2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Wow, I agree with Scooby. There must be some sarcasm in that post I'm not catching.

I work as a business systems analyst, we talk to the people with a stake in the game, write the requirements based upon those talks, work with the developers to help iron out any issues in the requirements, and then functionally test and stress test the bejeebers out of the system prior to the UAT test date and finally then roll out to the production environment. We just rolled out a big project on the 8th, found a couple minor fixes (formatting issues and the like) that will be handled in the next scheduled release, and one "major" flaw that somehow didn't show up in testing even though we tested for that exact scenario. The fix for the major item - which only impacted some 5% of the volume - went in on the 21st.

Sorry to disappoint but no sarcasm this time. It's a major pet peeve of mine that in an era where we know no one who produces api's, hardware, or major software does really any quality assurance and uses the public as a testing platform we have someone rolling out a major government project without a sniff of a validated testing protocol.

It's ridiculous. There is too much that can go wrong when you do test to skip it altogether. And the amount of money they spent is outrageous and I think they hired someone from Canada? Why? We have plenty of IT talent here in the US.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

It's ridiculous. There is too much that can go wrong when you do test to skip it altogether. And the amount of money they spent is outrageous and I think they hired someone from Canada? Why? We have plenty of IT talent here in the US.

They had a deadline to meet and they were running way behind, but the administration insisted they meet that deadline anyway. That's most likely how the testing phase was interrupted or skipped altogether - "Cowboy IT" as I call it. Yeehaw.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

They had a deadline to meet and they were running way behind, but the administration insisted they meet that deadline anyway. That's most likely how the testing phase was interrupted or skipped altogether - "Cowboy IT" as I call it. Yeehaw.

Running out of time? They had 3 freaking years. If they had called Bezos three years ago this would've been a slam dunk.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Ooops.

RALEIGH — U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers’ husband reported an AR-15 rifle stolen from the family’s home in Dunn last week, according to a police report.

The weapon had been left leaning against a gun locker in an unlocked garage on Kingsway Drive, the report said.

The rifle, a gun case and a GPS, with a cumulative value of $1,100, were reported stolen, according to Chief J.D. Pope. Police think the theft happened on the night of Oct. 15.

“According to the report, they had been out target shooting and brought the gun back and leaned it against the gun safe,” Pope said. “ … The garage door was left unsecured, according to the report.”

Tell us again about the importance of gun safety.

...she believes that gun owners must be responsible for the use and care of their guns...

Uh. Huh.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Reading articles about Obama's problems with relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia, you have to ask who he actually gets along with in the Middle East anymore and hasn't ticked off? This presidency is rudderless on foreign policy.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Running out of time? They had 3 freaking years. If they had called Bezos three years ago this would've been a slam dunk.

I agree, and would not be surprised if they also started late and/or dragged their feet. We're talking about a federal project, after all; and a federal IT project at that.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Reading articles about Obama's problems with relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia, you have to ask who he actually gets along with in the Middle East anymore and hasn't ticked off? This presidency is rudderless on foreign policy.

Well, he's a Muslin so you know he isn't going to get along with Israel.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Well, he's a Muslin so you know he isn't going to get along with Israel.

And apparently he's Shiite, as he's trying to cozy up to Iran while distancing himself from the Saudis. We couldn't even pick a president from the predominant strain of Islam!

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Reading articles about Obama's problems with relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia, you have to ask who he actually gets along with in the Middle East anymore and hasn't ticked off? This presidency is rudderless on foreign policy.

Were these articles on Brietbert or Drudge?

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Were these articles on Brietbert or Drudge?

newsmax

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

newsmax

I was not aware that Bob was so concerned about how a family clique of unelected dictators feels about the United States? Perhaps they're getting antsy as the US blows by them in oil production. Or maybe Obama reminded King Whoeveritisnow of where all the 9/11 hijackers came from. But, for conservatives, the enemy of your enemy is your friend, so I expect them to start sucking up to Bashir Assad soon enough!

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Running out of time? They had 3 freaking years. If they had called Bezos three years ago this would've been a slam dunk.

This is the same government that cant even digitize the files in the VA leaving a backlog near infinitum! You cant be that surprised...

 

[MountieBoyOz]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Found this on a friend's Facebook. The author is a member of the Taft family and yes it's that Taft family.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/opinion/the-cry-of-the-true-republican.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

This is the same government that cant even digitize the files in the VA leaving a backlog near infinitum! You cant be that surprised...

Weren't Vista and Windows 8 a crappy roll-out as well? I'm thinking Microsoft must have had a little bit of tech knowledge, at least a bit more than Fishy and Flaggy, etc do.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

I was not aware that Bob was so concerned about how a family clique of unelected dictators feels about the United States? Perhaps they're getting antsy as the US blows by them in oil production. Or maybe Obama reminded King Whoeveritisnow of where all the 9/11 hijackers came from. But, for conservatives, the enemy of your enemy is your friend, so I expect them to start sucking up to Bashir Assad soon enough!

Yes, the Saudis have no importance to our geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Good perspective.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Oil is a global market; it doesn't matter if we're drilling, refining and consuming the product all within the USA, the commodity's price will be set through global supply and demand forces. Add to that, the fact that the Saudis have a great deal of oil money, they can play with the geopolitical events by playing within their own region to impact oil markets. I don't expect them to do that as the royal family there understands that keeping things stable is in their best interest. It's the tertiary families that pose the problem there, like the bin Ladens and such. With those tertiary families having resources of their own, and being a somewhat more fickle bunch, I'm not eager to upset the people in that country.

With all that said, if they want the Syrian government toppled, they can back the rebels. The US should stay out of it, which is exactly something that will hork off both the Saudis and the Israelis.

 

[Priceless]

Weren't Vista and Windows 8 a crappy roll-out as well? I'm thinking Microsoft must have had a little bit of tech knowledge, at least a bit more than Fishy and Flaggy, etc do.

No. I've already explained that all Microsoft products are 100% reliable 100% of the time. You must be getting some bad information. Maybe from Netscrape or Gaggle.

 

[Rover]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

Yes, the Saudis have no importance to our geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Good perspective.

They have less and less importance as our need for their oil diminishes. Unless you somehow think sand is going to become a precious commodity, what else do they have. And to be fair Bob, we have a good amount of sand here in the US too!

Oil may be a global commodity, but if a crisis occurs, and we have enough oil within our own (and Canada's) shores, gee whiz, I've got an idea - why don't we just keep domestic oil here until the crisis passes? Then places like Saudi Arabia, instead of relying on the US military to keep them safe, can do so themselves. Wouldn't that be a novel concept?

And you wonder why the Saudi's are getting cranky all of a sudden.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

I agree, and would not be surprised if they also started late and/or dragged their feet. We're talking about a federal project, after all; and a federal IT project at that.

And don't forget all those "shovel ready" jobs. Oh, wait, that was an earlier Neville cluster fcuk.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2nd Term, Part VI: Burnin' down the House

They have less and less importance as our need for their oil diminishes. Unless you somehow think sand is going to become a precious commodity, what else do they have. And to be fair Bob, we have a good amount of sand here in the US too!

Oil may be a global commodity, but if a crisis occurs, and we have enough oil within our own (and Canada's) shores, gee whiz, I've got an idea - why don't we just keep domestic oil here until the crisis passes? Then places like Saudi Arabia, instead of relying on the US military to keep them safe, can do so themselves. Wouldn't that be a novel concept?

And you wonder why the Saudi's are getting cranky all of a sudden.

I assume this rare moment of clarity means you'll be encouraging Neville to get out of the way of the Keystone pipeline and instruct his EPA to stop interfering with the fracking industry. The brilliant Sam Kinison had an observation about sand and its relationship to world hunger. It comes about 3:45 in to this amazing clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuA0Xm2cy1s

"I should have shot your a*s in DaNang when I had the chance!" Classic.

I have something approaching zero use for the House of Saud. There was a huge kerfuffle in Houston years ago when the local PBS station "if we won't air it, who will?" refused to clear a documentary (that ran nationally) called "Death of A Princess" about the executions of a Saudi princess and her commoner boy friend. Come to find out the station license was held by the University of Houston, which had a lucrative arrangement with the Saudis to teach their young people how to be petroleum engineers. And they had turned thumbs down on airing the program. Some of us thought it was inappropriate for programming decisions on our PBS station to be made in Riyadh. Later, a commercial station got the rights to the program and aired it to a much larger audience. I also have something approaching zero use for PBS, too.