Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, Health, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Healthcare.Gov

43 Comments

What went wrong?

I imagine there was a dialogue last Monday afternoon that went something like this:

FRONT-END DEVELOPER: Why does the username have to have a number in it?

BACK-END DEVELOPER: It’s in the government username regulations. Didn’t you read them?

FRONT-END DEVELOPER: No, we don’t do accounts, we just hand the input to you.

BACK-END DEVELOPER: And we told you your front-end the input was no good! See the ErrEngineDown in the URL?

FRONT-END DEVELOPER: Fine, fine. Sigh. Nice to finally talk to you, by the way.

BACK-END DEVELOPER: Yeah, you too. Are you in D.C.?

FRONT-END DEVELOPER: San Francisco.

BACK-END DEVELOPER: Know any good jobs in D.C.? I hate this place and they’re furloughing me as soon as we fix this mess.

Each group got its piece “working” in isolation and prayed that when they hooked them together, things would be okay. When they didn’t, it was too late. It is entirely possible that back-end developer CGI is primarily at fault here, but no one will care because they just see that the whole thing doesn’t work. As you learn early on in software development, there is no partial credit in programming. A site that half-works is worse than one that doesn’t work at all, which is why the bad error handling is so egregious. You always handle errors.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

[Update a few minutes later]

The roll out was nothing short of disastrous:

The left likes to flatter itself as thinking in terms of reason, facts, expertise, openness to doubt, and scorn of dogma and magical thinking.

Is this anywhere close to true?

When experts told the Obama Administration it was a fact the website was not ready, did they take seriously this advisement?

Nope! They simply said there was no cause for alarm; the strange gods of the left would just sort everything out.

Oddly enough, they didn’t.

It’s almost like they’re not quite as brilliant and rational as they’re always telling us they are.

And then there’s this. That’s right, Sheila Jackson Lee, who thinks that the Apollo astronauts went to Mars, thinks that the solution to the government shutdown is martial law. Meanwhile, the good lefties over at The Atlantic are more measured. They just want to have the Speaker of the House arrested.

It’s almost like they have a will to power, or something. And of course, as always with the left, when they accuse the “right” of this sort of thing, it’s projection.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, so just what are CGI Federal’s ties to the administration? You’d be a fool to think there are none.

Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

SLS Is Not “Viable” Or “Sustainable”

12 Comments

Former Shuttle manager Wayne Hale speaks truth to people who don’t want to hear it:

“The current plan is fragile in the political and financial maelstrom that is Washington,” Hale said. “Planning to fly large rockets once every three or four years does not make a viable program. It is not sustainable.

“Continuing to develop programs in the same old ways, from my observations, will certainly lead to cancellation as government budgets are stretched thin. It is time to try new strategies.”

I’m sure a lot of folks in Madison County weren’t happy.

Health, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The Train Wreck

7 Comments

Why is ObamaCare such a hot steaming mess? Because Obama cares more about campaigning than governing (though he does like the part of governing where he can push his political enemies around).

[Update a while later]

The Republicans didn’t sabotage the health exchanges. Obama did.

This train wreck was perfectly predictable, and many predicted it.

[Update a couple minutes later]

It’s ObamaCar.

ObamaCar

[Update a while later]

USA Today: “…an inexcusable mess.”

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Fusion

20 Comments

Positive net energy?

There’s still a long way to go. The fusion reaction will need to release many times more energy than it consumes to be viable on a commercial scale. But this is still worth getting excited about. Figuring out fusion would be a game-changer, and breakthroughs like this one remind us of the dangers of predicting the future based on current technology. The rate of technological change is accelerating, and the only ones who stand to lose are the prophets of doom.

They’ll ignore it.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Save The Planet

7 Comments

..by keeping calm. Bjorn Lomborg says, once again, cool it:

When you look at these issues properly, the results are surprising. Climate change, for example, has had a net benefit for the world. From 1900 to 2025, it has increased global welfare by up to 1.5 per cent of GDP per year. Why? Because it has mixed effects – and when warming is moderate, the benefits prevail (even if they are unevenly distributed between nations).
Increased levels of atmospheric CO2 have improved agriculture, because the gas works as a fertiliser; we have avoided more deaths from cold than have been caused by extra heat; and we have saved more from lower heating bills than we have lost to an increased need for air conditioning.

But that doesn’t give the socialists the control over our lives that they continue to crave.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Gerry Griffin

3 Comments

…proposes a giant leap for all mankind:

Mr. Griffin reminds us that space is a dangerous business. One of his biggest jobs at NASA was to manage the risk in a reasonable way. Risk can never be taken to zero; that would mean humans do nothing. Astronauts have died in space, but to put this in context, people in the aerospace community have also been killed on the highway on their way to work. Transportation, in any form, does not currently have zero risk. Safety is important. An early failure, such as the Apollo Launch pad fire, would be a problem for commercial viability. Design will require a reasonable middle ground with some redundancy, but not to the point of adding massive weight or prohibitive costs. Technology is so much better today and designers have fifty years of operating history to guide them. The physical demands of working in space are so intense that a momentary distraction could prove fatal. However, more is known about human error factors and training could better manage those.

Gee, someone should write a book about that. Yes, I know, Real Soon Now. Had a last-minute glitch, but it’s happening this month.