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Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#201

Post by JBReefer »

jrockway wrote: post #200
ohyoutravel wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa. Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for…

Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.

I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions.

Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#202

Post by MichaelBurge »

vkou wrote: post #195
MichaelBurge wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't pay even $100 in taxes, the government will seize your assets with a levy or - if you continue to resist - send goons to threaten you at gunpoint to turn the money over. Snapchat gets a free pass, because they don't force their investors to pay using a police force. The IRS maintains its own SWAT team dedicated to enforcement of the tax code. I'm not saying the FBI shouldn't get a TV in the breakroom, bu…

False. This is complete nonsense. If you owe $100 in taxes, the government will ask you nicely to pay it. Then, when you refuse to pay it, they will mark it up with a bit of interest, and ask you nicely to pay it. Then, when you refuse to pay it, they'll deduct it out of your next year's tax return, and call it even. Then, if you didn't have a tax return, they'll put a mark on your social security account, and will p…

The context is someone arguing that you shouldn't worry about the federal government wasting $32 million, because it's chump change for them. My point is the polite requests they make are ultimately backed up by these SWAT teams, and that you shouldn't take taxation lightly as a result. Obviously very few cases require them to deploy a SWAT team, since most people would rationally choose to pay the $100.

I'm not saying taxation is bad or that they'll jump on you at the first sign of disobedience, just that the commenter's callous attitude towards spending tax money is bad. It's a very entitled mindset that no government official should have.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#203

Post by F00Fbug »

bsimpson wrote: post #9

> The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good. That was a really odd injection of opinion to read in what appears to be a news piece.

The Washington Post has a lot of opinion for a newspaper! The whole thing is a big editorial!

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#204

Post by jrockway »

JBReefer wrote: post #201
jrockway wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.

I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions. Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.

So, go back to the beginning of the comment thread; it's about how a bot that only speaks English is "dystopian". English doesn't have gendered words, so we can quite easily fix the problem with almost no effort at all.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#205

Post by dasil003 »

noir_lord wrote: post #198
conjectures wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I don't think GDS walk on water, but their work really is much better than how things normally get done in the civil service. The press focussed on, "This bureaucrat paid market rate for in-demand skills! Disgusting!" Rather than, "In house experts save tax payer being ripped off again!"

Exactly, they aren't perfect (nothing is) but the work they've done by government standards is incredible and by commercial standards very good. They also worked really hard to get government departments to buy-in to modernising with some success. Current government is gutting them though.

That is so depressing. I lived in London from 2011 through 2014, previously having no clue about GDS or anything else in the UK for that matter. Being a ruby developer, it kind of blew me away when I met so many GDS developers and saw what they were doing. They were operating like a top-tier commercial agency much moreso than anything that resembles government in my mind (and I'm half-brazilian, so US government to me is far from the worst in terms of inefficiency and boondoggles). Next thing you know they stop letting the non-white people in, and before you know it Berlin leapfrogs London as the primary tech destination in Europe.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#206

Post by matchagaucho »

Raphomet wrote: post #97
matchagaucho wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vets.gov website built by 18F has had "work in progress" and "coming soon" labels on it since inception. I dont care what hourly rate the VA negotiated under the auspices of "savings". If 18F doesnt deliver, then the investment is worthless.

The USDS is working on vets.gov, not 18F. Apparently this effort involves taking hundreds of microsites that all look and behave differently and combining them into one unified effort. It's not surprising that this would take a long time, and my understanding is that this is one of USDS's top priorities. I think it's easy to underestimate how hard it is to ship something on the scale of vets.gov from the outside. Sou…

18F is/was most definitely contributing to vets.gov.

https://www.vets.gov/playbook/platform/

I'll give vets.gov credit for mobilizing content with responsive design.

But as expected, "uber-portal" strategies that re-purpose content from other sites quickly suffer from entropy and information rot. The portal just becomes a cut-n-paste curation exercise.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#207

Post by lutorm »

Anasufovic wrote: post #116
wpietri wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. Quite a lot of people who respond as you do actively don't want to understand. But in case you're one of the ones who is actually curious: Historically, sexism has been a problem. For millennia, women were basically property. The last couple hundred years, we've been unwinding that. E.g. less than 100 years ago, women finally got to vote. T…

What is your solution for gendered languages?

There is a perfect, old-school expression: "ladies and gentlemen".

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#208

Post by noir_lord »

dasil003 wrote: post #205
noir_lord wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, they aren't perfect (nothing is) but the work they've done by government standards is incredible and by commercial standards very good. They also worked really hard to get government departments to buy-in to modernising with some success. Current government is gutting them though.

That is so depressing. I lived in London from 2011 through 2014, previously having no clue about GDS or anything else in the UK for that matter. Being a ruby developer, it kind of blew me away when I met so many GDS developers and saw what they were doing. They were operating like a top-tier commercial agency much moreso than anything that resembles government in my mind (and I'm half-brazilian, so US government to m…

But if you have an effective in house team you can't give the work to your dodgy mates/ benefactors...

The UK has very civilised corruption.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#209

Post by debaserab2 »

metaphor wrote: post #98
debaserab2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being, of course, that Google is a massively profitable company that can afford that kind of expense.

And how long did that take?[1] [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/guess-how-long-overnight-succ...

Google wasn't going through giant rebranding exercising before they were massively profitable.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#210

Post by languagewars »

blowski wrote: post #173
languagewars wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left out that I meant 2 orders of magnitude in government. Comparing federal spending to what would be waste in a town or county is an example of giving into propaganda steered stupidity as an acceptable norm. I don't disagree that this is a terrific value. I disagree with it coming up for discussion like this in absolute terms when nothing the federal government does that is blatantly absurd could ever discussed i…

I refer you to Tip O'Neill's observation that "All politics is local". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_politics_is_local I believe the Government should spend the money, but I also believe that you can't wave away any concerns about it by claiming it's not worth worrying about.

Well, I like the "see also" in that entry.. Do you think they will buy a school or a prison with their graft? Will the 99 other senators who want $32m each be so good as your own?

If you want to reduce federal spending and federal tax so that the local system can tax then that's great. If you question the federal government spending $1 out of $34000 on a reasonable global service, then please tell me why my wife would be reasonable in questioning my $1 a year new year's burger, but my converting from a standard $40 a month ATDT service to a $3400 a year program to turn our kids into psychopathic murderers who are sometimes willing to protect us is an unquestionable rational expense.

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