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Comment: Re:Just like where I work ... (Score 1) 168

Exactly. If no one bids on anything (because the consequences are too grave), then the government will be forced to change its procurement procedures. Doing things the way they're working now obviously isn't working, and the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, yet that's exactly what most people seem to want to do.

Comment: Re:Frequently Bought Together: (Score 1) 128

by ledow (#46485981) Attached to: XKCD Author's Unpublished Book Has Already Become a Best-Seller



Comment: Re:Obvious Answer (Score 1) 722

by Grishnakh (#46485149) Attached to: Measles Outbreak In NYC

Unfortunately there's no simple, black-and-white answer to this question.

Ideally, in a good democratic society, people would decide democratically what the minimum "bar" is, and anything below that is considered neglect. We already do this to an extent in the US, with "CPS" in many states taking kids away if they're found to be abused or neglected. Usually, though, CPS is criticized for allowing too much abuse before they intervene (or just being plain incompetent, or overworked/understaffed, etc.), rather than being too heavy-handed (though this happens too occasionally). Societies do have a right to decide on minimum levels of acceptable conduct, and punish people who don't conform ("disturbing the peace" laws are an example of this). The main problem we have is our democracy isn't very good (too much corruption, bad voting systems), so the actions of the government can't really be assumed to accurately reflect the will of the people.

Comment: Re:Obvious Answer (Score 1, Troll) 722

by Grishnakh (#46483945) Attached to: Measles Outbreak In NYC

How about denying medical insurance coverage to those that fail to get vaccinated, unless they can demonstrate that they are a member of a recognized religious congregation that specifically is against vaccination as a part of church dogma?

No. I'm sorry, I don't see this as a valid excuse. Freedom of religion has gone too far; if you can't properly take care of your kids, they should be taken away from you.

Comment: Re:Just like where I work ... (Score 1, Insightful) 168


>because most of the requirements are out of date,



Same as above.

>or are missing critical pieces of functionality or details.

Same as above.




Comment: Re:That's nice - but it's based in the US (Score 1) 330

by ledow (#46475757) Attached to: 1GB of Google Drive Storage Now Costs Only $0.02 Per Month

Dunno about anyone else, but Google and Bing in the UK both provide data protection guarantees in line with EU data directives (or else a lot of places wouldn't be able to use them).

I've put Google Apps for Education into several schools, and that's pretty much their first concern - and the first one to be laid to rest, at least on paper...

Comment: Re:UV can cause cancer, this is known. (Score 1) 173

by ledow (#46475497) Attached to: Power Cables' UV Flashes Apparently Frighten Animals

Compare your sentence to the following to work out why it's bullshit. And if you can't work out why it's bullshit, please take a beginner's science course:

"There's acid in our stomachs! We're all going to dissolve away!".


"There's nitrogen in the air! You could suffocate!"

The question is not WHAT it is - it's UV light - it's how much it is. We're SWATHED in UV light right now. No matter where you are, unless possibly you are miles underground and have turned all the lights off (but, to be honest, by then there are much more serious risks to your health).

How much UV is it giving off? What energies? For how long? Focused where (inverse-square law springs to mind, having recently used it to explain similar crap about mobile phone towers)? How long are people sitting under it and how close?

And, to be honest, nobody really WANTS to live under a giant sparking wire, but simple economics and land-use dictate that in some countries some people have to. The threat of the thing falling on your house / some kid climbing up the tower is a million times more dangerous than anything to do with a form of EM radiation it's given off, no matter what the frequency.

For every unit of UV this thing is giving off to someone living hundreds of metres away behind a brick wall, I bet there's two units coming out of their house wiring / lighting / fish tank / other sources RIGHT NEXT TO THEIR HEADS.

Comment: Re:What about Infrared light? (Score 1) 173

by ledow (#46475431) Attached to: Power Cables' UV Flashes Apparently Frighten Animals

If the TV program QI is to be believed, we actually bioluminesce too, and not just in IR (which is really just the visible artefact of heat).

An awful lot of stuff bioluminesces too - an awful lot of deep sea fish, quite obviously, but there are millions of things that could be seen by something able to see light very well.

"Pure" IR is hard to detect for an animal. UV is just a small extension into the parts of light that already produce huge bodily effects at even low levels (blindness, sunburn, etc.). You'll probably find more animals see us as glowing things in the normal visible spectrum than see us in UV, and a lot more things see us in UV than in IR.

Comment: Re:Just like where I work ... (Score 2) 168

The problem with privatization is that it ends up being worse than having the government do it directly, because there's no consequences for failure. Several companies bid on the project, but they low-ball the bid to win the project because the lowest bidder almost always wins. But then the project costs much more, and somehow the government is on the hook for these cost overruns, instead of the contractor being responsible (since they did, after all, bid a certain amount). The problem here is the government agrees to contracts which allow enormous overruns at the government's expense. If the contractor fails, what's the penalty? At worst, they get dismissed (and keep all the cash) and someone new takes over.

It's simple: make the bids binding, and if the contractor fails to meet the terms, they pay to get it right, and if they can't, they forfeit their company and the officers are all personally responsible.

Comment: Re:And is there a real problem? (Score 1) 224

by Grishnakh (#46473345) Attached to: Silicon Valley's Youth Problem

There's a phrase that might apply here: "None of us is as dumb as all of us."

The fix isn't impossible, but it's difficult because of entrenched moneyed interests and people who support these because they blame the "other side" for all the problems. The conservatives blame the liberals, the "gay agenda", etc. for all the nation's problems, and the liberals blame the conservatives, the Koch Brothers, etc. for all the nation's problems. Neither of them blame the leaders on their own political side for the problems. The fix is to toss out all the leaders (on both sides), and rework the government to prevent the same things from happening again, such as by overturning Citizens United and writing new legislation to get money out of politics, to mandate a more fair voting system (proportional voting or Condorcet method or approval voting etc.), and likely a whole new Constitution. Good luck getting changes that large pushed through though. You can't even do the first two points because neither "side" is in favor of it (it would drastically reduce their power), and the last one is nearly impossible without a full revolution.

This is why countries never tend to get better, they always degenerate, until there's some giant war or bloody revolution to wipe the slate clean and start over. Think about it: when was the last time you heard of a country reforming itself voluntarily and getting much better, without a lot of violence? Look at the Roman Empire for instance: it decayed and then collapsed. It took Europe 1000 years to get back to that level of civilization and technology. Look at European countries now; sure, they're great places to live for the most part, but you can thank WWII for that.

Debug is human, de-fix divine.