care for either party, especially right now. I voted against both Romney and Obama in the election. We need independents, and we need to change our election system to allow independents to get real power.)
In other news, today we found out that at least 0.00007% of Slashdot users believe that discussion comments are email.
Voyager has simply entered the quantum superposition layer of our solar system, where it is inside the solar system, in interstellar space, maybe somewhere between, a dead cat, and a live mega-spaceship, all at the same time.
You complain about the lack of backwards compatibility for very old applications. Others complain about bloat. Microsoft has done very well in keeping backwards compatibility, but there are limits even for them.
You have a solution, use it.
They are still seeking FAA approval. By the expected time for approval, this tablet will be battle tested. Plus, it'll be relatively recent tech compared with the original.
Separating personal use from professional use is better than mixing them.