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Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

nytimes.com

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Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#81

Post by r00fus »

Clownshoesms wrote: post #70
roymurdock wrote: post #48

I have found this website very helpful in the past few years when researching government financial info: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart I reached out to the website developer/maintainer/creator, Chris Chantrill, telling him I appreciated his work on the site and asking if he needed help (seems like a 1 man operation?) - here's how he responded: Thanks! I started the site in 2007 when "I coul…

The UI is actually making me feel angry, for some reason I can't put my finger on.

Could it be the front-and-center red * bolded * text? Or perhaps the logo with the clipped words?

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#82

Post by lawik »

algesten wrote: post #58
hoodoof wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me lots of companies make $ Do they all get a derogatory psuedonym? adob$ amaz$ face$ goog$ mailchim$ etc etc etc or is the negativity reserved for M$ Suggesting there is something wrong with a software company because it makes money seems to be a blow in from 1990's militant open source philosophy and probably best left in the 1990s.

As I recall the M$ came about around the time when Microsoft engaged in rather questionable business tactics. They were the largest IT company and still played super hard ball. They deliberately did "embrace, extend and extinguish" various software/protocols to create lock-in to their own proprietary technologies (IE55/HTML. Kerberos/LDAP, AOL/IM) to further their market dominance. At the time, the M$ acronym was IMO…

That has to be Adob€ honestly. Just throwing a dollar in there does not work for me :)

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#85

Post by esturk »

nyolfen wrote: post #31
smithkl42 wrote: post #7

It's quite possible for someone to be a mediocre CEO and still do good, smart things. This is a good thing, and smart.

i'm not sure why the dig at him was a necessary foreword

To give pause that only revered CEOs can bring meaningful change in this world. This view is especially prevalent in the Tech world.

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#86

Post by lawik »

gonvaled wrote: post #41
hoodoof wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me lots of companies make $ Do they all get a derogatory psuedonym? adob$ amaz$ face$ goog$ mailchim$ etc etc etc or is the negativity reserved for M$ Suggesting there is something wrong with a software company because it makes money seems to be a blow in from 1990's militant open source philosophy and probably best left in the 1990s.

M$ will never, ever, be forgiven for the FUD that put OS in dire straits.

Okay, so _you_ will never forgive them for that. I doubt that you can apeak for most of OSS.

I was pissed at the time, I've loathed them plenty. But corporations are not people, they are generally without morals, I never expected them to be or do good.

Now the leadership is different, the company mostly acts differently. I can still be vary of them but I'll applaud their good calls.

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#89

Post by jonknee »

joshmn wrote: post #77
CalChris wrote: post #34

And in related news, Trump killed open.gov today. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170414/13382037153/trump...

And he wonders why people are increasingly skeptical of his administration.

I don't think he wonders about anything at all. He knows (and is wrong).

Re: Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US

#90

Post by taurath »

hackuser wrote: post #11
taurath wrote: post #10

It sounds pretty great, but I'm very worried about what actually comes out of it given the media landscape. People will use the data in ways that benefit them - even the CBO's reports are highly politicized. If we can't start taking "real, true" data at face value and using it to drive actual policy again, this is just another drop in the bucket.

> even the CBO's reports are highly politicized I'm pretty sure I've read about many CBO reports that disagreed with the party in power. What basis is there for saying they are highly politicized?

Not the reports themselves, the results from them. Its good data but doesn't "matter".
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