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The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

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Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#61

Post by captainaj »

aresant wrote: post #17

Outstanding piece of marketing on Gun.io's part with a clear "here's how my biz solves this" at the end. #1 on Hacker News is a feat, but this thing has legs on every political and general fluff channel - HuffPo, FoxNews, Conservative Radio, CNN, wire services, etc. I learned from our own blogging efforts when you have a winner, take it to the bank. EG - Hit every PR angle you can think of to get redistribution while…

Right, was thinking that the writer could file a petition on change.org, great way to build the buzz (aside from the main purpose)

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#62

Post by jellicle »

Fine. "6 hours maximum", says the author, for an app translated into English and Spanish that interfaces with a remote database and performs some user-initiated calculations, and also has a bunch of static pages. Before starting you must consult with at least a dozen people who know very little about Android and succinctly describe the capabilities of the smartphone and what sorts of applications are even possible. Finally you must provide documentation.

Ready? Go! Keep track of your hours...

I installed the app. It works fine. Responsive, fast, no problems. I have two minor quibbles with the design, but they are minor. Does what it says on the box. Not an exciting piece of software, but... Has even one person commenting on this thread installed it except me? No? Didn't think so. "It's a piece of crap" says a highly self-interested blogger, and Hacker News jumps on that like starving dogs on Alpo.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#63

Post by adestefan »

jellicle wrote: post #62

Fine. "6 hours maximum", says the author, for an app translated into English and Spanish that interfaces with a remote database and performs some user-initiated calculations, and also has a bunch of static pages. Before starting you must consult with at least a dozen people who know very little about Android and succinctly describe the capabilities of the smartphone and what sorts of applications are even possible. F…

Don't forget you need to be Section 508 compliant,abide by a long listing of other requirements and make sure you fill out all the documentation saying you did those things.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#64

Post by danso »

jellicle wrote: post #53
danso wrote: post #7

Brilliant article. Couple of key takeaways: 1. "The shocking part about this isn't even that it happened, but rather that it is incredibly routine. This is just one FOIA request to one tiny department for one tiny, single use application that will perhaps be used by, at most, five hundred people.. and it cost as much as a house. You can imagine what the waste must be like in other government run sectors..." 2. "The o…

> The shocking part about this isn't even that it happened, but rather that it is incredibly routine. This is just one FOIA request to one tiny department for one tiny, single use application You realize that these two sentences oppose each other, right?

You have to click-through to read the entire paragraph (sorry, wanted to abide by fair use). The sentiment is that if this kind of low-standards wasteful spending happened in one small department, then imagine what happens at the Dept of Defense.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#65

Post by shareme »

jellicle wrote: post #62

Fine. "6 hours maximum", says the author, for an app translated into English and Spanish that interfaces with a remote database and performs some user-initiated calculations, and also has a bunch of static pages. Before starting you must consult with at least a dozen people who know very little about Android and succinctly describe the capabilities of the smartphone and what sorts of applications are even possible. F…

that is why HN is so entertaining to read as I did not realize there were this many clueless idiots :)

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#66

Post by feralchimp »

These guys are clearly elite:

- (float)getHeatIndex:(float)temp:(float)humidity {

    NSLog(@"[getHeatIndex] temp: %f, humidity: %f", temp, humidity);
    
    float hIndex = 
    -42.379 + 2.04901523 * temp 
    + 10.14333127 * humidity 
    - 0.22475541 * temp * humidity 
    - 6.83783 * pow(10, -3) * temp * temp 
    - 5.481717 * pow(10, -2) * humidity * humidity 
    + 1.22874 * pow(10, -3) * temp * temp * humidity 
    + 8.5282 * pow(10, -4) * temp * humidity * humidity 
    - 1.99 * pow(10, -6) * temp * temp * humidity * humidity;
    
    //hIndex = round(hIndex);
    NSLog(@"-Heat Index: %f", hIndex);
    return hIndex;
}

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#67

Post by pavlov »

mattmanser wrote: post #50
pavlov wrote: post #16

In the European Union, governments are legally required to open public works and supplying contracts to competition through an open tendering process. I'm surprised that this doesn't happen in the US. There's a fair bit of criticism levelled against the EU tendering processes, though. Many feel that the process emphasizes price at the expense of quality, resulting in a "race to the bottom" as another poster mentioned…

I was surprised by this and decided to check it out, and it looks like they're not really. the implementation of EU government law by national governments is far from uniform and sometimes weak – in 2002, for instance, only 16% of governmental calls to tender were published – government procurement has been called "the weakest link in the common market".[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_procurement_in_the_E…

Indeed, the minimum amounts (known in EU jargon as de minimis tresholds) are higher than I had assumed.

As the Wikipedia article states, these de minimis tresholds "provide an incentive for authorities to divide contracts into separate lots", which is thought to be the reason for the small amount of public contracts that go through the tendering process.

I think individual member governments are free to set stricter limits, though. At least in Finland, some public contracts as small as 15,000 € are required to be openly tendered. (Last year there was a well-published scandal when a high-level Helsinki city administrator ordered some 70k€ worth of office furniture without official tendering.)

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#68

Post by pndmnm »

javert wrote: post #48
dangrossman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an app specifically designed to help protect your life (one of those rights) from unsafe employment. I get the dig you're making but this seems a weak target for it...

The government's duty to protect your life does not extend beyond protecting it from the use of force by other people. If you choose to work in a place, that's your choice. Even if you fail to make sure it's safe before you work there, or decide to work there despite the risk. Anyway, even if OSHA were legitime, this app is not effective at achieving anything, even if executed well.

Your definition of "government's duty" is not universally agreed upon, and it's intellectually dishonest to predicate an argument on the presumption that it is.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#69

Post by spodek »

thirsteh wrote: post #18
GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #12

In the government agency where I work, $200k would actually be considered very reasonable for a steaming pile of shit. We've paid many times that amount and sometimes the shit wasn't even lukewarm, let alone steaming. Believe it or not, we often spend $150 to $200k or more just to make the decision about whether or not we're going to invest in a particular pile of shit.

This is double-plus not good.

Watch your newspeak, citizen.

You meant doubleplusungood, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#70

Post by alphamale3000 »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #12

In the government agency where I work, $200k would actually be considered very reasonable for a steaming pile of shit. We've paid many times that amount and sometimes the shit wasn't even lukewarm, let alone steaming. Believe it or not, we often spend $150 to $200k or more just to make the decision about whether or not we're going to invest in a particular pile of shit.

The worst part about it is that they often don't realize it.
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