An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant • Hacker News Board

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#91

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 6:06 AM UTC

kough wrote: post #55

wingless wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia there have been 6 notable hijackings in the last 5 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#20... There are roughly 100k commercial flights per day, 36m flights per year. Therefore, the probability of your flight being hijacked is 1 in 30 million, which is an absurdly low number. Note that only one of the 6 hijackings resulted in casualties, so the mortality rate even lo…

Most likely due to the TSA's efforts! Can you imagine how many would be hijacked if there weren't a TSA?

Yes. Six, possibly even six and a half, flights every five years.

The low rate of hijacking is due to the scarcity of people interested in doing it, not the difficulty. Same reason your house doesn't get burgled every day.

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#92

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 6:09 AM UTC

nmrm2 wrote: post #22

mikestew wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such an app is widely viewed to be an extremely simple program to write. Writing the app, as anyone who has done any consulting work would know, is often the easiest, least time-intensive part of a project. Anyone saying to themselves, "$47K? I could do it in ten lines of code!" should stick to coding and let the contract procurement folks do their job. (I'm merely the messenger; hate-game disclaimers apply.)

Nail, meet head. That said, 47k still seems crazy high. I've never done Gov't consulting though. One hopes hardware was included in the contract?

> Nail, meet head.

The head is part of the nail. The flat part at the other end from the point. ;)

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#93

Post by NKCSS » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 6:24 AM UTC

Small bug; your code has a small bias for right.

if (random > 0.5) { direction = 'right'; }

1 is not included in Math.Random, so it should be = 0.5 == right.

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#94

Post by calsy » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 8:22 AM UTC

tcfunk wrote: post #29

solomone wrote: post #2

I get that it's trying to be funny, but is it really no longer possible to create a website with a single arrow that doesn't have to pull down all this cruft ? window.jQuery || document.write(' ')

Make a thing responsive, people bitch about how many plugins you're using. Make a thing vanilla, people bitch about how it doesn't work on their phone.

width and floats dont need plugins.

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#95

Post by nmrm2 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #92

nmrm2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nail, meet head. That said, 47k still seems crazy high. I've never done Gov't consulting though. One hopes hardware was included in the contract?

> Nail, meet head. The head is part of the nail. The flat part at the other end from the point. ;)

Yes, well, the hammers are hundreds of dollars a piece so we have to make due ;-)

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#96

Post by rajington » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

bobbles wrote: post #31

rajington wrote: post #8

I actually have a solution that costs exactly $0.01, per employee. It also works on any platform.

What if that platform happens to be a steel grate and you drop the solution?

Hi, I work for the TSA, would you like to do QA for us?

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#97

Post by patio11 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

kough wrote: post #53

pw wrote: post #42

I feel like HN's nerd rage at stuff like this (the TSA expenditure) is the same reason many (if not most) engineers make less than they could. It's a very willful denial of a fact of how the world works (large organizations routinely pay large sums for seemingly very simple work).

Exactly. Where's @patio11 with some contract negotiation advice?

At Microconf, giving it to people running software businesses.

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#98

Post by wwweston » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 1:32 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #84

wwweston wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But it will hurt your career. How will people know if you keep up with modern development techniques?

Does anyone really give a shit that PG (or whoever makes HN now) is still using tables in 2016?

Upvoted.

Not that it makes the problem of being a developer who may need to convince other developers they're a good developer go away. Just that it puts the problem in context and shows a way one might be able to make it go away.

Re: An opensource alternative for the TSA’s $300k line assistant

#99

Post by fleitz » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #98

fleitz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone really give a shit that PG (or whoever makes HN now) is still using tables in 2016?

Upvoted. Not that it makes the problem of being a developer who may need to convince other developers they're a good developer go away. Just that it puts the problem in context and shows a way one might be able to make it go away.

Yeah, I hear you I get funny looks every time I make fun of 'whatever driven development', 'microservices', etc. It works well as I generally dislike working on teams that are just following fads.