1 i choose to opt out......

2 weekends? the feds working on a weekend?

3 But how will Karmel  Allison get her free diabetes medication in the meantime???

4 Who is this mysterious 'guest blogger'?

5 & people were upset about a shutdown?

6 Man-Month is a great book. I'm not sure I subscribe to the idea that the problems will get worse, but it certainly will not get better any time soon.

Frankly they should have set up a call center and hired a bunch of nerdowells to answer the phones/sign people up. Its jobs for the middle class!!!1

7 Guest blogger. You forgot to add your nom.

8 "The Obama administration Sunday said itÂ’s called on 'the best and brightest' tech experts from both government and the private sector to help fix the troubled website at the root of the Obamacare enrollment problems."

Of course, for people with historical memories which last longer than fifteen minutes, the phrase "the best and the brightest" recalls an earlier era, when another Democratic administration put who they called "the best and the brightest" in charge of Vietnam policy. That didn't work out particularly well.

9 And, re the Kasie Hunt tweet.... this is MONDAY!

10 So didn't they just admit that the 'best and brightest' didn't work on it to begin with....and wasn't it rumored that because they are so anally secretive, they chose people to work on it from inside the campaign?

11 Guest, need to put your name in a bracket at the end of the title.

12 "Top Men". Good, maybe by the time the team is assembled, the government will be in another shutdown, and nothing will happen until the middle of next year.

13 I actually got through quickly when I called...but was just as quickly disconnected.

14 "The Obama administration Sunday said itÂ’s called on 'the best and brightest' tech experts from both government and the private sector to help fix the troubled website at the root of the Obamacare enrollment problems." *** They shoulda friggin called on them to write it in the first place. $300M to write this POS. Now, how much to fix it?

15 You mean to tell me that the federal govt has utterly failed at a service that the private sector offers daily? The devil you say.

16
So the blog has become self-aware.....

17

The two basic ideas behind Brooks’s Law are (1) the new people have to come up to speed on the project, and (2) you’ve just added an exponential number of new possible communication channels — from (N^(2)-N)/2 to ((N+M)^(2)-(N+M)/2, where ‘M’ is the number of new people added.

Translation: the problems are about to get worse, not better.

 

 

--------------------------------------------

 

 

Breaker breaker, Rubber Ducky!  Looks like we got  a confab!

18 They shoulda friggin called on them to write it in the first place. $300M to write this POS. Now, how much to fix it? Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at October 21, 2013 02:06 PM (DmNpO) Never enough time/money to do it right the first time, but there's always enough time/money to do it again.

19 Must've accidentally hit the guest blogger login button. It's been that kind of day so far.

20 "$300M to write this POS. Now, how much to fix it? Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at October 21, 2013 02:06 PM"


As far as the government is concerned, this is a feature, not a bug.

21 YAY for big government!

22

So Obama urged people to call the 800 number which was busy and had someone gotten through the person on the other end has to use the same website that is so crappy?? 

Why is it that EVERYTHING this man touches turns to crap?  I think the woman fainted at his presser due to the weight of his crap slinging.

23 Can't they just find a stooge to blame it all on, then have a staged, public execution of said stooge? Stalin woulda did that shit.

24 Translation: the problems are about to get worse, not better. I need to call my doctor. This schadenboner has lasted #threeweeks.

25 2 weekends? the feds working on a weekend?

Posted by: phoenixgirl @phxazgrl at October 21, 2013 02:02 PM (8JJ6O)

 

No kidding.  I had to go to the Social Security office a few years ago to get a new card.  What did I notice?  They were not even open for 8 hours a day, and they were only open 4 days a week.  And you know, the time when most people that work that have to go there would be around lunch time.  Which is when all but one of them was going on lunch.

26

They figured they were only going to have to provide insurance for the smidgen of the populace without coverage, since Bamster said they could keep their coverage and whatnot. Worse, I think they still believe that.

27 The lessons in Brooks' book date back to the mid 1960's too.  Much of what he recounts was learned the hard way while IBM was getting the new 360 line of machines and its operating system out the door.

The lessons are almost 50 years old, yet every new generation of techies and management seems compelled to relearn them the hard way.

28 "$300M to write this POS. Now, how much to fix it?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at October 21, 2013 02:06 PM"

I heard it was $640 million.  But what I also heard on Mark Steyn's filling in for Rush is that noncompliance -- or simply paying the fine -- will be a felony and damage your credit rating.

29 Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.  /sarc

You own this, Obama. The next few months will be a continuing slow-motion crash. Just wish the GOP would take the opportunity to blast him for this.

30 Guest blogger. You forgot to add your nom. Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at October 21, 2013 02:04 PM (DmNpO) It's like our own little version of secret santa.

31 I consider myself luck that I get to keep my old plan. It  just doubled in cost and decreased coverage.

32 Comrades CNN has truly outdone itself with this story about the 4 top complaints about ObamaCare:



Several readers with employer-sponsored insurance say their premiums are going up for 2014, and blaming Obamacare.

It's true that health reform is contributing to higher premiums and plan changes. But Obamacare, which is imposing new fees on companies and insurers starting in 2014, is not the driving factor, experts say. Health care costs are rising because the economy is improving so people are going to the doctor more.





An improving economy equals more doctor visits equals rising healthcare costs. That even making heads spin at Minitrue

33 The problem isn't so much the website per se but that it's interfacing with clunky technology that works well for what it's supposed to do but is closer to a ten key adding machine than the modern languages on the website.

34 Of course, for people with historical memories which last longer than fifteen minutes, the phrase "the best and the brightest" recalls an earlier era, when another Democratic administration put who they called "the best and the brightest" in charge of Vietnam policy. That didn't work out particularly well.

Posted by: torquewrench at October 21, 2013 02:04 PM (gqT4g)

 

 

-----------------------------------------

 

 

Ah, yes.  The McNamara gang, headed up by their fearless micro-leader LBJ.

35 or simply paying the fine -- will be a felony and damage your credit rating.

I don't believe that.  I read the law, all of it, a couple of years ago, and saw no such wording.

Cite the section

36 25 No kidding. I had to go to the Social Security office a few years ago to get a new card. What did I notice? They were not even open for 8 hours a day, and they were only open 4 days a week. And you know, the time when most people that work that have to go there would be around lunch time. Which is when all but one of them was going on lunch.

Posted by: buzzion at October 21, 2013 02:08 PM (LI48c)

Did you know you can do all of that over the internet and over the phone?  I signed up to draw SS this year all over the internet.

37 It's me, guys. I am the guest blogger. Serious

38 I am never buying into this. It occurs to me that the DOD would probably have access to people who could make this turd work.

39 Just wish the GOP would take the opportunity to blast him for this.

Posted by: Lizzy at October 21, 2013 02:09 PM (JRmiD)

 

They're busy focusing on the what they really care about and who is a threat to them.  Holding onto their power and Ted Cruz.

40 Cite the section

Posted by: Purp at October 21, 2013 02:11 PM (l5zzX)

As I said, I heard Mark Steyn make this claim, but no one said it with any certainty.

41 I can hold my price increase on my old plan to "only" 30% by upping the co-pay from 80-20 to 60-40 ($5K deductible on both).  Great.  But at least I don't have to provide all my personal info to Obama-vetted temps.

42 The lessons are almost 50 years old, yet every new generation of techies and management seems compelled to relearn them the hard way. I think this is generally true, but everyone who went through my CS program was required to read The Mythical Man Month.

43 You own this, Obama. The next few months will be a continuing slow-motion crash. Just wish the GOP would take the opportunity to blast him for this.

Posted by: Lizzy

 

A few have such as Cruz, Lee, Paul.  The rest of the Old GOP just sit around and pubicly criticize them.  McCain, McConnell, King, etc. are worse than worthless, they seem to actively go against these true conservatives feeding power to the left.

44 > But what I also heard on Mark Steyn's filling in for Rush is that noncompliance -- or simply paying the fine -- will be a felony and damage your credit rating.

Well that will be awesome, since being a felon blocks you from firearms ownership and in most places makes you unable to vote.

45 Well, at least his campaign cronies got a piece of the action so it's not all bad, right?

46 Exactly, Andy.. throwing new people at a project never does you any good.

They need to actually cut the number of people with hands on on this project and get some expert analysts to look at where they went wrong in design.. then design a path to fixing it.. then you can start thinking about coding.

What a clusterf*ck...

47 Did you know you can do all of that over the internet and over the phone? I signed up to draw SS this year all over the internet.

Posted by: Vic at October 21, 2013 02:11 PM (zZbNF)

 

This was to get a new card.  And I don't think they were doing the internet sign ups at the time.

48  I consider myself luck that I get to keep my old plan. It just doubled in cost and decreased coverage.

Posted by: Vic at October 21, 2013 02:10 PM (zZbNF)

 

 

---------------------------------------------------

 

 

Yup.  My co-pay remains basically the same, but  the premiums that I'm paying went up 125%  and  the deductable went from $500 to $2000.

 

Thank you, Ocare. 

49 "The two basic ideas behind Brooks’s Law are (1) the new people have to come up to speed on the project, and (2) you’ve just added an exponential number of new possible communication channels — from (N^(2)-N)/2 to ((N+M)^(2)-(N+M)/2, where ‘M’ is the number of new people added."

The corollary to this is at the other end of the spectrum. To wit, that the fewer people you have on a project, the more efficient internal processes and communications then become.

The legendary Kelly Johnson of Lockheed, who developed stunning technological breakthroughs such as the SR-71 Blackbird in total secrecy, on time and on budget, did so with what he termed a "skunk works" engineering team.

Johnson in later life published a brief set of rules for successfully managing a Skunk Works. Including this:

"The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems)."

Of course, such management methods run completely counter to the way that things are done in contemporary Washington, D.C.

Inside the Beltway, the natural incentive is to increase headcount as much as possible, to then be able to argue that the program is "major" in size and not to be casually trifled with at budget time. More snouts in the trough mean more support.

And, the federal diversity _zampolits_ insist that all development teams must tick every box on a long demographic list. Don't need a transgendered Albanian? You get to hire one anyway and have them in every planning meeting.

Oh, you've been given some people who are not "good people" per Skunk Works rules, i.e., not technically competent? They're unfireable, like everyone else in the federal monolith. Make do as best you can with them.

50 obie, "web site doesn't work, try the phone, phone doesn't work, try the US postal service,  postal service doesn't work, it's Bushes' fault or something.

51 #36 To get a replacement card you have to go in person; at least you used to and I'm sure with the crackdown on identity theft they aren't likely to loosen that. Then again...

52 no no no! I heard it too - Mark Steyn was incredibly dubious - that was a CALLER claiming that! and he sounded kind of dim so, no! not Mark Steyn!!! just a caller Mark was like ? ? WTF?!?

53 I heard it was $640 million. But what I also heard on Mark Steyn's filling in for Rush is that noncompliance -- or simply paying the fine -- will be a felony and damage your credit rating. **** Who the hell knows how much it cost at this point.?\ First, it was $640 million, hundreds of millions above the quoted rate of $90+M. The argument being that the Obamacare system cost less than $100M and all the rest of the spend to the contractor, another 113 contracts, were for other work. Then they acquiesced that closer to $300M had been spent on Obamacare. If they keep it up, we'll eventually be back to the full $600+M being for this one system.

54 I am praying these idiots will torpedo Zerocare without us needing to lift a finger. They will all be looking to shift blame, cover their asses, protect their territory. Heh. Result: total clusterfuck. Perfect.

55 So to recap what we've recently learned:

"Non-essential" federal employees (such as EPA*) left hanging by government shutdown = the worst thing ever/Republican hostage-taking. Give them muffins and a raise, stat!

Regular citizens, including some of our poorest left hanging by government screw-up (seriously, call back next week!?!?!?) = a system with a few minor glitches that actually exceeds some expectations. Let them hang but still threaten IRS action if they can't get healthcare in time.

56 Somehow, someway, the Republicans hacked this site by sheer mental telepathy and force fields. You could not plan this grand entrance into Obamacare any better than this untested mess. I hope it lasts through next year and is a big, big issue for 2014. You own this Baroque and Dems. It is your "signature" bill and it is working out very well. Thanks!

57 Miracle of miracles, I actually got through and wasn't disconnected. She couldn't find my account online, but did offer to send me a paper application. Estimated delivery date? November 11.

58 Health care costs are rising because the economy is improving so people
are going to the doctor more.

...going to the REMAINING doctors more...

If you look at the Daily Job cuts web site regularly, its clear that there's a massive jobs bloodbath going on all over the country in medical services. 

Ogabecare makes hospitals more quality rather than volume oriented via fines and penalties for re-admissions, so naturally any staff there to handle volume is going to be shed.

59

>>But what I also heard on Mark Steyn's filling in for Rush is that
noncompliance -- or simply paying the fine -- will be a felony and
damage your credit rating.
.

.

.That's not true, well at least for now.  I do not know where that rumor is coming from.

60 Posted by: John the Libertarian at October 21, 2013 02:09 PM (/rhjC) Steyn's on fire.

61 It's like our own little version of secret santa. *** Yes it is.

62 All  the  calls  to  the  800  number  are  answered  by  Rachel  Manatee   Jeantel.  "That's  retarded  sir."

63 Aaaaannnnndddd, it starts.  FNC reporting on how popular Hildebeast is.

64 They had three years to get their shit together and all they did was screw this up worse than a primate fornicating with a football... and now they want you to use your Obamaphome to call in and get help???  

This is just another albatross that will be hanging around his neck when he's out of the White House... but his followers will look at it as another one of his "crowning achievements".

65 Of course, for people with historical memories which last longer than fifteen minutes, the phrase "the best and the brightest" recalls an earlier era, when another Democratic administration put who they called "the best and the brightest" in charge of Vietnam policy. That didn't work out particularly well. Posted by: torquewrench at October 21, 2013 02:04 PM (gqT4g) I would suggest that historically "geniuses" over think things and end up making a muck of it. The "wunderkind" screw things up in ways that would not have occurred under "dumb" leadership.

66 As I said, I heard Mark Steyn make this claim,

I don't even believe that.

67 So, was 1-800-382-5968 already taken?

68 Today Zuckenburge's face book is suffering from a case of Munchausen Syndrome.

69 Paying the fine has no penalty. That's the problem, it's just another Roberts' tax. It's far too easy to suck up and pay it than to try to enroll, especially if you    are young and healthy.

70 You can get a replacement card by mailing in an application which you can print from their internet site.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/ssnumber/

71 That's not true, well at least for now. I do not know where that rumor is coming from.

Posted by: Registered Voter at October 21, 2013 02:17 PM (xqjwP)

 

 

--------------------------------------------

 

 

That's a rumor that could catch fire.  I say let's stoke it.

72 I am never buying into this. It occurs to me that the DOD would probably have access to people who could make this turd work. Posted by: Guest Commenter
.........
doubt it.. DOD doesn't do high-volume transaction oriented web sites..

I would look to someone like Amazon or Zappos or one of the other really big web presences.

What killed these idiots is forcing (late in the game) the user to register and give their personal info so the pages could calculate their subsidy into the jacked-up prices for premiums.

That means NO static web pages to simply present the info.. that woulda been a snap.

But now, each page is dynamic, calculating costs for that individual..  a nightmare with that volume.. not impossible.. but it shoulda been designed from the start with that feature.  There are a dozen different ways you could present those calculated totals, and they probably chose the most inefficient one.

73

Go to a 404Care web site that doesn't work, where you are then directed to call  a 1-800 number that doesn't work, where you are  then directed back to the 404Care site that doesn't work...

 

repeat until you    become an Obamabot.

74 Best and brightest in DC is like the dregs of special ed elsewhere. Get primed for fucktard II.

75 It's me, guys. I am the guest blogger. Serious

Posted by: Meghan McCain

Needs more "youknow", "um",  like",  and "really"  to be believable.

GNOME I SAYIN'?

76

"Number 267543.  Number 267543."

*chews gum, blows bubble, fiddles with SEIU badge on necklace*

"Number 267543. Next window."

77 "Somehow, someway, the Republicans hacked this site by sheer mental telepathy and force fields."

Emanations and penumbras?

78 I think I have figured out the problem.  No one took into account how slow unicorns can type code using their horn, so we need to surge more unicorns onto the project to compensate.

79 When you try to file an appeal to the death panel decision, you are redirected to HealthCare.gov.

80 You own this, Obama. The next few months will be a continuing slow-motion crash. Just wish the GOP would take the opportunity to blast him for this. Posted by: Lizzy at October 21, 2013 02:09 PM (JRmiD) Can't effectively bash him while the other party holds all the microphones.

81 why are progs who won't shut up "activists" like their opinion is  something  holy, but conservatives are terrorists

82

If you liked Medicare Part D, wait until you see Obamacare Part D:

 

Part A-  Log in to Healthcare.gov website

 

Part B-  Call in to phone bank service center

 

Part C-  Request a paper application by mail

 

Part D-  Put message in bottle, throw into the ocean, wait patiently.

83

The HealthCare.gov website directed me to call 1-800-867-5309 and to ask for Jenny.

84 >>68 So, was 1-800-382-5968 already taken? Posted by: Mindy at October 21, 2013 02:19 PM (ZrNcx) Answering my own question: Yes, belongs to a sex hotline.

85 80 They could switch to cows. Cows have twice as many horns.

86 I think this is generally true, but everyone who went through my CS program was required to read The Mythical Man Month.

In my experience (I've programmed some very well-known software for 20 years) techies understand and believe TMMM fine.  It's management who think that if I'm doing great work in time X, then adding 3 people will produce the same great work in time X/4.  They probably also believe that 9 women can have a fully-grown baby a month after conception.

87
*points at obamacare website*

Ha Ha!

88 I made a graph of the healthcare.gov call success rate vs. time. It's a hockey stick. Upside down.

89

the idea is of course older than that.

 

Shortcuts make for long delays.

90

seriously

 

I have never met a prog who did not describe themselves as an activist, even if their "activism" was confined to ruining family gatherings

91

With customer service like this, they are going to lose all of their customers to a competitor.

 

Oh, I see.

92 Endeavor to persevere.

93 Translation: the problems are about to get worse, not better. Single payer!!! SINGLE PAYER!!! SINGLE PAYER!!!!!

94 88 80 They could switch to cows. Cows have twice as many horns. Posted by: Guest Commenter at October 21, 2013 02:23 PM (ujMoa Yeah, but cows have an attitude problem.

95 "The lessons are almost 50 years old, yet every new generation of techies and management seems compelled to relearn them the hard way.

Posted by: Purp at October 21, 2013 02:09 PM (l5zzX)"

I think that it is more like - in every generation there are some people who are so arrogant that they refuse to learn from the experience of others and demand to make the same mistakes for themselves.

96 John McAffee, you're our only hope.

97 You may recall the claim that the system is screwed up because the programmers did not get a look at the specs until this Spring. The bozos in charge have denied this, but that just makes it worse. Because they are now bringing in the Best and the Brightest to fix it all. Which means that tBatB are getting their first look at the specs today. Got to it, fellows, it's only a couple million lines of code, and 200,000 pages of internally contradictory specifications.

I expect to enjoy this farce, although I would enjoy it more if it were happening in someone else's country.

98 This failure of the Obamacare website is a searing indictment of capitalism.

99 I was involved with a couple of Skunkworks style projects at IBM and made significant contributions to both. 

Both were fabulously successful and very inexpensive compared to normal projects.  Their performance in the market way outstripped the modest development costs.

Both started out as "off book" employee instigated guerrilla efforts and stayed that way for several months until it was painfully obvious they were producing results far in excess of the staff working on them.  Of course, once it was clear these were gonna be winners, all the droids wanted in on them

100 1 i choose to opt out...... Posted by: phoenixgirl @phxazgrl at October 21, 2013 02:01 PM (8JJ6O) Did you hear the Rush caller with the federal Medicare employee opinion that those who opt out are felons, 'splaining it to Mark Steyn last half hour?

101

Translation: the problems are about to get worse, not better.

 

Good.  Fuck them all in the squeakhole.

 

And by the way, can we stop calling this the ACA?  It's Obamacare.  It's what the dog-eating crackhead jammed down our throats, so we should rub it in the faces of every one of his LIV jackholes.

102 How the tax penalty works

Your tax penalty (shared responsibility fee) for not having insurance is paid on your taxes at the end of the year. If your taxable income is below 133% of the FPL you are exempt from this tax.

2014 = $95 per person per year or 1% of your Income
2015 = $325 per person per year or 2% of your Income
2016 = $695 per person per year or 2.5% of your Income
2017 = Tax Penalty will increase by the rate of inflation going forward, or 2.5% of your Income

• The penalty is based on modified adjusted gross income.

• The total penalty for the taxable year cannot exceed the national average of the annual premiums of a bronze-level health insurance plan offered through the health insurance marketplaces.

• The maximum penalty per family is capped at no more than 300% of the minimum penalty (e.g. $695 x 300% = $2,085)

• Children under 18 are assessed at 50% of the minimum penalty.

• The penalty is pro-rated for the number of months you are without health insurance, though there is no penalty for a single gap in coverage of less than 3 months in a year.

• Health insurance plans will provide proof of coverage for their customers so as long as you have health insurance you don't have to worry about the details.

So if you make $70K/year your penalty is $700 for 2014 but it goes up after that greatly.

103 Guest Blogger Catchy nic...

104 Yes, but these will be the real Top Men. Reasons, see?

105 If the exchanges have subsides you still don't get a reacharound from the unseen hand.

106 102 Got to it, fellows, it's only a couple million lines of code, and 200,000 pages of internally contradictory specifications.

Not to mention "produced by 55 different contractors."

107

>>>I called the Atlanta Braves ticket line on October 1st:

"Baseball season is over. Check back in April. Good bye."<<<

 

 

 

 

 

I got the same message calling the Chicago Cubs ticket line in August.

108 I think my fellow Republicans need to tone it down.

109 And it is not a "felony", it is a "tax".

110 Sad to see that this amateur website has better logistics control and system correction protocols than a 1/3 BILLION dollar gov't website. :\

111

108 How the tax penalty works

 

Do you really think the tax penalty will continue once Mr. Sensitive is gone? These are politicians who are in business to make their electorate happy. They are going to tell their citizens they must be punished?

112 How many people in charge of healthcare.gov are former executives of Solyndra? heh.

113 Paying the fine has no penalty. That's the problem, it's just another Roberts' tax. It's far too easy to suck up and pay it than to try to enroll, especially if you are young and healthy. *** But this is a short-lived solution. In 2014, the penalty is only $95 or 1% of income, whichever is greater. In 2015 it rises to $325 or 2% of income In 2106 is rises again to $695 or 2.5% of income. These penalties, in themselves, are not necessarily cost-prohibitive but.... Those individuals without insurance, who seek out medical care at an E.R. will also have restricted access to care. Obamacare law requires that all non-profit hospitals submit justification for their charity work or face huge fines and loss of their non-profit status. The reason for this new more strict law is to prevent those who refuse insurance from gaming the system. The bastards have thought of everything except for its eventual collapse. Oh wait! Single payer.

114 Obama just announced that he is hiring the Pixy software team to fix the healthcare website.

115 How many people in charge of healthcare.gov are former executives of Solyndra? heh. Or Enron advisers. I'm looking at you, Krugman. *ooh, what a face!*

116 The powers that be might want to really, really re-think screwing the public. Person "A" develops a medical condition. Can't get help. Condition turns terminal. "A" has nothing left to lose. "A" take a bunch of .gov workers with him... Can't happen? IRS office in Austin. Cessna...

117

>>>I called the Atlanta Braves ticket line on October 1st:

"Baseball season is over. Check back in April. Good bye."<<<

 

 

I got the same message calling the Chicago Cubs ticket line in August.
Posted by: Roy at October 21, 2013 02:29 PM (VndSC)

 

*****

 

ditto,   Colorado   Rockies, May 16th

118 115 And it is not a "felony", it is a "tax". Posted by: Vic at October 21, 2013 02:29 PM (zZbNF) I'm cool. Justice Roberts promised he would cover the bill for me. It's in writing. I have it around here someplace.

119 bahahahahahahaha...[deep breath] bahahahahahaha

120

Obama just announced that he is hiring the Pixy software team to fix the healthcare website.

 

#twoweeks

 

Also, ampersands.

121 Remember the time when Obama smoked a big choom fattie and then dropped an upper decker in the men's room?  It's still there, and now it's petrified.

122 “For me, the real question is not about Fredrickson or Losada or Seligman,” Sokal says. “It’s about the whole community. Why is it that no one before Nick—and I mean Nick was a first semester part-time Master’s student, at, let’s be honest, a fairly obscure university in London who has no particular training in mathematics—why is it that no one realized this stuff was bullshit? Where were all the supposed experts?”

“Is it really true that no one saw through this,” he asks, “in an article that was cited 350 times, in a field which touts itself as being so scientific?”

123 The powers that be might want to really, really re-think screwing the public. Person "A" develops a medical condition. Can't get help. Condition turns terminal. "A" has nothing left to lose. "A" take a bunch of .gov workers with him... Can't happen? IRS office in Austin. Cessna... Fat lot that did. Guy killed himself, one IRS guy, and injured 13 or 14. The IRS then went on to spend something like 40 million to fix the building and update security.

124 How do you sell something on ebay?

125

"Phoning it in?"

 

It's more like "phoning the czar."

126 The classic sequence of events under weak executives is this:

(a) Weak executive picks a team of incompetent yes-men subordinates.

(b) Weak executive comes up with a silly, overcomplicated plan.

(c) Incompetent subordinates accept plan because they're too dumb to realize it isn't actually feasible to implement.

(d) Plan fails.

(e) Weak executive bitterly blames subordinates instead of blaming the root cause, because the actual root cause is of course the weak executive himself.

(f) Subordinates are ceremonially scapegoated and fired, leaving weak executive in place. Weak executive hires a new set of incompetent subordinates and comes up with another incomprehensible, unimplementable plan. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The Obamacare fustercluck has now progressed to stage (e). I figure we are going to see the scapegoating ceremonial firings soon. It's going to be VERY interesting if and when those fired people start talking.

We may see the underlings get spirited away into quiet sinecures elsewhere in the bowels of the institutional left. Giving them a comfortable exit route in exchange for their silence. But if they don't get with the plan and if they fail to clam up, oh boy, that will be fun.

127

>>Yeah, but cows have an attitude problem.

.

.Not those happy California cows.  I used to see them on the TV all the time, so they have plenty of time on their hands now..

128 Remember the time when Obama smoked a big choom fattie and then dropped an upper decker in the men's room? It's still there, and now it's petrified. It's now the second most holy site in Journalism. Columbia J School being the first.

129 TeaBaggers went to the HealthCare.gov site and crashed it with ampersands. Did the same w/ the 1-800 Line - kept pushing the ampersand button. Racist TeaBaggers did this.

130 Obama just announced that he is hiring the Pixy software team to fix the healthcare website. A back door would be nice...

131 @RepJeffDuncan

Breaking: HHS Secretary Sebelius to testify before a congressional panel on #Obamacare #PJNET


"What difference, at this point, does it make!!! SQUAAAAWK!!"

132 Phoning it in is how I like my sex.

133 Subordinates are ceremonially scapegoated and fired, leaving weak executive in place. Weak executive hires a new set of incompetent subordinates and comes up with another incomprehensible, unimplementable plan. Lather, rinse, repeat. Cubs management hate you for this. Mariners too.

134
It was pretty easy to see this coming if you recall all those fake solar company bankruptcies that were just payoffs to these corrupt bastard's friends.

Same with the website.

135

I come across Brooks Law when dealing with my defense attorneys.    Law firms that deal in Workers Compensation law find that they have  more than  usual turnover because its kind of  the entry level of law practice  or that the file can be handed off frequently between attorneys in the firm.   

 

As such,  some try to sneak  in billing for review of the file  when it touches new hands.   Unless its  unusual circumstances ,  I don't pay for that.  

136 Funny...the trolls seem to be silent. Wonder why?

137 AtC, finally got around to watching Dale and Tucker last night. Gorier than I was expecting, but I liked it. Wife did too.

138 "I read somewhere that there's also an option for them to take your information and mail you a paper form, but that it takes several weeks to arrive..."
-------
I spoke to an Obamacare service rep, and I think the process of getting prices takes several weeks.  At best, mind you.

They send you an app, or you download it, and you fill it out, mail it in.  They submit to the insurance companies, and then send you back pricing info.  Including, the rep said, your subsidy level, if applicable.

I seriously doubt that time estimate takes into account mailing delays, processing delays, etc.  It also assumes a clean app right from the start, which isn't going to happen very often.  I have no idea how they think they'll deal with defective applications.  Usually you have an insurance agent to keep on top of stuff like this, but that's obviously not going to happen with self-service apps.  I think the answer is that they have to answer for defective applications.

Also, an under-reported problem with the online process: when you complete the app online, the last thing that has to happen is that the website verifies your identity.  I completed the application, but the ID-verification failed.

I called in, and the rep got a conference call with Experian, which is providing the ID-verification service.  The Experian rep said they couldn't verify my ID because they *hadn't received the request from Healtchare.gov*.  She went on to say the Experian wasn't receiving files in almost every case.

This makes me think that the number of people who have successfully seen pricing, let alone enrolled, is exceptionally low.

139 >>Which means that tBatB are getting their first look at the specs today. Got to it, fellows, it's only a couple million lines of code, and 200,000 pages of internally contradictory specifications.


Wanna bet they haven't kept their design docs, test plans, etc. up to date because they were too busy implementing last minute changes? Those "best and brightest" are going to waste A LOT of time trying to figure out what's been done before they start to fix.

140 Oh, you'll definitely get your backdooring with this administration

141 Cubs management hate you for this. Mariners too. Posted by: bonhomme at October 21, 2013 02:36 PM (sByIH) You forgot the Browns.

142 Brooks' law – "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." Named after Fred Brooks, author of the well known book on project management The Mythical Man-Month.

143

The classic sequence of events under weak executives is this:

(a) Weak executive picks a team of incompetent yes-men subordinates.

 

Alternate: Underlings, "This is bullshit."

 

Yes-Men Subordinates, "This promotes growth and should be good."

 

You know the rest of the story.

144 115. "It is" I know well enough what I think it is. Contagious bloody shit. Obama, a fee Roberts, a tax Congress, the law of the land Bureaucrats, a federal law "so" offenders are felons. ...While you go figure how authoritarian bureaucrats jumped to their conclusion, some pumped up IRS agent decides to make an example of you. As if you would get your day in court. Not before you're ruined.

145 Hey it's only your health and you all are going to die anyway

146 Anyone who's worked on software projects knows you can't just throw manpower at the problem.

147 Oops. Just noticed there's a missing closing parenthesis in the quote from Webster. Would have expected half a dozen of you to have jumped on that by now. C'mon, guys, you're letting me down. Also, torquewrench is dead-on in his compare-and-contrast with skunkwords. Most large IT project would improve tremendously if you cut the # of developers in half (assuming to cut the right ones) and doubled the number of QA engineers. ..fritzworth..

148 Anyone with half a clue about the private sector and IT knows that you don't solve problems by bringing in "industry leaders" to semi-engineer by committee.  I say semi-engineer because it's not ckufing likely that those "best and brightest" are actually bringing the people who know how to do the job with them.

There's a right way to do this and it involves a LOT of egg on Obama's face.  Which is why they won't do the right thing.

149 Read the Daniel Hannan essay in the sidebar, if you ain't already done so


Rock your world, it will:  Confirm what you thought you knew, and more


and yeah, I yada yada yada-ed Obamacare.  So should we all

150 First thing  they should  have done with this rollout is separate it into stages.    Its so obvious that even the DMV does this. 

151 (f) Subordinates are ceremonially scapegoated and fired, leaving weak executive in place. Weak executive hires a new set of incompetent subordinates and comes up with another incomprehensible, unimplementable plan. Lather, rinse, repeat. In any company worth its salt, that would only happen twice at the most, whereupon the weak executive likely gets the boot after fuckup #2. Of course, any company worth its salt will screen their applicants carefully in order to weed out the weakies...

152 After it was a tax it was re-named a "shared responsibility payment" by IRS.

It's whatever they want it to be, peons!

153 I was gonna mention the 'mythical man month' this morning but thought it too esoteric. I am often pleasantly surprised by morons.

154 155 Anyone who's worked on software projects knows you can't just throw manpower at the problem. Posted by: Flatbush Joe at October 21, 2013 02:40 PM (ZPrif) That's true of every type of project to some degree. Construction industry. I've had people screaming "We have to be finished by X date! Send more men!!!" Trying to explain the law of diminishing returns is met with dumbfounded silence and then continued screaming at the next octave up.

155 Of course "bringing in the best and brightest" right from the fucking start never occurred to the Lightbringer.

156

Stages and specific categories of people. 

157 From wiki: According to Brooks himself, the law is an "outrageous oversimplification",[1] but it captures the general rule. Brooks points to two main factors that explain why it works this way: 1) It takes some time for the people added to a project to become productive. Brooks calls this the "ramp up" time. Software projects are complex engineering endeavors, and new workers on the project must first become educated about the work that has preceded them; this education requires diverting resources already working on the project, temporarily diminishing their productivity while the new workers are not yet contributing meaningfully. Each new worker also needs to integrate with a team composed of multiple engineers who must educate the new worker in their area of expertise in the code base, day by day. In addition to reducing the contribution of experienced workers (because of the need to train), new workers may even have negative contributions – for example, if they introduce bugs that move the project further from completion. 2) Communication overheads increase as the number of people increases. The number of different communication channels increases rapidly with the number of people.[2] Everyone working on the same task needs to keep in sync, so as more people are added they spend more time trying to find out what everyone else is doing.

158 31 I consider myself luck that I get to keep my old plan. It just doubled in cost and decreased coverage.

Posted by: Vic at October 21, 2013 02:10 PM (zZbNF)

 

Which, of course, means it's not really your old plan, is it?

159 HHS Secretary Sebelius to testify before a congressional panel on

William Casey got a fatal brain cancer or something a day or two before he was supposed to spill the beans on Iran-contra...

...these things happen in D.C.

160 The broad who fainted is from San Diego and the idiot flew across country to be a prop?

161 Who says throwing more men at a problem won't make the work faster and easier? -Guy who used to do concrete work and sometimes had to grab people off the street to get the job done before the mix set.

162 Anyone with half a clue about the private sector and IT knows that you don't solve problems by bringing in "industry leaders" to semi-engineer by committee. Are you saying that ''we're from the government and we're here to help'' will not help? see also; spoon, knocked over

163 There's a right way to do this and it involves a LOT of egg on Obama's face.

What Obama likes on his face is definitely not egg.

164 Torquewrench: under caliph Uthman, this exactly how he kept his regime afloat. Hired a bunch of cronies and cousins. Most of the cousins already had military experience, so they didn't do as bad as you'd think. Then he bribed everyone else. And the caliphate ran out of stuff to bribe people with, and some Egyptians went over to Madina to demand their wage. The rest is history. So was caliph Uthman.

165 shared responsibility payment The only word missing in making that full-blown North Korean is "glorious."

166 LOL at America for voting these clowns into office....Laugh so we don't cry.

167 Another project management aphorism: Even if you put nine women on it, you can't make a baby in a month.

168 ------ ""Got to it, fellows, it's only a couple million lines of code, and 200,000 pages of internally contradictory specifications.""

"Wanna bet they haven't kept their design docs, test plans, etc. up to date because they were too busy implementing last minute changes?"

One of the funniest things I can recall is when the University of East Anglia (arch-global-warming-fantasists) had the source code for their computer climate models be leaked.

It was instantly clear upon reading the comments that the in-house software developers (not the climate 'scientists') thought the code base was junk and the underlying data sets were completely unfit for purpose. Scathing language. Oh, and there did not appear to have been any design documentation or version control either.

169 Unfortunately, the "best and brightest" are busy working in the real world at real jobs making money. Obama will have to settle for the "adequate and a bit dimmer" instead.

170 The fainter tweeted "I'm ok world....thanks @Barack Obama for catching me".

The world and especially all of us here in Peruvia are relieved!

171 This makes me think that the number of people who have successfully seen pricing, let alone enrolled, is exceptionally low.
Posted by: Andrew
............
Not only that, but the income level you enter to enroll has not been verified.  How much you wanna bet the income most people enter will be wrong, given the number of "incomes" on a W-2 and/or a 1040 form.

172 ? - Who the heck is this Karmel gal y'all keep referencing?

173 Given the functionality of the website, how many are going to roll the dice and tell the IRS they have coverage to avoid the tax with the expectation the government won't be able to catch everyone/anyone? 

174 Having been a high dollar IT consultant, I would bet a lot on the following. CGI hired the cheapest programmers they could find and then told them to work all the hours they possibly could. It's the old "billable hours" equation. 1000 programmers * $40.00 * 2000 hours is what you paid the coders. 1000 programmers * $200.00 * 2000 hours is what you charged Uncle Sugar.

175 Torquewrench: under caliph Uthman, this exactly how he kept his regime afloat. Hired a bunch of cronies and cousins. Most of the cousins already had military experience, so they didn't do as bad as you'd think. Then he bribed everyone else. Also known as "doing the Chavez."

176 obamacare- the bastard child of 1000 maniacs

177 Obama's priority in the tech field was getting people to reelect Obama. Implementing his grandiose schemes took second place.

178 Years from now there will be books written on this epic failure. I guess this is Obama's best contribution to the private sector.

179 I was gonna mention the 'mythical man month' this morning but thought it too esoteric. I am often pleasantly surprised by morons.

Morons and Moronettes are some of the smartest people I know.  There are references here on a daily basis that your average man on the street will never know.

180 Nine women  can make a baby in a  month!  Fact!!  Proven by geometric logic  and math!!!

181 test plans That reminds me, I forgot to feed the Yeti. BRB

182 ...these things happen in D.C. I'll laugh myself silly if something similar were to happen with Sebelius. A fatal car wreck? Hit by a train? Electrocuted in the shower? The possibilities are endless.

183

the object is not to fix it

 

the object is to "appear" to fix it

 

and then the goal is to fail

 

scrap it

 

single payer baby!!!

184 123. Posted by: rickb223 at October 21, 2013 02:31 PM (KvM9d) No bodies retrieved. The remains of two people should have been produced from that site. The white male pilot and one black male IRS employee. /odd, the news didn't make the story all about a racist neo-confederate pilot targets black tax collector.

185 Who is this new "Andy" fellow?

Can we keep him? He's much better than the old Andy.

186 Translation: the problems are about to get worse, not better. Paging Capt. Obvious, white courtesy phone. Capt. Obvious, white courtesy phone, please.

187 Somewhere Graham Allison wishes he had waited on the whole "Groupthink" example.

188 The smartest people in the room...in a room full of retards apparently.

189 CNN is talking about Eminem, so apparently we're not supposed to notice any of this.  O_o

190 Another useful software engineering concept: The Death March. Wiki again --- In project management, a death march is a project where the members feel it is destined to fail and/or requires a stretch of unsustainable overwork. The general feel of the project reflects that of an actual death march because the members of the project are forced to continue the project by their superiors against their better judgment. The fields whose project management practice first named these related phenomena are software development and software engineering. Other fields have since recognized the same occurrence in their own spheres and have adopted the name. Death marches of the destined-to-fail type usually are a result of unrealistic or overly optimistic expectations in scheduling, feature scope, or both, and often include lack of appropriate documentation or relevant training and outside expertise that would be needed to do the task successfully. The knowledge of the doomed nature of the project weighs heavily on the psyche of its participants, as if they are helplessly watching themselves and their coworkers being forced to torture themselves and march toward death. Often, the death march will involve desperate attempts to right the course of the project by asking team members to work especially grueling hours (14-hour days, 7-day weeks, etc) or by attempting to "throw (enough) bodies at the problem", often causing burnout. Often, the discomfort is heightened by the knowledge that "it didn't have to be this way," that is, that if the company wanted to achieve the goal of the project, it could have done so in a successful way if it had been managed competently (such as by devoting the obviously required resources, including bringing all relevant expertise, technology, or applied science to the task rather than just whatever incomplete knowledge a few employees happened to know already).

191

>>This makes me think that the number of people who have successfully seen pricing, let alone enrolled, is exceptionally low.<<

 

 

 

 

 

I was able to see premiums by plan for my county, but nothing about the co-pay/deductible other than the basic 60/40,  70/30,  ...

The stuff isn't cheap, unless you get a big subsidy.

192 One of the funniest things I can recall is when the University of East Anglia (arch-global-warming-fantasists) had the source code for their computer climate models be leaked.

That is why I get exasperated when I hear techies moan about the doooom of global warming.  Those climate models make Minx look like quality software.

193 The smartest people in the room...a room full of vegetative coma patients.

194 Given the functionality of the website, how many are going to roll the dice and tell the IRS they have coverage to avoid the tax with the expectation the government won't be able to catch everyone/anyone? When my state went to MANDATORY AUTO INSURANCE (or you don't get your registration card and plate sticker) you were REQUIRED to fill out your insurance company and policy number. Having a natural affinity toward not giving a fuck, I'd fill in my auto ins. company name, then make up some number that looked legit. Never a problem.

195  You own this Baroque and Dems. It is your "signature" bill and it is working out very well. Thanks!

Posted by: ChristyBlinky

 

I actually read some lib's claim that the only reason this website has problems is that conservatives were getting on the site to jam it up.  Seriously.

 

196 177 Another project management aphorism: Even if you put nine women on it, you can't make a baby in a month. ---- So THAT'S what they had her up on the stage for! Where were the other eight women?

197

What Obama likes on his face is definitely not egg.

 

Though it is white, runny and full of protein.

198 We're essentially wt this moment: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cl7cxopNjg&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D0Cl7cxopNjg

199 single payer baby!!! neo-revisionist translation: Trash Ponzi insurance industry all together. No more bureaucrats. Doctor atient

200 Your bung hole belongs to me.

201
I am pretty sure they gave different sections of the software to different people, but they didn't have any coordination or testing of how the software worked together.  They're gonna have to start over.

But really, how hard is it to make a website for people to voluntarily give you their most personal information.  The nigerian scammers do it everyday.

202 The broad who fainted is from San Diego and the idiot flew across country to be a prop?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at October 21, 2013 02:43 PM (t3UFN)

*

...And she appeared to be pregnant.

Yeah...she's Obama smart.

203 Can you imagine the craigslist version of this fuckup?


"Successful president seeks software engineers.  (Washington, DC)

You will be working on the best healthcare portal in the world!  You will be in charge of coding and bug testing the customer interface and make sure everyone gets their subsidies they qualify for.

Skills and requirements: 

GED or better in computer science
Democrat voter registration
A "small" donation to your local DNC office


Location:  Washington, DC.
It is not ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests.

204

Posted by: torquewrench at October 21, 2013 02:15 PM (gqT4g)

 

The US Navy has a system the tracks all repairs, for every piece of equipment.... symptoms, what part... and WHO fixed it...

 

I was really bored one cruise and started to run the numbers on my Electronics suite.. (I had access to Spruance Class Destroyer data)....

 

It turned out that 10% of the Techs, FIXED 87% of the Problems....   others were either inefficient, or did paperwork...

 

Up till then, I thought the 90/10 rule was a myth....

 

So at my next command.... I figured out who the 10% were... and used them as trainers for the rest...  end result?  one of the best electronic shops in the fleet...

 

But it only worked because the 10% were picked by Result... not how good their uniform looked....

205 "single payer baby"!!!

Posted by: thunderb at October 21, 2013 02:47 PM (zOTsN)

 

When we finally get the single payer catastrophic, we need to insist on one of the provisions popular with the auto and home insurance markets...

 

Total loss.

 

Give people the option of accepting a check up to certain limits in lieu of the healthcare provider giving treatment, except for pain and comfort.

 

Let the individual decide when it's time to call it quits.

206 205 Given the functionality of the website, how many are going to roll the dice and tell the IRS they have coverage to avoid the tax with the expectation the government won't be able to catch everyone/anyone? When my state went to MANDATORY AUTO INSURANCE (or you don't get your registration card and plate sticker) you were REQUIRED to fill out your insurance company and policy number. Having a natural affinity toward not giving a fuck, I'd fill in my auto ins. company name, then make up some number that looked legit. Never a problem. Posted by: Schrödinger's cat at October 21, 2013 02:49 PM (U2UQk) You have to put your insurance company and policy number on your MA state tax form or you will be fined. Thanks, Mitt.

207

@197 Paging Capt. Obvious, white courtesy phone. Capt. Obvious, white courtesy phone, please.

--------------

 

Racist!

 

208 214. I can fix that.

209 200 Eminem enema

210 My rule of thumb is 2-3 testers for every coder...and you want the test team leads to be better programmers than the development staff...and you don't want QA reporting through a development organization.  They need to be independent of that influence.

Coders can generate bugs much faster than QA can find them.

Unfortunately, most organizations reverse that ratio and suffer the consequences

211 Ah, hire more people.

The tried-n-true government solution. Right after "burn a dump-truck load of money."

212 You forgot the Browns. I always do that. What were we talking about?

213 that will work awesome.  like the school voucher thing!  a check for everybody for everything!  I see how a real conservative works this now

214 I'm sure the Navy has made sure to allocate trainer positions according to Diversity! now instead of these out-moded white, hetero, male, Christian concepts of talent and skill.

215 *...And she appeared to be pregnant.Yeah...she's Obama smart. *engage birther mode* Well from what I've seen Obama's mom flew across the Atlantic in the eight month of her pregnancy. So how dangerous can it be? *disengage birther mode*

216 the obamadeath web sites make Windows 8 looks almost functional

217 218. Put last years policy and number because, according to Chief Dipstick, I could keep it.

218

But it only worked because the 10% were picked by Result... not how good their uniform looked....

 

Results, merit, actual job performance: I'll take "What are three things Washington DC knows  nothing about for  $1000,  Alex."

219 I've got a Glitchy Portal doc. What gives?

220 Let the individual decide when it's time to call it quits. Posted by: jwest at October 21, 2013 02:52 PM (u2a4R) The Granny Slayer thirsts!

221 Has anyone successfully navigated to the Death Star and back?

222 and used them as trainers for the rest... end result? one of the best electronic shops in the fleet

Most people don't consciously want to do a shitty job.  Often, they just need to be shown what a good job looks like.

223 So the smartest administration in history, packed full with Ivy league lawyers and "Super smart intellectuals" has created the biggest, most public technology disaster in US government history.
Now DC is littered with big, massive failed tech projects, FAA ATC, and the FBI case management system to name a few - but they never got extensive news coverage.
But thanks to Barry....we get the perfect storm.
People are so gullible, (thanks to the media) Obama was sold was the 'tech savvy" President because he used a blackberry and had a campaign team that created a successful data profiling strategy. (His team used Amazon Web Services to host the infrastructure...not "old tech" or HHS type thinking.)
Man-Month is spot on, lets talk about all the points being missed by journalists who know even less about technology than economics.

1. "data from several data basses": I would bet the number of data sources used by the system is at least a few thousand. So you have all the problems to getting uncorrupted data "from and to" the data hub, the browser and to the insurance company systems. You have issues like taxnomy, master data management, that are complex within a large business, I can't imagine the discovery and coordination required to make this work correctly across that many sources - even with existing standards.

2. "best and brightest" - you won't find them at most SI's or anywhere in government (except at NSA ?) but at google, amazon, games companies or start-ups scattered on the left coast or perhaps Texas. Who will you turn too, will amazon or apple just loan you a bunch of people. No, you will just be shipping more people with the same skill sets, imagine all the meetings to plan more meetings, to discuss what changes need to be made.

3. "Fixing one problem often creates another",  self explanatory to anyone who has worked in software.

4. "Weeks to fix", Definitely not, I would opine that no one really knows how much time and work will be required to fix this. Given the administration is lying through it's teeth and won't share detailed site metrics. nor project plans or detailed documents - we just don't know. So experienced people speculate - and few in tech want to anger Obama & Co.

5. "fixed " ? The ability to support 50,000, 100,000 or 1 million concurrent users ?  How about the ability to provide data accuracy so a user gets correct information to the insurance company ? Is that 50%, 70% or 99.9% of the time.
How about the time, # of sessions required to complete an application.
We could go on, but what is brilliant here is that the MSM can't avoid the results, every log-on, every day is a test of "Obama" and big liberalism's competence.


 



 

224 (800) F1UCKYO Really? Somebody's having them on.

225

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at October 21, 2013 02:45 PM (89oiB)

 

Look for code comments in broken English....

 

Based on the technology used, this was not done by 'American' Programmers...

 

Which is why Sebelius is trying to duck Congress...

226 Often, they just need to be shown what a good job looks like.

Posted by: Purp at October 21, 2013 02:56 PM (l5zzX)

Come over here and I'll tell you a story about a group of people who call themselves "Teamsters."

227

I've got a Glitchy Portal doc.

 

Me, too!

228

@237 (800) F1UCKYO

Really? Somebody's having them on.

-------------

 

I'm not sure which option worries me more - that no one in the Obama administration realized what that number spelled out to?  Or that someone in the Obama administration *did* realize what that number spelled out to.

 

229 Death marches of the destined-to-fail type usually are a result of unrealistic or overly optimistic expectations in scheduling, feature scope, or both, and often include lack of appropriate documentation or relevant training and outside expertise that would be needed to do the task successfully.

Huh.  That's the last 2.5 years of my life.  Next lifetime I'm getting knocked up by a deadbeat and dropping out of high school and living off Uncle Sugar, I swear.

OTOH, the health insurance I get from the death march was "deemed sufficient" and (my portion) of the premium only increased 11% and added on a bunch of co-pays after the deductible was met, so at least I have that.

230 226" that will work awesome. like the school voucher thing! a check for everybody for everything! I see how a real conservative works this now"  

Posted by: thunderb at October 21, 2013 02:54 PM (zOTsN)

 

We spend more now than I proposed with vouchers, so are you saying that the "conservative" approach is to insist that more money be spent using a bureaucracy and unions instead of letting the parents decide?

231 "Wanna bet they haven't kept their design docs, test plans, etc. up to date because they were too busy implementing last minute changes?" True story. Amazon doesn't "do" design docs. The developer is king. If you as a QA don't like what something is doing you have to argue it's a "bad user experience" if it's anything less bad than a crash or loss of data. You can't argue by pointing to a spec. If the developer wants to blow you off they say, "by design" and you can't argue, because the "design" is in the dev's head.

232 207 177 Another project management aphorism: Even if you put nine women on it, you can't make a baby in a month.
----
So THAT'S what they had her up on the stage for! Where were the other eight women?

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at October 21, 2013 02:49 PM (l0lja)

Bill Clinton is "interviewing" them.

233 27 The lessons in Brooks' book date back to the mid 1960's too. Much of what he recounts was learned the hard way while IBM was getting the new 360 line of machines and its operating system out the door.

The lessons are almost 50 years old, yet every new generation of techies and management seems compelled to relearn them the hard way.

Posted by: Purp at October 21, 2013 02:09 PM (l5zzX)

**************************************

I worked with a company that was still using a 360 a few years ago. They employed about a dozen consultants who were all retired from programming jobs to write code, because no one knows how to program a 360 any more, especially if you are pasting lines into code someone else wrote 30 years ago. They hired us as consultants because they thought their problem was that they had too much headcount, which they did, because their SOP for years was to throw bodies at the problem and reconfigure the data manually when the outputs from one program weren't the right data in the right format to be inputs to another program on the 360. A gigantic mess, in other words, not to mention jobs for life for the dwindling number of programmers. Our recommendation was to just blow it up and start over from scratch. Hmmmmm. . . . .

234 jwest you never say no, you just want to be the one in charge of handing out the checks.  super duper conservative

235

>>When my state went to MANDATORY AUTO INSURANCE (or you don't get your registration card and plate sticker) you were REQUIRED to fill out your insurance company and policy number. Having a natural affinity toward not giving a fuck, I'd fill in my auto ins. company name, then make up some number that looked legit. Never a problem.

.

.I did something similar at my old Doctors office.  They said a state law mandated that a husband and wife must list each others place of employment and job in case one insurance company did not pay.  That way they could ding the other insurance company to pay if there was one.  I said OK.  Completely filled out the form and listed the wife's place of employment as Acme Inc., and her job description as Ninja Assassin.  Nobody said a word.

236 or you argue you would write a smaller check.  But you would still write a check.  You just rearrange the deck chairs

237 The Conservative approach is to kick the government out of healthcare and leave it to people using markets. Charities can fill the gaps.

238 but what is brilliant here is that the MSM can't avoid the results, every log-on, every day is a test of "Obama" and big liberalism's competence.

Posted by: standfast24 at October 21, 2013 02:56 PM (wx/BY)

Fuckin' A!

239 Boston bomber thread up

240 What.....you oppose diversity? Hater.

 

 

Posted by: Mallamutt, RINO President for Life at October 21, 2013 02:54 PM (OWjjx)

 

 

Ok... you got me.... I hate Kiss Asses... and the Stupid... especially those who CHOSE to be stupid...

241 I see no problem. It simply boils down to the simple fact that Â…

ObamaCare is racist

242 (800) F1UCKYO Oops; old. Googling, I see that Snopes has that story. New to me.

243 Unfortunately, most organizations reverse that ratio and suffer the consequences. HA! 1 QA for every 2-3 Devs is a dream in most orgs. Try one for every six or seven. Microsoft is more like one to one, but they're far from the norm. Google does the "every Dev also does test" model. They have dedicated QA, but they're in the business of advising and training the Devs how to QA.

244
When we finally get the single payer catastrophic, we need to insist on one of the provisions popular with the auto and home insurance markets...

Total loss.

Give people the option of accepting a check up to certain limits in lieu of the healthcare provider giving treatment, except for pain and comfort.

Let the individual decide when it's time to call it quits.

Posted by: jwest at October 21, 2013 02:52 PM (u2a4R)

 

 

 

Don't worry.  Your overlords in govt will have that whole, "calling it quits" thing  covered.   (refer to the crazy snowbilly gal from Alaska)

245 These people churn out 800 numbers for various causes all the time, they know to check for all the potential letter combos. I think it's nuts, but I think it was deliberate.

246 Given the rise of electronic health records. Any guesses on the year when hackers crack it and release a list to WikiLeaks of every American who takes boner pills or has an STD? They'll probably do it as part of some political controversy -- like if Republican pass a law that restricts abortion, some hacker group will releases a list of every registered Republican who takes boner pills or something like that.

247 249 "or you argue you would write a smaller check. But you would still write a check. You just rearrange the deck chairs"  

Posted by: thunderb at October 21, 2013 03:01 PM (zOTsN)

 

So your approach to educational funding is everyone for themselves?

 

Lay it out for us.  I'm dying to know how a true conservative deals with education.

248 Why do I think high speed trains won't be all that high speed?

249

I'm staying here.

250 212 CNN is talking about Eminem, so apparently we're not supposed to notice any of this. O_o

That is cause Eminem has a new CD and one of the songs has words that can be construed to be mean to gay people and, well, its now time for our 2 minutes of Hate.

Even though Eminem has come out for gay marriage. He used the F word and no, not the one that rhymes with luck. So he has to be publicly castigated.

Posted by: Mallamutt, RINO President for Life at October 21, 2013 02:51 PM (OWjjx)

******************************************

Roll out Elton John for another duet!

251 I actually read some lib's claim that the only reason this website has problems is that conservatives were getting on the site to jam it up. See, this is why confidence that blame will go where it rightly belongs is so low. If it isn't the media collaborators hiding facts from the general public or imparting spin to mitigate damage to Obie and Democrats in general, it's the liberal loonies spreading their bullshit in order to influence the minimal brain activity of the LIVs.

252

Really, we need to thank all those Republican Governors who told Obama to fuck off and refused to either expand Medicaid or set up state exchanges. 

 

This whole thing was designed to force the states to do most of the work and eventually put up much of the money.   Insurance is a state-based market and the idiots who designed Obamacare thought that because the Massachusetts exchange sorta kinds works, all the other states could do one easy and quick.  The problem is that the Massachusetts exchange platform does not compute the subsidy for you.  You get a state tax credit for all or some of your premium when you file your tax return.  If you are a salaried worker you can adjust your state tax withholding to reflect the credit, which offsets some or all of the premium you pay.  It makes you do a little bit of work if you want a tax credit, so the state doesn't have to do the work for you at extra cost and complication of the system.

 

The Obamabots unnecessarily complicated this website because they (a) wanted to hide the true cost of the insurance, which they knew would be hideous and a huge turnoff to people applying, and (b) they wanted people to see right up front how much of other people's money they were getting to help them pay for their insurance.   This was the vote-buying part of it. 

253 OBAMA PROMISES: 'The Website's Gonna Get Fixed — And The Law Works' "The point is the essence of the law, the health insurance that's available to people, is working just fine. In some cases, actually, it's exceeding expectations. The prices are lower than we expected. The choice is greater than we expected," Obama said. He even said that in some cases, it's "exceeding expectations" — a comment that drew scrutiny. Brett LoGiurato Business Insider, Oct. 21 http://tinyurl.com/ossbdws = I believe for every drop of rain that falls Obama grows... Obama glows... I believe for everyone who goes astray, ObamaCare will come, to show the way... http://tinyurl.com/nfzu4ax

254 259 Given the rise of electronic health records. Any guesses on the year when hackers crack it and release a list to WikiLeaks of every American who takes boner pills or has an STD?

They'll probably do it as part of some political controversy -- like if Republican pass a law that restricts abortion, some hacker group will releases a list of every registered Republican who takes boner pills or something like that.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at October 21, 2013 03:03 PM (ZPrif)

*********************************

Months, if not weeks.

255

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at October 21, 2013 03:03 PM (ZPrif)

 

They would have to crack each individual Electronic Medical Record system... they don't talk to each other yet...

 

Reason?   We in the industry have been trying to get HHS to give us a FORMAT to put health records in, for well over 15 years...

 

Once they do that.... its just conversion.... but they won't do it... so no portable Electronic Health records yet...

256

Dang.  You could carry your med records in a thumb drive necklace with today's technology.

257 Completely filled out the form and listed the wife's place of employment as Acme Inc., and her job description as Ninja Assassin. Nobody said a word. For the world to work the way that progressives and liberals expect it to work requires a ONE to ONE ratio between citizen and government 'worker'. In other words one government person has to be looking over one shoulder as we access every website, fill out every form, make every decision. As a former/recovered systems analyst/programmer I long ago decided that was; 1. Physically impossible 2. Ruinously expensive to the point of national bankruptcy But I like to occasionally confirm my theory by limited experiments. Obama has stepped into the biggest pile of dog shit in the entire human experience on this planet and is now looking for somewhere to scape his shoe.

258 Lay it out for us. I'm dying to know how a true conservative deals with education.

Posted by: jwest at October 21, 2013 03:04 PM (u2a4R)

Education is a local and State responsibility, NOT a federal one.

It has been around in some form since 1867, but elevated to a Cabinet-level position by the 2nd worst President (Carter) in 1979.

259 How many electronic medical systems are there? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Do Anthem and Aetna and Kaiser, etc have a different one for each state they operate in? Tech companies get hacked all the time. I don't expect the govt or health insurance companies to have better security. Hopefully I'm wrong.

260 a...nd release a list to WikiLeaks of every American who takes boner pills or... I have names...

261 Dang. You could carry your med records in a thumb drive necklace with today's technology. Or upload an encrypted file like a TrueCrypt Vault to a cloud server. eg: SkyDrive, or Amazon Cloud Drive. Dead easy.

262 Dang. You could carry your med records in a thumb drive necklace with today's technology.

 

 

Posted by: Guest Commenter at October 21, 2013 03:08 PM (ujMoa)

 

Better plan is to encode your medical record on a Credit Card Mag Strip... with a private key phrase or number in case you loose it...

 

But you should also be able to download it at will.... securely... sure some will be compromised, just like banking data now... but we will save a LOT of lives by Doctors having your complete record... ie ALL the medication you are taking and such...

263 Microsoft is more like one to one, but they're far from the norm.

Microsoft also leverages all of Microsoft as hidden unofficial test staff.  The moment something becomes stable enough to not crash instantly, people start using it on their office machines.

Rather than concocting a bunch of fake "user scenarios" that may or may not match field reality, that forces the code into real life actual user scenarios on real user's machines.

264

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at October 21, 2013 03:10 PM (ZPrif)

 

I've got 18 different Doctor Offices as clients... most having more than one Doctor (largest is 23)....

 

We support 15 different Electronic Medical Record Systems...

 

 

265

"Education is a local and State responsibility..."

 

No shit, Sherlock. 

 

Right now, the local and State governments of Detroit, Baltimore and dozen other large cities are spending over $25,000/pupil/year through their bureaucracies and unions, with an average result of 1 kid in 5 graduating (which doesn't necessarily mean they can read).

 

I suggested giving a $25K voucher to the parents, since in my conservative view, they would do a better job spending it and demand a better educational result.

 

You seem to disagree, so I asked what it is you want to either change or keep the same.

 

 

266 How many electronic medical systems are there? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Do Anthem and Aetna and Kaiser, etc have a different one for each state they operate in?

I would hope someone architected a "vendor neutral" ODBC style interface to the various insurance companies, where the company  provided the company specific abstraction layer code...

...but probably not.

267 What is all that crap about asking me how many Pepsis and adult beverages I have? Dr. Orifice questions. 

268 Adding more 'top men' to fix 404Care.gov is a different type of wishful thinking than:

the Army method of quickly obtaining a baby:
1) find 9 willing women
2) get each one pregnant
3) obtain baby on accelerated schedule in one month!

but probably similarly delusional. I'm all for it; we need a string of ACA-WACKA-Care implementation failures that leave people in a rage over the possibility of no longer having any insurance at all. But some will still blame Bush.

269 The Jolt may cost zero dollars, but NRO sees fit to stuff your inbox full of  "Miracle Cancer Cures!",  "These 7 things Activate Alzheimers in Your Brain!"  "Is Big Pizza Secretly Coordinating Your Demise?" and other indispensable bulletins from "NewsMax Health".  Not to mention the obligitory "Uncle Sam has A check for $20,500 with Your Name On IT!!!!!" message or 20. And you can't block them or you end up blocking the Jolt as well

Geraghty's still worth it though.

270 I just tried to pay a traffic ticket from the Cleveland Municipal Court. I couldn't get the website to work for me. And when I called, "our system is down" (after being told to use the website) and I couldn't reach a human.  Apparently, Democrats are incompetent wherever they are.

271
"As the program's central website was under repair, Obama encouraged Americans seeking insurance to sign up the old-fashioned way by calling 1-800-318-2596."

Doesn't it strike you as absolute *bizarre* that the President of the United States should be behaving like Ron Popeil or Tammie-Fae Bakker, urging people out there in the viewing audience to pick up their phones, dial an 800 number, and buy some piece of crap? At least with Popeil or Bakker, you got something for your call - say, a Pocket Fisherman or eternal life with Jesus; but with Barry, all you get is an apologetic operator and minutes off your plan.

This is beyond risible. This is healthcare provision scripted by Samuel Beckett, except that Estragon and Vladimir are on hold, waiting for the website to clear, forever.

I am in absolute awe: this is the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks.

272 Obama has stepped into the biggest pile of dog shit in the entire human experience on this planet and is now looking for somewhere to scape his shoe. There certainly isn't a shortage of cult members willing to take on that job. A lot of them claim to be "journalists"...

273 "The Obama administration Sunday said it’s called on “the best and brightest” tech experts from both government and the private sector " It's really comforting that the Obama administration is using the same buzzwords about Obamacare as LBJ did about the Vietnam War.

274 The ghost of Robert McNamara will be responsible for your health care.
"We had to destroy US health care to save it"...new Obama slogan.

275

...but probably not.

 

 

Posted by: Purp at October 21, 2013 03:16 PM (l5zzX)

 

 

Nope... the ONLY common standard?  Billing Codes...

276 Obama was offered the classic choice of "Fast, cheap or good: pick two. " The smartest guy in room selected none of the above.

277 The Obama administration Sunday said it’s called on “the best and brightest” tech experts from both government and the private sector to help fix the troubled website at the root of the Obamacare enrollment problems. AKA Top. Men.

278 Coming Soon: ObamaCare Wreckovery Website 2.0, starring Julia as "Mr. Paper Clip, Your Friendly Advisory Avatar"!

279 I decided that setting up the Medicoobama404 website should be done wholly in house, because I have put the best and brightest to work, bringing you the most technological and user friendly Site to your fingertips, period. Now, let me be clear, the haters are responsible for any delay in your attempt to enroll in Medicoobama404, they have deliberately over whelmed my server's, trying to keep those who need my help from getting it. I will identify them, I will make sure that they are prosecuted to the full extent of my law.

280 Completely filled out the form and listed the wife's place of employment as Acme Inc., and her job description as Ninja Assassin. Nobody said a word.
--

I like your style, Registered Voter, similar to my own.  A few months ago I went to my doctor, and the office staff sat me down in front of a computer to fill out my medical history. (In a nice twist of fate, I hadn't been there in 4 years and they'd dropped me off their patient rolls, said they didn't have a file for me anymore). 

Obviously, they are going to electronic records.  Having no faith and trust in anything related to Obamacare, I answered a couple of innocuous questions truthfully, then decided to mirandize myself and not reveal anything else.  Just skipped over pages and pages of stuff, not answering the litany of questions.  My little bit of civil disobedience.  My doctor (who I love) didn't say a word.

281

It's wrong to use Obama's middle name "Hussein".

 

That may be what his mommy called  him; but those of us in the know, looking at how he as the reverse Midas touch know that his real name is

Barack "Clusterfuck" Obama.

282

Accessing Healthcare.gov from a DoD connection will get you this alert:

"The security certificate presented by this website was not issued by a trusted certificate authority. This problem might indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server. We reccomend you close this webpage."

They can't even play nice with their other friends in the government

 

283 The "Navigators" was my idea, VJ can suck it.

284 Greetings: Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill available staff and space.

285 ACA stands for the AMERICAN CHAOS ACT!!!

NUFF SAID!