After being chastised for too much techno-drivel I choose current events for $800.

I’m not sure what to write about…

How about the 160,000 people that will be losing, or have lost their insurance in California due to the implementation of Obamacare? Yes, Yes, I know it’s actually called ACA now that  The President is trying to distance himself from the controversy.

I note that he called it Obamacare in at least one speech…

Of course that was when he was still telling us all that we’d get to keep our current healthcare coverage. That was when he was trying to be a salesman instead of The President.

How about the controversy over the Governments website? Or the fact that there are so many out of work QA people like myself who’d have loved to have jobs testing the code.

Oh, right! The government was so sure that their code was perfect they didn’t bother to test it until the last two weeks before going live.

I suppose I could comment on the hearings about the website, and that the insanity you’re hearing or reading about is totally normal in almost ANY government contract. 

No one in government has a good idea about what the “Current” technology looks like.

The government tends to write contracts such that even if you have a better idea, or more current technology that is faster, cheaper, and works better, you can’t implement it.

Why???? Oh my dear boy… it’s because the contract can’t be changed without a review and the review will take at least 6 months and have to be voted on by some committee or possibly even Congress.

So this means that HTML ver 2.0 was used instead of the later version that is better, faster, and potentially more secure.

Or that the CPU used in a particular piece of hardware that used to cost $20 when the contract was finalized, will cost $2020 in runs of 10,000 by the time the contract actually is completed.

The cost increase for the CPU is because the CPU is obsolete and now has to be custom manufactured.

It’s this kind of insanity that causes lots of companies to actively refuse government contracts.

Which inevitably leads to specialized government contractors who will do exactly what the contract says. Even when they know what the government has specified will not work.

After all why shouldn’t they?

There’s no real upside in suggesting changes to the contract.

In fact while the changes are under review the government won’t pay to keep employees assigned to the contract, this is called a stop work situation.

Then when the changes are approved the people that were working on the project are no longer available. Those people have been reassigned to other projects or they’ve been laid off and found employment elsewhere.

The upside for these government contractors is reworking the project for years and billing the government to do it.

But boys and girls… this is the way things in Washington work and to some extent it’s a direct result of a government that is too big and bloated. For all the hand wringing and yelling in any of these hearings…

Nothing will change.