91–100 of 219 posts
I thought newspapers were supposed to report facts, and leave opinions to either the op-ed pages, or quotes from sources. Who made Joe Davidson a design critic?
I don't care if 18F makes money, and in some cases it may make sense for them not to. In a perfect market, they would be able to sell their services at the same price as the value of those services. So if they build a system for the Veterans Administration (VA) that saves $1 million, they should get $1 million for it. Their EOY revenue would reflect their value created. But they are actually selling to themselves. Th…
I dont care what hourly rate the VA negotiated under the auspices of "savings". If 18F doesnt deliver, then the investment is worthless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
18F is another money grab. A bunch of SV people said to themselves, here is an easy few years to make money and if nothing comes of it we can say "Ah well start up culture...lol". I never had high hopes of this, it's sad that it was touted as a startup. 99% of start ups fail over the course of 5 years....
If it's a money grab, it's a badly designed one. I interviewed with 18F and would have had to take a pay cut even on a cash basis. (Government salaries are strictly limited by law.) They certainly don't give stock, and (gasp) you have to buy your own meals. So financially it's not a good deal at all.
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.
Government hourly equivalent is also based on a 2087-hr divisor.[2][3]
[1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... [2] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-admi... [3] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-admi...
It is about changing the game not making a profit.
Government software should be all open source (http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto) but it should also be developed using modern best practises - which is what the GDS in U.K., 18F in the US are trying to prove - they are trailblazers, not profit maximisers.
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I don't get your point at all, I'd say the US's ability to project force is worth 19,000x a year more to me than what 18F does.
Why is it that 18f lost ~10 million dollars a year, but the military does not lose 600,000 million dollars a year? Sounds like a double standard to me.
I don't care if 18F makes money, and in some cases it may make sense for them not to. In a perfect market, they would be able to sell their services at the same price as the value of those services. So if they build a system for the Veterans Administration (VA) that saves $1 million, they should get $1 million for it. Their EOY revenue would reflect their value created. But they are actually selling to themselves. Th…
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.
I think it's easy to underestimate how hard it is to ship something on the scale of vets.gov from the outside.
Source: had early talks with the VA to join this project. I didn't, but came away with a lot of respect for the team working on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh. I'm sure google spent millions on their logo change, and it was just a font tweak. Hackernews was gushing. God knows what they spend per week on google doodles. There's no winning here for 18f. Either their sites are archaic disasters and they are criticized for not being up to par with the top tier consumer sites. Or they spend some money to bring them up to par and its "OMG! An $800 toilet seat!"
The difference being, of course, that Google is a massively profitable company that can afford that kind of expense.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/guess-how-long-overnight-succ...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, the issue is whether 18F is more effective than other means and accurate accounting is important to that end. Let's say that the VA gets bids to create a new system for something. 18F says they can do it for $900k and ContractorX says they can do it for $1M. 18F gets the contract and produces a system that cost the VA $900k. Let's say the system cost taxpayers an additional $1M that isn't billed to the VA…
"Let's say that the VA gets bids to create a new system for something. 18F says they can do it for $900k and ContractorX says they can do it for $1M. 18F gets the contract and produces a system that cost the VA $900k. Let's say the system cost taxpayers an additional $1M that isn't billed to the VA. That means that taxpayers are out $1.9M rather than $1M going with ContractorX." If the government is paying itself $90…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, the issue is whether 18F is more effective than other means and accurate accounting is important to that end. Let's say that the VA gets bids to create a new system for something. 18F says they can do it for $900k and ContractorX says they can do it for $1M. 18F gets the contract and produces a system that cost the VA $900k. Let's say the system cost taxpayers an additional $1M that isn't billed to the VA…
"Let's say that the VA gets bids to create a new system for something. 18F says they can do it for $900k and ContractorX says they can do it for $1M. 18F gets the contract and produces a system that cost the VA $900k. Let's say the system cost taxpayers an additional $1M that isn't billed to the VA. That means that taxpayers are out $1.9M rather than $1M going with ContractorX." If the government is paying itself $90…