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The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

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Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#51

Post by D13Fd »

unreal37 wrote: post #11
ekidd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. This claim appears to contradict what the story says, as far as I can tell? He's the original: > The military bought the hammer, Kelman explained, bundled into one bulk purchase of many different spare parts. But when the contractors allocated their engineering expenses among the individual spare parts on the list-a b…

I acknowledged in my comment that even if the most charitable explanation was assumed, the method of accounting is misleading and makes determining the cost of anything impossible.

Your main comment is literally untrue and contrary to the article, and pointing out a separate problem with telling what things cost doesn’t change that.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#52

Post by dataflow »

unreal37 wrote: post #4

The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…

> The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435.

What are you basing this on? If I buy a gaming console bundled with a game, you're saying that implies I have no other option to purchase the game separately? Is there a leap of logic here or did I miss something in the story?

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#53

Post by GuB-42 »

unreal37 wrote: post #4

The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…

That $1500/day contact with no computer for a week is an extreme case but paying people to do nothing because the environment its not ready is fairly typical for large companies/governments.

I have done many contracts like these and it went smoothly only once. I arrived first day in the morning, my contact came to meet me, gave me my badge, brought me to the IT department so I could pick up my laptop, on it was a post-it note with my identifiers, I then went to a desk that was cleared for me. An hour later, I was at work. Usually, I consider myself lucky to get to that point in a day. So normal and yet so rare, as if these companies like to pay people for nothing.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#54

Post by hgsgm »

logdap wrote: post #34
sam_goody wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood that anecdote to be true. Fisher spent $1M (of "then" money) creating a "space pen", capitalized on the unique opportunity and publicity, and went from a startup to a $60M company. They knew that the astronauts could use a pencil, but that wouldn't be very profitable for them. For Fisher, it was a capitalist triumph, and symbolized American values. For the U.S.S.R. it symbolized U.S. wastefulness, and wa…

I'm pretty sure regular ballpoint pens work just fine in space. Try writing with one upsidedown in earth gravity; they work fine.

They don't work well.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#55

Post by hgsgm »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #18
arh68 wrote: post #16

The "myth" is quite real, e.g. the $1,000+ coffee cup [1] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/22...

This is not a conventional coffee cup. It is a cup that plugs into the electrical outputs on a military airplane. The more that the DoD stands up 3d printing, the less these kind of things will be an issue, particularly once they start doing more 3d printing in metal.

What do you think is special about it?

It plugs into an outlet, like every other kettle, and the government keeps paying for manufacturing defects.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#56

Post by [deleted] »

gumby wrote: post #27
unreal37 wrote: post #4

The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…

> I've worked for companies where they took money meant for one thing, and used it for something else. "Can you record your hours on this project under this different expense code?" This stops them from going over budget and having to explain to the client, but takes the money from another project of that client instead. Seems like a whistleblower could put a stop to this, and get a hefty reward as well. It's a felon…

[deleted]

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#57

Post by fishtoaster »

logdap wrote: post #32
emodendroket wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess "the dangerously hot coffee that fused a customer's labia" does not have the same punch when trying to argue for tort reform.

That's a myth within a myth. The coffee was industry standard temperature, they still serve coffee that hot today (Wikipedia says as much.) The lawsuit was justified though, because the cup design was defective. It shouldn't have collapsed like it did.

That doesn't seem to match what's in wikipedia:

> Liebeck's attorneys argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's. The attorneys presented evidence that coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20 °F (11 °C) lower than McDonald's coffee.

Reading through wikipedia's discussion of the trial and verdict, it sounds like the case hinged entirely on the temperature of the coffee being unusually high, and not the cup design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#58

Post by enkid »

ekidd wrote: post #9
unreal37 wrote: post #4

The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…

> If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. This claim appears to contradict what the story says, as far as I can tell? He's the original: > The military bought the hammer, Kelman explained, bundled into one bulk purchase of many different spare parts. But when the contractors allocated their engineering expenses among the individual spare parts on the list-a b…

Sometimes what's written on paperwork can be silly because it doesn't really matter and the cost to verify or correct stuff that is estimated costs more than an estimate. Other times it has to be more precise than is possible, so you have to figure out a good way to "estimate" it. Being inaccurate isn't always problem if the costs outweigh the benefits of being accurate.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#59

Post by crazygringo »

arh68 wrote: post #16

The "myth" is quite real, e.g. the $1,000+ coffee cup [1] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/22...

It seems like a key factor is:

> Wilson told Grassley that this cup is specially manufactured to plug into aircraft systems, and because it connects to the aircraft, the replacements need to be certified as airworthy by the FAA.

I'm actually curious what goes into certifying the airworthiness of a heated coffee cup. Could faulty wiring in it legitimately damage the plane's power systems or something? Or cause interference of some kind?

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#60

Post by NikolaNovak »

bytheirfruit wrote: post #29
NikolaNovak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That last paragraph, is that unusual? As a kind of sysadmin, I was fairly ready to go week 1 on most my projects. But in my erp space, developers and testers have to understand business, processes, functional aspects, etc. Whether specifics of clients payroll process or their finances or whatever. So "spend a week reading manuals" is normal. We call it "onboarding". And of course they're getting paid - they're not do…

Definitely weird. ;) You should let clients know when it's time to 'put up or shut up'. After all, talk is cheap?

I don't follow. What's the context or meaning of put up or shut up? Did you reply to right thread or did I inadvertently misrepresent anything?

My point is that on all my projects for 25 years now, it's normal for many roles to need a significant amount of studying to become productive. That studying may involve project or client specific material such as design and architecture documents, functional specs, process and procedure documents, business overview, etc. On bigger projects there might be a part or full time training / L&K coordinator who would prepare and maintain training materials for new team members, create on boarding paths for roles etc.

I read on HN about developers who start coding week 1 and I'm always impressed and astonished but also puzzled - coding what? In ERP world all code satisfies a specific business purpose and a random outsider wouldn't understand business functionality to create or fix business code day 1. Is it actually our goal to be interchangeable cogs, knowing only technology stacks but nothing about business or functionality?

Either way, I don't understand what client shoild put up or shut up?

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