tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post2137167954994839801..comments2024-03-29T03:19:09.227-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: HOW TO MAKE A PAPER CLIP, AND ALLIED SUBJECTSRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-15799159514154533662021-10-05T16:28:14.218-04:002021-10-05T16:28:14.218-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Business Leads Worldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06682586770344781777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-19458891803919478222013-12-07T09:20:29.585-05:002013-12-07T09:20:29.585-05:00Sounds like, "The Evolution of Useful Things:...Sounds like, "The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are" by Henry Petroski.CCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11404673795324575582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5762797230837640182013-11-27T08:37:55.068-05:002013-11-27T08:37:55.068-05:00I couldn't remember the title so I looked on m...I couldn't remember the title so I looked on my shelves. But since my books are shelved in a perfectly rational way, alphabetically by author [except for major subjects like Hume or Plato], that did me no good at all! Maybe my son can remember. I will ask him. It is a really fun book, especially the early chapters.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-48063576610962560302013-11-27T05:50:34.995-05:002013-11-27T05:50:34.995-05:00Hi Bob,
Just wondering what the book on design en...Hi Bob,<br /><br />Just wondering what the book on design engineering problems is called? It sounds like a very interesting read!<br /><br />CheersSimon Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03223201902064877588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-30915681116469879522013-11-20T07:44:12.124-05:002013-11-20T07:44:12.124-05:00I just keeps blowing my mind that the ony way to p...I just keeps blowing my mind that the ony way to provide people with affordable healthcare in the US has been to give taxpayers' money to the same people who have been making a profit out of callously denying care at all costs. How sad...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13337589981696719316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4815357926092498812013-11-19T20:24:21.613-05:002013-11-19T20:24:21.613-05:00For example, why should the government handle paym...For example, why should the government handle payments to insurers? Payments programming is insanely difficult! Just stay out of it! Let the insurance companies do the work and take the blame. <br /><br />http://www.cnbc.com/id/101211556<br /><br />Obamacare is basically $100 billion/year for Medicaid expansion (oops, said Medicare in the previous post) and another $100 billion/year for insurance subsidies, and somehow they've turned a huge benefit for working people into the world's worst web site project. Minus the web site it would be a pretty popular.chrismealyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05591805477096884764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86808033836921111072013-11-19T20:19:04.741-05:002013-11-19T20:19:04.741-05:00Another professional web site developer here. My d...Another professional web site developer here. My diagnosis of the problem is that no part of Obamacare should have relied on a web site at all. Something like 20% of Americans don't even have an email address! <br /><br />They should have just sent out a letter to everybody telling them whether they're qualified for Medicare or what their subsidy is for ACA compliant plans. The IRS basically knows everything already, there's no point in asking people for that info. Then folks could just sign up on paper or in person or on an insurance company's website. It would be up to the insurance companies to connect to the government systems to collect the subsidies. There's no point in putting regular people in between.<br /><br />The politics would have been a hell of a lot better. Millions would get a letter saying, "You get free insurance." Others would get a letter saying, "You get $200/month to help pay for insurance." chrismealyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05591805477096884764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-361249540635892352013-11-19T19:12:15.413-05:002013-11-19T19:12:15.413-05:00I am not so sure you are right. I have in mind an...I am not so sure you are right. I have in mind any time up to the Middle Ages. Remember, illiterate does not mean ignorant or stupid. Until quite recently, historically speaking, almost everyone was illiterate.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-91808431306463377042013-11-19T18:52:18.410-05:002013-11-19T18:52:18.410-05:00"If we consider the entire sweep of the histo..."If we consider the entire sweep of the history of human beings...For at least ninety percent of that time, and maybe more like ninety-nine percent, most people had a grasp of how their technology worked."<br /><br />I think this is false. Before the 20th Century, the overwhelming majority of people were illiterate. Those of them who were not metalworkers could see that to make a bronze, the metalworker would put some stuff together and heat it and then cool it, but I don't see this is any more of a "grasp" than Bob Wolff and I have of what programmers and circuit designers do to make it possible for us to word-process or blog.<br /><br />And I'm quite sure that none of my grandparents (all immigrants from eastern Europe) knew what made an electric motor run. <br /><br /> Warren Goldfarbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16147625273565962476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-38694799658458090792013-11-19T12:41:22.026-05:002013-11-19T12:41:22.026-05:00That sounds very plausible indeed. I speak as som...That sounds very plausible indeed. I speak as someone with ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE of anything remotely like this!! Many thanks.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-1549837591921970152013-11-19T11:54:34.727-05:002013-11-19T11:54:34.727-05:00This is an excellent point and needs to be made. I...This is an excellent point and needs to be made. I work at a Fortune 500 company building architecture for 1000s of web application, none quite taking quite the load as the single "application" that is healthcare.gov, but in the aggregate taking millions of requests an hour. <br /><br />So knowing what I know, I can say that there were several mitigating factors which make the rollout ridiculosly complex:<br /><br />1) The interactions with numerous backends of all of the insurance companies makes this an exceedingly complex application. These backends are most likely using different protocols and requirements for authorization to pull date from them. This is hard to do with several, stupidly hard if there are 100s of them.<br />2) The backends do not belong to the same companies, so working with each company and their differing cultures adds even more complexity. <br />3) The scope of the work changed due to political machinations. The Fed had to take over the exchanges caused by Red states abrogation of running their own. The Fed did not know this when the project started (it takes years to build this sort of system) and added scope creep to an already complex project. <br /><br />I do not think, necessarily, that Sibelius running the project was a bad decision. She could certainly have gotten the right people into right places to get the job done. And they certainly needed someone with a large stick (cabinet member) to run it so that HHS had enough authority. <br /><br />I would put the blame more squarely on the hiring of the consulting firm(s) and their lack of due diligence. There is some reports that the consulting requirements meant that the firm(s) were hired for the wrong reasons (i.e., cheaper is better). <br /><br />So finally, I would say the issues with the rollout were not related to micro issues on the level of people not knowing the hardware and physics. Rather, the issues stemmed from the usual places failures happen in IT: in side the craniums of a lot of people making poor decision.Wholeflafferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03923122826431229024noreply@blogger.com