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Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

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Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#191

Post by ohyoutravel »

jrockway wrote: post #154
guessmyname wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha ha ha this Americans and their political correctness. I cringe every time I see things like this and the HN community doesn't escapes from it, in fact, I have seen more "political correctness" towards sexism here more than in other communities on the Internet (at least the ones I visit) . I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. I can only imagine how people would react in countr…

This isn't about political correctness, it's about using the words you actually mean. If you are addressing a group of people, it makes sense to include them all in your address. So use a word that includes everyone, as the bot mentions, there are plenty. If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, how about a thought experiment. You're a man, you started dating a woman. Do you tell your friends, "hey, I just started dati…

100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa.

Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group.

That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#192

Post by notdonspaulding »

newjersey wrote: post #126
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, will they use private email servers?

I don't have any credibility or knowledge to talk about the exact current issue at hand but don't we at hn pine over the beautiful past where email was distributed instead of going between Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and Google? A private email server isn't bad by definition, is it? Perhaps we should try to help the "ordinary" person keep their servers secure?

> "Perhaps we should try to help the "ordinary" person keep their servers secure?"

Security wasn't the goal, evasion of oversight was.

Even if it was granted that security was the goal, you would expect the private server to be at least as secure as the @state.gov mail servers, otherwise you're wasting your time. Furthermore, James Comey's statement in July made clear that the private server wasn't as secure as GMail, the kind of email server an "ordinary person" might use. GMail may be centralized, but it's supported SSL from its public release in 2004. The server Hillary Clinton used didn't support SSL until the spring of 2009, months into her tenure as Secretary of State.[0]

The truth is we actually know very little about the operational security of the server because all but one of the IT folks in charge of running it plead the 5th before congress and only spoke privately with the FBI under conditions of immunity. Justin Cooper was the only one to actually testify regarding the specifics of the server, but his role was more administrative than technical.[1]

There's no credible defense for the SoS running a private server to provide email accounts which are less secure than the standard accounts used by the rest of the State Department. The diplomatic role of the SoS inherently requires a high level of OPSEC to carry out its most basic function of communicating with international leaders. Hillary Clinton avoided using the security available to her in order to thwart federal regulations regarding the preservation of public records. That action is no example that any member of the public should be holding in high regard as something worthy of emulation.

[0]: http://www.thompsontimeline.com/191/2009/03/29/for-the-first... [1]: http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/justin-cooper/

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#193

Post by phhlho »

thwarted wrote: post #129
chrissnell wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What business does a government agency have spending nearly 800 hours (plus inevitable expenses on stationery, biz cards, signage, etc) on a logo? How does this benefit the taxpayer? Why do they need this logo? This logo changes nothing for anybody except the people who worked on it. This is not good stewardship of our tax dollars and you can bet your lunch that this won't be the only FW&A problem found at 18F.

What business does a government agency have spending nearly 800 hours (plus inevitable expenses on stationery, biz cards, signage, etc) on a logo? How does this benefit the taxpayer? Why do they need this logo? One thing that bothers me about government websites is the boosterism of whoever is in office. Secretary of State websites are particularly bad in this regard. Usually you go to the SoS website to do something…

This blew me away when I first moved from Wisconsin to Illinois. I went from this: http://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/online-srvcs/external/dmv.aspx to: http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/

This isn't just a website problem either - the DMV in Illinois is really the Jesse White center based on the amount of branding and pictures you run into there.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#194

Post by acdha »

rambos wrote: post #128
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #120

I love 18F! A few months back they published a set of web design standard [0] that I really liked. Accessibility is among their top concerns, so it's legible in all devices and there's a lot of contrast. I used their color suggestions for my blog [1] (still haven't updating syntax highlighting, terribly sorry about that). The two things I changed were typography sizes and fonts. I decided it would be best to use prei…

Doesn't it seem wasteful that 18f spent all that time on the standards, instead of maybe a guide/theme on how Gov't sites should adapt, already open-sourced (bootstrap), frameworks?

Take a look at https://github.com/18F/web-design-standards/blob/staging/LIC... and count the number of existing open-source projects which they're re-using. This looks to me like an experienced team who did their homework to assess how much flexibility and control they needed and reused as much open-source as possible while still meeting their other requirements.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#195

Post by vkou »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #140
languagewars wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying "it's nothing" is a losing argument in every town hall meeting that ever takes place. $32 million is a lot of parks, operations, libraries, and whatever else you like. You have changed the scale by 2 orders of magnitude to make it something. $100 is a 5th of someone people's yearly salary, so how dare you waste it on entertainment every month?

If you don't pay even $100 in taxes, the government will seize your assets with a levy or - if you continue to resist - send goons to threaten you at gunpoint to turn the money over. Snapchat gets a free pass, because they don't force their investors to pay using a police force. The IRS maintains its own SWAT team dedicated to enforcement of the tax code. I'm not saying the FBI shouldn't get a TV in the breakroom, bu…

False. This is complete nonsense.

If you owe $100 in taxes, the government will ask you nicely to pay it.

Then, when you refuse to pay it, they will mark it up with a bit of interest, and ask you nicely to pay it.

Then, when you refuse to pay it, they'll deduct it out of your next year's tax return, and call it even.

Then, if you didn't have a tax return, they'll put a mark on your social security account, and will pay themselves out of your social security cheque.

Then, if you didn't have a tax return, or social security, they'll put a lien on your house, so if you refuse to pay it, they will get paid when you sell your house.

Then, if you still haven't paid your taxes, and don't have a tax return, or social security, or a house, they will complain to a credit agency, and ding your credit rating.

Then, if you still haven't paid your taxes, don't have a tax return, or social security, or a house, or care about your credit, and you are not going to suffer economic hardship because of it, they may take money out of your bank account, or your car, or your property, sell it, and give the remainder to you.

Then, if all those means are exhausted, and you have been particularly belligerent about this process, and owe a lot of taxes, you might be looking at jail time. (At this point, have you considered just paying your debts? Or, perhaps, declaring bankruptcy?)

They will give you many, many, many chance to pay what you owe. The steps that they will take to collect are both reasonable, and proportionate.

Please don't spread nonsense about armed goons at gunpoint stealing 'your' money. That would be civil forfeiture, courtesy of your local police department, not the IRS.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#196

Post by fapjacks »

Raphomet wrote: post #97
matchagaucho wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vets.gov website built by 18F has had "work in progress" and "coming soon" labels on it since inception. I dont care what hourly rate the VA negotiated under the auspices of "savings". If 18F doesnt deliver, then the investment is worthless.

The USDS is working on vets.gov, not 18F. Apparently this effort involves taking hundreds of microsites that all look and behave differently and combining them into one unified effort. It's not surprising that this would take a long time, and my understanding is that this is one of USDS's top priorities. I think it's easy to underestimate how hard it is to ship something on the scale of vets.gov from the outside. Sou…

Right. I am a veteran that uses government portals for certain services, and you are absolutely right. There are so many moving parts behind the "single" portal the government wants veterans to use for access to services and information. I have been using those services for many years and haven't even seen them all, let alone used them all.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#197

Post by bovermyer »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #184
yummyfajitas wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater point is that 727 hours of staff time were spent on it.

727 hours/10 hours a day = 72.7 days. roughly 22 working days per month. 72.7/22 = 3.3 months As far as logo design goes, this is actually pretty fast. Most companies I've dealt with stuff like this usually takes much, much longer depending on how picky the founders are.

I paid $5 for a logo on Fiverr that took the artist about 3 days (general turnaround time, not active work time). To this day, I feel really bad about taking advantage of an artist like that.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#198

Post by noir_lord »

conjectures wrote: post #186
noir_lord wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened in the UK with the GDS (which 18F is modelled closely on), they got savaged in the press by vested interests, it was pretty blatant tbh.

Now I don't think GDS walk on water, but their work really is much better than how things normally get done in the civil service. The press focussed on, "This bureaucrat paid market rate for in-demand skills! Disgusting!" Rather than, "In house experts save tax payer being ripped off again!"

Exactly, they aren't perfect (nothing is) but the work they've done by government standards is incredible and by commercial standards very good.

They also worked really hard to get government departments to buy-in to modernising with some success.

Current government is gutting them though.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#199

Post by vkou »

lsmarigo wrote: post #10

Activities that can’t be billed to other agencies are another drain. One example is staff time totaling 727 hours on a logo change. The old logo was a blue square with 18F in the lower-right-hand corner. The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good. for anyone else curious: (new) Black Logo: https://18f.gsa.gov/assets/img/logos/18f-logo.svg (old)…

I heard from a few former employees that back in the '00s, a few years before their bankruptcy, Kodak spent close to a million dollars on redesigning their logo. They changed a font.

727 employee hours, in comparison, seems like a pretty sweet deal.

Not to mention that the logo change was only part of that 727 hours (But out of context, it sure makes for an awesome soundbite!)

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#200

Post by jrockway »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #191
jrockway wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about political correctness, it's about using the words you actually mean. If you are addressing a group of people, it makes sense to include them all in your address. So use a word that includes everyone, as the bot mentions, there are plenty. If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, how about a thought experiment. You're a man, you started dating a woman. Do you tell your friends, "hey, I just started dati…

100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa. Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for…

Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
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