WTF Delaware? • Hacker News Board

Re: WTF Delaware?

#41

Post by eli » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:22 PM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #3

sheetjs wrote: post #2

The IRS EIN Application also has "hours": http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ... > Our new hours of operation [for the application] are Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Is there a good reason to do this? I'm actually curious

Define "good."

It's pretty common when you've got a mainframe-type system that needs to do a bunch of batch processing and report generation. It's an excellent way to ensure that no data will be altered while the reports are running.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#42

Post by runamok » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:23 PM UTC

Pretty sure the root cause is the blend of http/https sources. Chrome and perhaps other browsers helpfully block the http content some of which is probably needed for the webpage to function.

In Chrome you click the shield icon next to the bookmarks star in the address bar. I believe the page will then reload showing the http content which will usually fix the issue.

I say "helpful" un-ironically above because the http content can compromise whatever is on the page.

The OP is of course right that the developer of this page is dangerously incompetent.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#43

Post by burntsushi » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:24 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #23

> “This application is available daily between 8:00 am and 11:45 pm Easter Time.” I really hope the "Easter [sic] Time" is from the original site, not a typo in the blog. The only other business I've seen do this is B&H[0], which refuses to accept online orders during the Sabbath, as well as during several other Jewish holidays (such as the first and last days of Passover). The only other business I've seen do this w…

I'm a grad student at Tufts, and our online course registration app does this (called "SIS"). You can only register for classes during some time period: 8am to 6pm, I think. It's crazy.

Tufts recently hired a huge team to "fix" SIS. It's now called iSIS and you can tell it's still using SIS underneath. (The HTML markup returned is the exact same as before, but it's dressed up a little nicer.)

Nuts.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#44

Post by happyscrappy » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:25 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #22

happyscrappy wrote: post #9

I can't pay my "greatly reduced taxes because I am a Delaware corp" in two seconds! Imagine if you had real problems.

Way to totally miss the article's point. Yes, as I write this, people are getting stabbed, shot, raped, killed by cancer, and mangled in car wrecks. And that's way worse than having to hassle with a broken web site. But there are people reading this board who can actually build functional web sites, and who are appalled that the government managed to mess up so badly. That's the point.

The entitled have trouble with reading comprehension. The site was explicitly closed during certain hours, sadly probably because the data is verified by hand. He is whining that he doesn't like the hours.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#45

Post by pg_is_a_butt » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:27 PM UTC

WTF Svbtle?!

do you a system to transact automatically with state funds? and what about when it gets hacked and people ask why no one was paying attention? people sit and approve transactions. your taxes pay government employees, not robots.

you're an idiot.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#46

Post by drawkbox » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:28 PM UTC

Most of these were paid for long ago in the age of Internet Explorer, I bet it works fine in that. Hopefully gov't contracts now focus on open technologies and have to support more browsers now but all of them are broken.

I use AZ and Nevada, Nevada was horrid but got a little better, still on par with insurance sites or offshored services. These types of systems would never survive if they didn't collude a useful or required service behind them.

The worst services I have to deal with are paying my state taxes (EFTPS for federal isn't too bad) and insurance websites for healthcare. The healthcare.gov site, even though it launched bad, actually looks good and has some usability, relative to the insurance/tax/govt sites of the same caliber.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#47

Post by protomyth » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:29 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

protomyth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it. 11:45PM sounds suspiciously like the batch job kicks off at midnight and should be done by opening of business the next day. I figure if it looks like it will go over 8AM then they have to kill it because the office staff is going to change data regardless of what IT wants.

2014: I can take credit cards for my startup in 10 minutes with Stripe, but Delaware needs 8+ hours to run a batch job to collect taxes. W. T. F.

There is no money to "fix" and IT system that "works". Think of the children you'll be taking money from to pay for this non-essential work.

Why yes, I have been in THAT meeting, just not in Delaware.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#48

Post by pg_is_a_butt » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

protomyth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it. 11:45PM sounds suspiciously like the batch job kicks off at midnight and should be done by opening of business the next day. I figure if it looks like it will go over 8AM then they have to kill it because the office staff is going to change data regardless of what IT wants.

2014: I can take credit cards for my startup in 10 minutes with Stripe, but Delaware needs 8+ hours to run a batch job to collect taxes. W. T. F.

you have 10 customers. deleware has a million residents.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#49

Post by incision » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:34 PM UTC

>"Our government has likely forked over millions of our tax dollars (how much did Obamacare cost?) to private contractors in exchange for a site so utterly dysfunctional that it can’t even serve its purpose of collecting those very tax dollars!"

Oh wow, a "My tax dollars!" complaint in the middle of a "My tax dodge is inconvenient!" complaint with a little "Thanks, Obama!" thrown in for good measure.

Re: WTF Delaware?

#50

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #47

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2014: I can take credit cards for my startup in 10 minutes with Stripe, but Delaware needs 8+ hours to run a batch job to collect taxes. W. T. F.

There is no money to "fix" and IT system that "works". Think of the children you'll be taking money from to pay for this non-essential work. Why yes, I have been in THAT meeting, just not in Delaware.

Shit like this makes my blood boil.