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

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

#211

Post by nashashmi »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #184
yummyfajitas wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater point is that 727 hours of staff time were spent on it.

727 hours/10 hours a day = 72.7 days. roughly 22 working days per month. 72.7/22 = 3.3 months As far as logo design goes, this is actually pretty fast. Most companies I've dealt with stuff like this usually takes much, much longer depending on how picky the founders are.

Divide 3.3 months across multiple people (say 5), and you get less than 3 weeks.

Also worth mentioning is the $X million dollars spent on redesigning Merrill Lynch's logo. The only redesign that occurred was a different angle view of the lion.

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

#212

Post by thwarted »

thwarted wrote: post #129
chrissnell wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What business does a government agency have spending nearly 800 hours (plus inevitable expenses on stationery, biz cards, signage, etc) on a logo? How does this benefit the taxpayer? Why do they need this logo? This logo changes nothing for anybody except the people who worked on it. This is not good stewardship of our tax dollars and you can bet your lunch that this won't be the only FW&A problem found at 18F.

What business does a government agency have spending nearly 800 hours (plus inevitable expenses on stationery, biz cards, signage, etc) on a logo? How does this benefit the taxpayer? Why do they need this logo? One thing that bothers me about government websites is the boosterism of whoever is in office. Secretary of State websites are particularly bad in this regard. Usually you go to the SoS website to do something…

The California DMV website has changed recently, and the headshot are in the footer, as links to their respective sites. This is an improvement, but the branding is still all over the place.

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

#213

Post by winter_blue »

morisy wrote: post #108
winter_blue wrote: post #36

They could've created feature/bug bounties and/or grants for open source contributors, and tried to build an open source community around what they're building. This would naturally attract/increase volunteer contributions, but they might also be able to control costs better with such a model. 18F is an uniquely special position since they are building software for the general public, and so are in a great position t…

They've actually done almost exactly this and are working to scale it up within limits of contractor system: https://micropurchase.18f.gov

Wow, Micro-purchase @ 18F is very awesome. That is exactly what I had in mind -- it's so cool they're already doing it!

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

#214

Post by msimpson »

lucideer wrote: post #172
msimpson wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, since when did "guys" uniquely refer to the male gender? Second, how was this even worth the time it took to create?

"Guys" is plural for "guy", which literally means "man". The plural has informally been made gender neutral in an attempt to be inclusive, but the connotations will always remain given what the singular means, so it's a pretty regressive attempt at inclusivity.

Last time I checked "guys" was a plural for "guy", which literally comes from the British, meaning, "a person of grotesque appearance" in relation to an effigy Guy Fawkes or those who dress to resemble him on November the 5th (essentially British Halloween). A word to which Americans only gave masculine overtones much later. So while the singular has been informally made gender specific, the plural is--and has always been--gender neutral as both sexes dressed as "guys".

This is a group of guys: http://goo.gl/AvjTzz

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

#215

Post by protomyth »

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…

Actually, what you wrote there has some false parts. They send a certified letter and will put a lien on you bank account for the amount if you don't respond fast enough[1]. They add interest immediately, there is no grace period. You can arrange monthly payments (they are required to let you do this the first time). They will deduct the money you owe from the next year's return.

1) Fast enough can get a little weird. Had to loan a friend money because of a mistake and he didn't even get the letter before the lien happened. Saw him pull up his bank account on a Monday morning after his card was rejected at breakfast. He came in the next day with the certified letter and listened to him call the IRS about the problem with his return. They did get new computers a couple years ago, and it was not a good thing since it seemed they might have sent the first letter to a prior address. They were sorry, but too bad.

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

#216

Post by lucideer »

msimpson wrote: post #214
lucideer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Guys" is plural for "guy", which literally means "man". The plural has informally been made gender neutral in an attempt to be inclusive, but the connotations will always remain given what the singular means, so it's a pretty regressive attempt at inclusivity.

Last time I checked "guys" was a plural for "guy", which literally comes from the British, meaning, "a person of grotesque appearance" in relation to an effigy Guy Fawkes or those who dress to resemble him on November the 5th (essentially British Halloween). A word to which Americans only gave masculine overtones much later. So while the singular has been informally made gender specific, the plural is--and has always…

That's some very creative selective historicising.

The modern definition of guy is man. Unequivocally. Beyond the very seasonal references to the effigy in England, that definition is not in general discourse outside of tomorrow's holiday and your archaic definition is certainly not used by anyone save etymologists.

The modern defining to mean man is not purely an Americanism by any stretch.

The pluralisation is also contemporary.

Regardless of etymological technical "truths", can you really say with intellectual honesty that there's no masculine connotation inherent in "guys"?

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

#217

Post by msimpson »

lucideer wrote: post #216
msimpson wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked "guys" was a plural for "guy", which literally comes from the British, meaning, "a person of grotesque appearance" in relation to an effigy Guy Fawkes or those who dress to resemble him on November the 5th (essentially British Halloween). A word to which Americans only gave masculine overtones much later. So while the singular has been informally made gender specific, the plural is--and has always…

That's some very creative selective historicising. The modern definition of guy is man. Unequivocally. Beyond the very seasonal references to the effigy in England, that definition is not in general discourse outside of tomorrow's holiday and your archaic definition is certainly not used by anyone save etymologists. The modern defining to mean man is not purely an Americanism by any stretch. The pluralisation is also…

"Regardless of etymological technical "truths", can you really say with intellectual honesty that there's no masculine connotation inherent in "guys"?"

I'm sure there is to certain people. But to me, my family, friends, and coworkers I have not found it to be the case, no.

In fact, I hear female coworkers use the term neutrally every day. We as a team even use the term over conference calls with people all across the country and I have yet to hear anyone take issue, offer correction, or purposefully use alternative terminology.

I simply don't see this as a problem, nor can I understand why it needs to be purposefully corrected. It's the same PC attitude that causes people to take issue with those who call African Americans black. To me, black is a more useful term. If it wasn't in my repertoire, I'd have no way to distinguish Idris Elba from the rest of an essentially all white cast ...

Here's a fun test. Tell me which gender connotation the following terms hold: Cheerleader, Usher, Flight Attendant, and Comedian. If you said female, male, female, male, you'd be wrong as all are gender neutral.

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

#218

Post by whywhywhywhy »

guessmyname wrote: post #33
lsmarigo wrote: post #10

Activities that can’t be billed to other agencies are another drain. One example is staff time totaling 727 hours on a logo change. The old logo was a blue square with 18F in the lower-right-hand corner. The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good. for anyone else curious: (new) Black Logo: https://18f.gsa.gov/assets/img/logos/18f-logo.svg (old)…

This reminds me a time when I used to work closely with a design team in a web agency, it was very frustrating to work with them because every little modification to things like colors, sizes, buttons and the like would be accompanied with several hours of "design strategy" , time that the designers would waste thinking and prototyping new ideas for the corporate image of any of our clients, I say "waste" because mos…

This reminds me a time when I used to work closely with a development team in a startup, it was very frustrating to work with them because every little modification to things like functionality, Git workflow, Javascript framework and the like would be accompanied with several hours of "dev strategy" and scrum meetings, time that the developers would waste thinking and prototyping new ideas for the tech stack for their managers, I say "waste" because most of the time they would end up with a system similar if not identical to the original.

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

#219

Post by whywhywhywhy »

spectrum1234 wrote: post #54
lsmarigo wrote: post #10

Activities that can’t be billed to other agencies are another drain. One example is staff time totaling 727 hours on a logo change. The old logo was a blue square with 18F in the lower-right-hand corner. The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good. for anyone else curious: (new) Black Logo: https://18f.gsa.gov/assets/img/logos/18f-logo.svg (old)…

Assuming $125,000/employee and 2000 hours/year that logo cost $45437.50.

re-branding != a logo.

This is like whinging that an entire e-commerce system was just the compiled index.html

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