Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#131

Post by jacalata » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:22 AM UTC

djt wrote: post #95

i find it interesting that they named it Orca as Obamas system was called Narwhal. for those of you that dont know, Narwhal is an animal, but its also a internet meme. Obviously a very nerdy reference by Obamas team. The fact that the Romney team had to name their software as a killer for a Narwhal goes to show that they wanted to win at any cost, unfortunately when that happens you sometimes lose sight of the goal,…

I find it interesting that they made this exact point in the article we are discussing here, and you don't appear to have read it.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#132

Post by rhizome » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:35 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #122

rhizome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Utter incompetence" is composed of more than one mistake.

Well, one could argue that there were a few other mistakes, some quite public, that Romney made leading to the election.

Sure, but the poster said "this" mistake.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#133

Post by jlgreco » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:36 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #124

jlgreco wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is anything a president's job isn't , it is to micromanage.

That excuse covers just about anything. There's a big difference between micromanaging and verifying that your critical infrastructure is in place when you launch.

I was unclear. I am saying that since it is not the job of a president to micromanage, it is legitimate to criticise him for fuckups he was not directly involved with.

If his job were micromanaging, then "Hey, he wasn't in the room" would excuse him of responsibility, but that is not the case. Since his job would be pretty much the greatest opposite of micromanaging I can conceive of, there can be no excuse. The failure of his campaign is his failure.

That still seems a bit unclear to me actually. Not sure how to effectively reword this.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#134

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:38 AM UTC

inthewoods wrote: post #115

smsm42 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Holder is not one of 4 million. Eric Holder is a personal selection. It's not like it is a random failure in some lowly backwater office. It is a failure and a coverup going to the very top - to people personally appointed by the President. So if you think people are responsible for a mobile app done for them - then they should be responsible for the mess in their administration too. And if we start counting how…

No, there is an accusation that there is a cover up going on - this has not been proven in any sense.

I think Holder claiming the email having words "Fast and Furious" doesn't talk about Operation Fast and Furious, and his and Obama's refusal to comply with document request is ample evidence of coverup going on.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20115038-10391695.html Read the docs yourself and try to explain how comes Holder says he did not hear about F&F until 2011 when these documents are from 2010 and are addressed to him and his immediate subordinates. Only one explanation is logical - Eric Holder flatly lied to the Congress. And got away with it. That's the coverup, and if seeing it with your own eyes is not a proof, then I don't know what could prove it.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#135

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:40 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #48

aneth4 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Particularly in contract to the Obama machine, which was built by passionate technologies motivated mostly to help Obama win, not make money.

Interestingly, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said they built something similar in 2008, and it crashed too. http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/messina-obama-won-on-the-...

Wait, according to some commenters here this means Obama is completely incompetent and unfit to be president? I wonder if these people want to rethink their position...

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#136

Post by pzb » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:54 AM UTC

meepmorp wrote: post #33

DanBC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you supported Romney, this has to give you some pause about the man's management skills and who he hired to run things. Wait, what? There's a difference between people taking responsibility for what their staff do (thus, he should take responsibility for it) and people actually being responsible for what their staff do - especially if those staff are not staff but sub-contracted service providers.

If you don't hire people with adequate management skills to assess risk and take proactive steps to mitigate problems before they become dangerous to the mission, that's a failure at the highest level. Someone should've see this coming, or Romney clearly doesn't know how to delegate responsibility well.

I would point at the campaign manager as the person who should be responsible. The Campaign Manager is the CEO, the candidate is actually the product being sold. Granted, the candidate is being sold with promise that he or she will be a good CEO, but, during the campaign the CM is the CEO.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#137

Post by smsm42 » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:55 AM UTC

njharman wrote: post #15

WrkInProgress wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you determine using Windows was a mistake from the information presented in the article ?

"Using Windows was a mistake" is a truism. Also, from the article, project failed. Failure is regularly equated with having made mistakes.

In the same vein, one could claim use of humans to write code was a mistake. After all, the project failed, this means they made a mistake, so obviously they should have used trained hamsters instead. Do you see where your logic failed you?

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#138

Post by pjscott » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 4:57 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #127

acslater00 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would give me more pause if Mitt Romney were involved personally in this sort of a project.

If he can't pick a reliable deputy to manage a single IT project how could he possibly manage a government? The President has to delegate well: Mitt either couldn't or didn't place a key service under someone reliable.

If Romney has to pick n reliable deputies for various things, then for sufficiently large n, he's inevitably going to make a mistake you can pounce on, even if he's really good at picking out people. Good judgement is not an all-or-nothing dichotomy.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#139

Post by randomfool » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 5:06 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #32

>"We asked if our laptops needed to be WiFi capable," Dittuobo told Ars. "Dan Centinello went into how the Garden had just finished expansion of its wireless network and that yes, WiFi was required. I was concerned about hacking, jamming the signal, * etc...* This brings up a whole nother can of worms - electoral cyber warfare. What if the Dems, or some sympathizer group, say some local Anonymous, decided to disrup t…

Or what if the ones implementing the system were the 'sympathizer group'. They wouldn't have to do any sort of jamming or anything, just give out insufficient instructions in how to use the system, incorrect passwords and make sure the system crashes a bunch.

Intercepting field reports? By the sounds of it, Team Obama had all the info they needed and this just opens the door to serious legal problems.

In general I haven't encountered too many Republicans in software development. Libertarians, yes. Republicans, no.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#140

Post by pjscott » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 5:07 AM UTC

djt wrote: post #95

i find it interesting that they named it Orca as Obamas system was called Narwhal. for those of you that dont know, Narwhal is an animal, but its also a internet meme. Obviously a very nerdy reference by Obamas team. The fact that the Romney team had to name their software as a killer for a Narwhal goes to show that they wanted to win at any cost, unfortunately when that happens you sometimes lose sight of the goal,…

Or it means that whoever came up with the name was aware of Narwhal and thought it fitting that their system should also be named after a cool-looking whale. If this had not been a political issue, would you have been slower to reject this obvious innocent interpretation?