looks like someone needs 911.io -- replacement emergency 911 system using mongodb, node.js, and twitter bootstrap. ultra reliable, super scalable
For posterity: 911.io doesn't exist. Parent is just thinking out loud.
My hell as a 911 operator
61–70 of 241 posts
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#62"...and Intergraph [the Alabama company that designed the new system]." http://www.intergraph.com/ - Flash header on company's homepage hangs on Chrome. Not a good start.
They used to be a really hot hardware and I think software (e.g. CAD) company, even did a lot of Chipper RISC chip work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_architecture ; not to be confused with the Clinton administration cryptographic debacle). Then they exited the hardware business in 2000 and among other things became a patent troll: https://www.google.com/search?q=intergraph+lawsuit
Which of course is an even worse sign.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#63Lowest bidder? No one loses their job for someone dying? Sounds like a perfect storm. I'd love to see an itemization for $88 Million and how many vacation homes were bought.
Let's not forget that the developers of the system are potentially handing the system over to another party for O&M, didn't have flexibility in choosing what software to use, didn't get to prioritize the requirements and blue buttons were equal with system stability. They may have even had a separate contract do the design spec, and IV&V. The diffusion of responsibility combined with the rigidity of the procurement process is such that it is often impossible to achieve the flexibility needed to devise an optimal solution.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#64Holy hyperbole. Definitely seems like this worker is frustrated beyond sense or has an agenda with saying things like: They give rookie operators two months training, and after that just throw ’em in. They’re not ready. Two months training is not enough training? This is implausible. At its core, they're answering the phone, determining the reason for a call and typing information from the call into a computer. They'…
That would be true if you were a sociopath. But those with empathy need to learn to deal with stressful calls, and I imagine that would take some time and effort.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#65Now imagine for a moment 911 line was a private company. People subscribe to it, pay a monthly fee, call it, wait to get through and don't receive help in time. What do you think people would do then? Stop paying and likely file a lawsuit. Good luck doing this with a government.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#66The sensationalism is high in this article. Operators had to record 911 calls with pen and paper I know I work all day on a computer but I wouldn't consider using pen and paper a hindrance.
[deleted]
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#67The sensationalism is high in this article. Operators had to record 911 calls with pen and paper I know I work all day on a computer but I wouldn't consider using pen and paper a hindrance.
Have you ever been in a 911 call center? Many, many, many things are computer driven, not the least of which is interfacing with the various agencies one may have to deal with on a per call basis. Then there's "whose jurisdiction is this"? Kind of hard to determine with pen and paper. Who's dispatched to what? Who's covering which stations now? How many calls are in the queue? The list goes on and on. Having to recor…
And handwriting can be (a) drastically slower and (b) less legible (therefore more prone to mistakes or lost information). In a 911 environment, either of these alone can cost lives. Throw in all of gregd's additional variables, and it would be a nightmare of the sort described in the article.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#68Twitter can handle north of 4k tweets per second on virtually entirely open source software and these morons can't record phone calls. If this is not a glaring example of government mismanagement and waste I don't know what is. Where are the criminal indictments?
Comparing twitter to a 911 call center is like comparing a monochrome display to a 4k display 911 call centers have to interface with many different computer systems (for example the National Criminal Information center, department of motor vehicles, FBI CJIS, in house databases, court records systems, mapping, computer aided dispatch, weather information, etc. Many of these systems (the NCIC, and CJIS have very stri…
Errr, but this one doesn't sound like it's quite that bad, from the OP it's a "find the address and dispatch to fire, police or EMS" system. Only the police system, which is I assume a bigger part of this 2 billion total "upgrade" really needs most of what you've outlined. Doesn't sound like there's anything particularly sensitive in this system, although it's certainly harder than Twitter, which thezach in this subthread tells us is still presenting Fail Whales.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#69Now imagine for a moment 911 line was a private company. People subscribe to it, pay a monthly fee, call it, wait to get through and don't receive help in time. What do you think people would do then? Stop paying and likely file a lawsuit. Good luck doing this with a government.
This would of course tie in with the private police force and private fire service, right? And when the customers stop paying and sue the company into oblivion, who handles the calls? Do you prevent monopolies from forming so no one company becomes responsible for all 911 call traffic? That doesn't sound very libertarian to me. Let's presume we're interfacing with public services here, just for shits and giggles. Wha…
1. When people say "but what about monopolies?" they seem to forget that we do currently have a giant monopoly, which is government, that prohibits others from entering the market by force, not just by market instruments such as predatory pricing (although that's the case too, since it is claimed the price of government services is zero). Even if you disagree with me that monopolies historically never remained monopolies for long without government support, wouldn't you at least agree that a private monopoly is still better than government, because I can still stop paying immediately and not expect men in suits from IRS on my doorstep?
2. Proponents of government services always bring up cases where grandmas or disabled or poor people somehow suffer because they don't have enough money/physical abilities/brains to handle things. I agree those cases exists, but it very often is presented as if half of the society is in someway dysfunctional and requires government help (even if that's indeed the case, we should rightly see this situation as abnormal and fix it, not feed it). But the truth is, in a society there's indeed always a % of people who are dysfunctional. My guess is, it should be no more than 5-10%. Those people can be helped by voluntary donations and charities. Beyond that, we got people who made their choices in life (not buying insurance, eating unhealthy, drunk driving etc.). While I'm not necessarily claiming those people should not be helped when they need it, but the decision to help or not should lie with the body that actually does the job: that is, if a drunk uninsured driver is brought to a hospital, it is up to the charity that sponsors it and the hospital managers or doctors to decide whether to help him or not. By leaving this decision up to the government we simply incentivize all sorts of bad behaviors at the expense of people who have no intention of supporting it.
Re: My hell as a 911 operator
#70Lowest bidder? No one loses their job for someone dying? Sounds like a perfect storm. I'd love to see an itemization for $88 Million and how many vacation homes were bought.
> Lowest bidder? No one loses their job for someone dying?
Government is not as bad as you think. It's worse.
Lowest bidder really causes a lot of problems. My company recently bid for a contract for an EU agency.
We were not chosen, because the winning bid offered senior staff at a rate of 0.1 euro per hour.
The bloody idiots at Government procurement calculated the average as (senior+junior)/2 and awarded the contract to these crooks with the flawed bid as their average was the lowest.
It's not unreasonable to assume they will debit enough extra junior hours to offset the senior time.
I am not even allowed to tell media about this, by contract. I don't think it's a rare event.
Just my €0.02.