OT: Pathetic Overpaid U.S. Govt Outdone by Three SF Programmers

** FOAD you STINKING NUT CASE TROLL

Never post here again.

On a sunny day (Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:21:57 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in :

Maybe they listened to what I wrote in us.politics:

$3A$20HealthCare.gov$20web$20site$20designers$20throw$20Obama$20under$20the$20bus|sort:relevance/us.politics/vKO0di6AIfo/LyhzBIeFAlsJ

" Hell, some kids could do it, given a fraction of the money. Google could have done it 'on the side', they have the server farms. "

Or Amazon. But government software goes out to bid, usually with disastrous results. I'm amazed the California exchange works so well.

It doesn't take much of a research project to find crappy programming done for the government. Just look at Citytime in NYC. Bloomberg is no idiot, but that was a fuckup to end all fuckups. Then there are countless Ca DMV fubars:

"miso"

** FOAD you STINKING NUT CASE TROLL

Never post here again.

Not true. A few ideas jump to mind immediately:

1 - Lipstick 2 - Ketchup (instead of a decent mustard-based sauce!) 3 - Let that dope Giada from Food Network TV try to cook it.

Miso, As one victim of the California exchange, I can tell you that it works, after a fashion...

It took me several days, usually around a hour of two each day, to finally get my account set up. I kept running into dead ends in the website, such as I needed to enter some piece of data, but it would not allow me to enter that data. Starting over a few times, I finally managed to enter the data. Seems like that data needed to be entered BEFORE you entered the data above it, or something like that.

After I finally got my account set up, I tried going back to see about actually signing up for healthcare. Again, it took me several day, because after an half hour or so of searching the websites, I couldn't find the link to actually sign up for anything! One day, I suddenly found myself on a page that actually had the link to go to sign up. I suspect that it actually had been down for a few days, but they didn't want anyone to know it. After that, it only took a hour or two to actually sign up!

Now, waiting on confirmation from Blue Shield that I actually was signed up. Not holding my breath...

Charlie

The user interface is the easy part (although the $200 million Friends of Obama didn't do that very well.) I think the hard part is making realtine connections to other systems: SS, IRS, HHS, state government computers, and a couple of hundred insurance companies, each with dozens of policy options.

I hope it all crashes and burns.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

Actually I shouldn't have picked on the pigs, the poor creatures are close relatives to us and very intelligent. Nothing aggravates me more than these idiot hunters going after "wild pigs" as they call them which are really o nly feral domesticated stock, that bunch wouldn't have the gonads to go aft er real wild pigs. And that especially sickening case from a few years ago of the Georgia boy who shot the so-called Hogzilla, that was in an animal p ark, Hogzilla was a former family pet sold to the park and was the sweetest and gentlest creature around who didn't even realize he was being shot.

With no first-hand experience.... I suspect the problem with the site is one that plagues many pieces of software in which the folks specifying the system (esp its user interface) were clueless as to what you *can* do (vs. how they think things MUST work).

People are notoriously serial thinkers. And, usually fail to see that they explain (i.e., SPECIFY) things in the same serial form. "Language" is just too tedious when it comes to expressing things in terms of actual dependencies.

For computer illiterates, I love using the example of changing a flat tire to illustrate what it's like to "write (structure) a program".

Most people would say, "take off the flat; put on the spare".

Of course, they forget to mention that the car needs to be jacked up, first.

Or, that the jack has to be retrieved from the trunk -- which must be *opened* -- before it can be used.

Or, that you have to get out of the vehicle before you can open the trunk.

Or, that the vehicle must be stopped...

Folks who *think* they understand the need to specify all of these steps ("computer does nothing unless it is told to do so") are real proud of themselves when they *can* list all the steps!

But, concentrate so much on listing all the steps that they *impose* their own ARBITRARY ORDER on them -- whichever order they happened to *think* of them is the order in which they are described: do this, then this, then that.

But very few things have such rigid dependencies! And, for user interfaces, ESPECIALLY FOR SOMETHING COMPLEX THAT REQUIRES A FAIR BIT OF CONSIDERATION, users often elect to do things in a "different" order.

Perhaps they don't have the information that step 5 asks for -- exactly. Does that mean they can't look ahead to step 6?

When you fill out your tax forms, do you start on line 1 AND NOT PROCEED TO LINE 2 UNTIL THAT IS COMPLETED? Or, do you bounce around filling in individual items and returning to "back fill" those that you skipped over, previously?

When you go to remove the jack from the trunk, do you unlock the trunk, put your keys in your pocket (lest they be lost), remove the jack, then remove the tire iron, then the spare? Or, do you unlock the trunk, remove the tire iron, then the jack and put the keys in your pocket -- only *later* removing the spare (perhaps after you've removed the flat)?

Wanna bet that if you were to describe the process of changing a flat in this level of detail (specs!), you wouldn't clutter up your description with verbiage that makes these various dependencies explicitly clear! You'd describe the process in *one* sequence AS IF that was the only way to change a flat -- never even thinking about the myriad of variations that the process could VIABLY accommodate!

[These are the sort of people who obsess over "color-coding" things without ever considering whether the criteria that they are using to differentiate categories makes sense! (e.g., sorting screws based on length vs. head style; or by material instead of thread pitch; or...) Just because *you* think of something in a certain way, doesn't mean others will -- or *should*!]

And, the user who would have prefered to remove the spare *before* the jack (possibly because the jack is stored *under* the spare as is the case in my vehicle!) would be frustrated trying to comply with your arbitrary sequence: "Why do I have to provide *this* information before *that*? Or, before you will let me browse the potential outcomes that lie ahead for me?" (maybe I'd like to decide whether to make a certain charitable contribution based on how it affects my total tax burden)

People who think user interfaces are easy either only work with trivial user interfaces *or* think they can DICTATE how a user should be able to interface with a system instead of tasking the system to provide whatever services possible with the information (or "steps completed") that the user has CHOSEN at this point. "Because I don't know the number of dependents that you have (you haven't yet provided that information), I can only offer you a general overview of the options available to you. And, the prices that I present will be ranges instead of specifics. Furthermore, as I don't know your income level, I can only provide general information on the level of subsidy for which you MAY qualify. To get a better idea of the actual options that apply to your particular situation, please provide additional data (when you get a chance...)"

Ever been to a site where the links aren't visually obvious? Where the only way to identify links is to run your mouse over the length and width of the page waiting to see if the cursor representation changes?

Ah, but they are a BUSINESS! Impossible for *them* to do anything wrong, right? :>

You had Kaiser, right? Consider yourself rescued.

Exactly. Of course, if they don't receive the information from Covered CA in a timely fashion (if at all!) then they can't inform me...

In the above, it was like you needed to specify your dependents income before you specifed their age, even though age was listed first on the page!

Kaiser is great. They don't make money by "coding" (fee per identifiable service), they make money by keeping me healthy. I think Obamacare forbids new HMOs that are owned by doctors, namely new Kaisers. That is a sellout to the insurance companies.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

Hopefully, things will sort themselves out -- BEFORE you need them!

Some "graphic designer" hired to handle the "presentation details" while a code monkey tried to tie it all together?

I suspect if you *asked* the coder(s), they would either deny this was the case (specify income before age) *or* point to a query that they issued in their code that fetched results based on income level and *then* refined based on age (screws sorted by length instead of head style).

In either case, completely confident that they had "done the right thing" (because that was how it was described/specified to them).

I've got a "metrology service" that I wrap around (programmable) instrumentation. It lets "clients" request desired levels of performance from the "managed instrument". As there is only one physical instrument, at any given time, it can only be configured for one possible mode of operation. So, multiple clients have to "conspire" to ensure the instrument operates in a mode that is compatible with their individual (and joint!) needs.

At any given time, a client has a set of potential options that the instrument can (currently) accommodate. Based on the option(s) that he chooses, future options are reconstrained to be compatible.

For example, the first instrument I applied it to was a weighing platform. Clients could specify the range of weights that tehy wanted to accommodate, a minimum precision, accuracy, reporting rate, latency, etc. The service -- knowing the characteristics and capabilities of the weighing platform -- would pick the "best" configuration for the platform based on the declared needs of its current clients.

I.e., you (a client) weren't required to specify parameter A, then parameter B, then C, etc. Because that might not be natural for your application. E.g., if your concern is maximizing the masses that you can quantify, you may be willing to tolerate less precision. Or, less accuracy. Or, a slower response time. etc.

The point is to let the application specify its needs, not have the instrument *dictate* queries that *it* thinks are important.

That's crazy because Blue Cross originated that idea for people that want it they have personalized health advisement.

I'm already grandfathered into the non-for-profit Blue Shield. [There are lots of Blue Shields that are actually owned by for-profit businesses.] I'm just going to sit this one out since I can keep my plan. But I may change once the dust settles.

This notion that you can "keep your plan" is entertaining since every year, way before the ACA, you get a boilerplate of changes to the plan. Without fail. So even without the ACA, have I ever kept my plan? Well the name never changed.

Note that the "not for profit" Blue Shield had to refund me money under the ACA. I was so shocked I got money back that I thought I would need medical care. ;-) So how the hell they claim to only spend 2% on overhead is beyond me, other than they have a way of defining overhead that doesn't fit the ACA definition.

I'm still waiting for a single payer system. Hopefully the new President Clinton can do this.

tl;dr

Programmers don't think serially anymore, at least in the human interface. If you ever wrote any GUI type software, this would be obvious. With a GUI, you have no idea what order the user will fill out the data, nor if the user will fill it out completely. So you need to check everything once the user clicks submit.

Kaiser has a ginormous data center in Pleasanton out by 580. It is an old PeopleSoft building that wasn't needed once Larry Ellison raided the company. So coding is part of the business.

Here's the site they built.

It has a problem, it gives you the real cost of your new policy, it gives you the "rate shock" the government was trying so hard to hide. Other than that, it worked for me. Mikek

----^^^

Yes, that's the problem. Had you *read* it you would realize that my comments pertained to the folks who SPECIFIED the system!

Not pertinent; dr.