Day: February 4, 2020

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What? Wait…

IowaCaucus.jpgI was reading about the Iowa Caucus.

The acting DHS secretary Mr. Wolf said that the application issue appeared to be a “Load” issue. By “Load” he means that the servers were unable to keep up with the number of requests.

Okay I’ll buy that is a possibility, if everyone in a state was voting at the same time. But as the number of voters decreased, the server would catch up and post each transaction in turn. If this was the problem then it’s pretty obvious whoever tested the software didn’t do any load testing and quite possibly didn’t do much testing at all.

Lets face it, we’re all familiar with online opinion polls, and I’d imagine the servers handling those are dealing with millions of votes a minute. Seems to me that Shadow (The company that apparently spent 3 years building the software,) would have looked to other examples of voting systems, during their development process.

For god’s sake, there are PORN sites that handle votes for performers without crashing. Given the prevalence of Porn Sites I’d guess they process something on the order of MILLIONS of votes per Second.

Then I read that the application was only for the 170 – 190 precinct captains. So the paper votes were cast, then counted, and the captains were to use an application to input those numbers?

You’re telling me that with 3 YEARS of development no-one ever tested with a measly 200 simultaneous users?

WTF?

As I sit reading more about this, I’m astounded.

I have Apple Time Capsules here in my home that can handle 50 simultaneous users on WiFi.

A low end Dell server purchased from Best Buy could probably handle 250 users from the moment it was plugged in, possibly more if all the server had to do was tally incoming data for ONE Single application.

I have to point out that I’m kinda talking out of my hat here because I don’t have all the facts. So take what I’m saying here with a salt lick.

My point is, that with something as important as votes, if I could put a system together with commercial of the shelf (COTS) equipment for less than 10K in hardware and a little web programming there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for the debacle we saw in Iowa.

Much less so when you factor 3 YEARS of development time.

Hell, with 3 years of development time, I could give you Web and Phone based access, Live updates, and auditing of figures entered by precinct, candidate, and user. Complete with state of the art security. I’d have also taken the DHS up on testing the system too. The DHS has an entire division dedicated to Cybersecurity. 

I’d probably have requested that the FBI and NSA take a look too, if they were willing.

WHY?

Because the product would have to be rock fucking solid and more eyes looking at a system are more likely to find flaws that can be corrected before its debut.

Especially given that over the last four years we’ve heard about nothing but Russian influence in our election process. I’d be wanting to make something that was so secure that there’d never be any question about the veracity of the product or its results.

Make no mistake, this is (or was) a product.

Shadow would have been in a prime position to resell the product to all 50 states and would have been reaping the benefits for decades with maintenance and upgrade contracts.

Now Shadow will fade into the morning light like a bad dream, having made millions (I’m guessing) for its principals and casting everyone below executive level to the unemployment line.

Oh, and they’ll have an added lovely parting gift of FAILED project on their resumes.

As I said, we don’t yet have all the facts and likely, we never will.

Online voting could be a reality. But only if we commit to doing it right. 

Don’t you find it interesting that we have more security in place online and over the phone to deal with our banking needs than we do when dealing with the direction of our country as a whole?

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The problem with paying for a resume rewrite

A few months ago, I began an experiment. 

I paid to have my resume rewritten. The experiment was worth it, in that I had a fresh set of eyes looking at my resume.

Another benefit was that I was able to do some comparison between my old resume and the rewrite to determine if the choice of wording, layout, etc. would have any effect on the response rate.

In short, it didn’t.

The rewrite is something that I was never really happy with, because it was not “My” voice, nor did it reflect me the individual. The rewrite is pretty generic and while it is “true” it is also boringly high level.

I have a pretty good command of English. Many would say that my use of English is better than most. The wording in the rewrite is convoluted, (some might say tortured ) English. When I first read the rewrite, I thought that the writer had simply opened a Thesaurus then stuck their finger down the poor tome’s throat to induce vomiting.

The paragraphs are needlessly complex, using words that while technically correct, give the appearance of desperation, and someone trying impress, by putting lipstick on a pig.

Nonetheless, despite my discomfort, I used the rewrite. My reasoning was that the search engines are looking for keywords before even presenting a resume for consideration. You have to get your resume in front of a live person to get the interview.  Because I didn’t know what those keywords were… I deferred to someone who was supposed have that knowledge.

I’m terminating the experiment. The rewrite has garnered no interviews of any kind and in fact has generated less interest even amongst the spammers.

So over the next few days I’m going to rewrite my resume from the ground up. I’ll incorporate the elements I like from the rewrite, merging old and new into a resume of my own creation. 

Hopefully, writing something in my voice will make me more comfortable about the resume in general, and be more demonstrative of my intellect and experience. After all, any company that hires me, should hire me, not someone that knows nothing about me, my experience, my industry, or my abilities.

I’m pretty damn articulate all on my own. I tend to speak plainly and my writing reflects that. I’ve always believed that my resume, as a reflection of my career and abilities should stand on it’s own merits.

My philosophy is that the hiring manager should be able to get a sense of who they’re interviewing, and hopefully hiring, from the resume so they can dedicate the interview time to asking relevant questions. I personally hate spending interview time reiterating what’s printed in my resume. Ask specifics about this position, or that particular skill. 

I know that’s old school, just because something is old school doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

After all, I’m looking for a position that I want to excel in and the hiring company is looking for someone who can do the job well, and be happy doing it. 

It seems like a simple enough equation.

I wouldn’t say resume writers aren’t worth the time or money. This is especially true if you have a hard time writing. I would suggest that if you choose to use a firm, choose carefully. Vet them thoroughly and see what value they provide. 

Frankly, I think it’s time for us to stop treating resumes like web pages, stop applying SEO to them. How about hiring managers actually reading a resume?

When I was a hiring manager, I’d read the resumes of my employees word for word. This simple act gave me the ability to mentor, allow for growth, and properly task my direct reports, so that they could be successful. I’d ask them to give me updated resumes once a year. That kept me apprised of new abilities and skills attained by my group, enabling me to better manage and foster growth.

There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing an employee’s face light up because you give them a task they’ve never done before, using something they’ve worked hard to learn over the past year.

Just a thought, again old school.