On IT Outsourcing

Age Bias In IT: the Reality Behind the Rumors - Slashdot:

"The overhead needed to maintain requirements documentation, change processes and all the contractual garbage that goes along with outsourcing is often higher than just writing the damned code yourself. Management loves to take a systems architecture/coding job that has a 50/50 resource split and tell the systems guy to drop the coding half. They figure it will save them 50%. Never mind that the poor bastard (which I've been on numerous occasions) that has to incur the additional tasks of contract management, dealing with corporate business and legal departments. Then there's implementing additional QA that will stand up to legal challenges when your contractor f*cks up. Because now its off to court or mediation to figure out who's fault it was and who pays. We never used to sue the people in the next cubicle when there was an error in the requirements or implementation. We just grabbed a conference room and fixed it."

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Currently living this.

Because Closing Unemployment Offices Is the way to help in a recession

Workforce Offices Close Throughout State - ABC5 WOI-DT News, Weather, Sports in Des Moines, IA: "In order to still maintain the same services while operating on a budget of $6.5 million less than the previous years, the Iowa Workforce Development has been forced to close more than half of their field offices.

"

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On The Dangers of Not visiting the dentist

Man Dies Of Toothache | ThinkProgress: "A 24-year-old Cincinnati father died from a tooth infection this week because he couldn’t afford his medication, offering a sobering reminder of the importance of oral health and the number of people without access to dental or health care.
According to NBC affiliate WLWT, Kyle Willis’ wisdom tooth started hurting two weeks ago. When dentists told him it needed to be pulled, he decided to forgo the procedure, because he was unemployed and had no health insurance.
When his face started swelling and his head began to ache, Willis went to the emergency room, where he received prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medications. Willis couldn’t afford both, so he chose the pain medications.
The tooth infection spread, causing his brain to swell. He died Tuesday."

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About That Christian Love and Forgiveness Thing

On GOP Policies

What 'States' Rights' Actually Means | Crooks and Liars: "It seems the only consistency with Republicans is the strive for this kind of focus group politics that makes everything sound like a great idea until you sit down and actually think about how it will impact our country. My guess is they're not expecting voters to think about it at all.

"

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Things that I Am Tired Of - Job Creators

Seriously, why don't they just call them Rich People and be done with it?
As in, "Rich People pay too much in taxes".

Oh, you mean that wouldn't poll well?

Duncan Black Reminding Us of Some Important things

Eschaton: Where We Are:

"Black unemployment is at 16.7%.

Black male unemployment is at 18%.

White unemployment is at 8%.

Unemployment for those 25+ with bachelor's degree or more education is at 4.3%."

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About that right to vote thing

Vadum Backs Away from Argument Poor Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Vote | Election Law Blog:

"Great article, thanks for posting it, AT! I’ve said all along we need LESS people voting. The conservatives should push for poll taxes (if you’re not willing or able to pay, then you probably are not willing or able to be informed enough to vote), increase the voting age to 21, no voting for anyone who has received government assistance in the past year, and no sufferage for anyone who cannot read. One person one vote is a recipe for political suicide and the Communist’s dream."

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About Those MBS thingys

U.S. to sue big banks over mortgage securities: report | Reuters:

"(Reuters) - The agency that oversees mortgage markets is preparing to file suit against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgages they packaged and sold during the housing bubble, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

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Of course this will be spun on the right as the government interfering in the market and by the firebaggers as too little too late.

I call it a start.

On Space Debris

Space debris is getting out of hand - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post: "As if we didn’t have enough to hand-wring about, here’s the latest from The Washington Post’s Christian Torres: “Space debris has passed the ‘tipping point,’ according to a report released Thursday by the National Research Council, which called on NASA to find ways to better monitor and clean up the orbiting junk threatening active satellites and manned spacecraft.”

"

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Italian PM Berlusconi On Italy

Berlusconi Calls Italy A Sh*tty Country He Plans To Leave | TPMDC:

""They can put listening devices where they like. They can tap my telephone calls. I don't give a fuck. I ... In a few months, I'm getting out to mind my own fucking business, from somewhere else, and so I'm leaving this shitty country of which I'm sickened.""

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Joe Walsh Might Not be An Asshole

Twitter / @RepJoeWalsh: Instead of being a prop of ...: "

Rep. Joe Walsh
Instead of being a prop of another one of the President's speeches, next Thursday I will fly home to IL to talk to real job creators #tcot"

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Who am I kidding? Any elected official that shows this level of disrespect for the President is an asshole.

via dailykos

About Those NHL Enforcers

NHL Player Deaths Put Spotlight on Mental Health - ABC News: "Three of the National Hockey League's hard-hitting enforcers have died since May, highlighting the emerging link between head trauma and mental illness.

Wade Belak, the 35-year old former forward for the Nashville Predators, hanged himself Wednesday in a Toronto condominium, the Associated Press reported. His death followed the fatal drug overdose of former New York Ranger Derek Boogaard, 28, in May, and the suicide of Winnipeg Jet Rick Rypien, 27, in August."

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On Hospital Safety

Created by: Medical Billing and Coding

Don't Let Your Food Play With You

Look For The Union Label - Happy Labor Day Weekend!

About That Second AMendment Thing

Mikeb302000: The Second Amendment and the Military Industrial Complex: "If you've read the primary sources you'll see the founders gave a rat's arse for private ownership of guns. Their prime concern was the possibility of the establishment of a large standing army and the evils such a body brings.
"

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Cats and Boxes - What Else Could happen

Worst Idea This Millennium?

[1108.4767] Capturing Near Earth Objects: "Recently, Near Earth Objects (NEOs) have been attracting great attention, and thousands of NEOs have been found to date. This paper examines the NEOs' orbital dynamics using the framework of an accurate solar system model and a Sun-Earth-NEO three-body system when the NEOs are close to Earth to search for NEOs with low-energy orbits. It is possible for such an NEO to be temporarily captured by Earth; its orbit would thereby be changed and it would become an Earth-orbiting object after a small increase in its velocity. From the point of view of the Sun-Earth-NEO restricted three-body system, it is possible for an NEO whose Jacobian constant is slightly lower than C1 and higher than C3 to be temporarily captured by Earth. When such an NEO approaches Earth, it is possible to change its orbit energy to close up the zero velocity surface of the three-body system at point L1 and make the NEO become a small satellite of the Earth. Some such NEOs were found; the best example only required a 410m/s increase in velocity.
"

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Rick Perry's Email Issues

Email purges, withheld documents shroud Governor’s Office from scrutiny | Rick Perry: "Houston attorney Joe Larsen, who represents the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said he believes Perry’s office is violating state law by automatically purging all staff members’ computers of emails older than seven days. Perry’s office has said it prints and saves documents subject to open-records laws and government document retention schedules. Larsen said he believes vital records are lost by the automatic purge policy and notes that state law requires records be saved in an electronic, searchable form.

"

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On The Glass Closet

Does the press have an ethical duty to out powerful gays in tech?:

"Do journalists have a duty to report on the sexuality of so-called "glass-closeted" gay people? They do if those people are powerful, says Felix Salmon of Reuters. Media attention on powerful gays and lesbians, even those in the closet, is a social good because it promotes and celebrates diversity, he argues. If it is inspirational to millions to see a gay person at the helm of an illustrious company, Salmon believes we have an ethical duty to not to gloss over the sexuality of such a person, even if that person has never publicly "come out." To fail to do so, Salmon suggests, can be unethical, because it's dishonest.

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If someone is actually in the closet then it is up to them to make that decision. If, however it is just that they have never issued a press release to the effect "Hey, I am Gay" but they actively date and/or are living with a romantic partner of the same sex then yes it is a legitimate part of the story as much as the obligatory picture of the straight CEO with his wife, two kids and Labrador Retriever is. It shouldn't be the focus of every single story: "Tim Cook, Gay CEO of Apple says XYZ" but in those lovely Forbes profiles of the most powerful folks in the world it is a piece of the story.

Can we go back to something important now?

Things I Am Tired Of - Rick Perry's Military Service

Rick Perry was not a fighter pilot despite what you might have heard.

Rick Perry flew a C-130.

And no, you don't get to say "he was a jet pilot" either because the Hercules (which I saw a lot of growing up next to CFB Greenwood) is a turboprop.

None of this is said to diminish his service or his skill as a pilot. He spent 5 years on active duty, doesn't appear to have crashed a bunch of planes and finished up as a Captain, that is an honorable career. His fanboys trying to make it what it was not are the ones that diminish it.

A Question Or Two For Gardasil Opponents

What level of safety would be necessary for you to allow your daughter to be vaccinated?

Serious question.

Related questions.

Do you allow your child to get other vaccinations?

If so, which ones and what research have you done about their safety and efficacy?

What is different about Gardasil if the answer two lines above is "yes"?

On Life Under The Right

So let me get this straight. Fox News thinks that we should be able to do without the National Weather Service and Ron Paul thinks that we should disband FEMA. I guess that means that when the next hurricane or tornado sneaks up on us and destroys a city we should just hope that the invisible hand of the market will whisk us all up and carry us off to Oz where we will be safe.

Welcome to the future according to the Right in this country. Someone tell me again how these people aren't evil.

Put Me On This List

Pastor Mike has a plan | Pharyngula:

"Brothers and Sisters , I have been seriously considering forming a ( Christian ) grassroots type of organization to be named “The Christian National Registry of Atheists” or something similar . I mean , think about it . There are already National Registrys for convicted sex offenders , ex-convicts , terrorist cells , hate groups like the KKK , skinheads , radical Islamists , etc.."

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Yes, you have that right. Some god-bothering asshole wants to make a list of atheists so that society can be protected from us. This really is beyond parody.

And yes, I am an atheist. Get over it.

Open Source Project Of the Day - Waffles

mloss | Project details:Waffles:

"A collection of command-line tools for machine learning and data mining tasks. These tools are well-suited for script-automated experiments. These tools cover a wide diversity of tasks, including supervised learning, dimensionality reduction, collaborative filtering, optimization, visualization, etc.
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And yes, I am highlighting this project purely because of its name

Steven Goddard May Not Be A Deluded Fool

NOAA’s Phony “Hurricane” Coming On Shore With 33 MPH Winds | Real Science:

NOAA claims the winds are 85 MPH, but none of the Weather Underground stations in the area report higher than 33 MPH winds. By definition, this is not a hurricane – and is just barely a tropical storm.
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Who am I kidding ... yeah he is

Not From The Onion - We don't need a National Weather Service

Do We Really Need A National Weather Service? | FoxNews.com: "While Americans ought to prepare for the coming storm, federal dollars need not subsidize their preparations. Although it might sound outrageous, the truth is that the National Hurricane Center and its parent agency, the National Weather Service, are relics from America’s past that have actually outlived their usefulness.

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Edroso on What The Right Believes

alicublog:

"Really, this thing is a perfect distillation of wingnut first principles -- kind of like someone threw random pages from Liberal Fascism, some Chick Tracts, Andrew Breitbart's multi-volume embargoed suicide note, and corn likker into a blender. "

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