When government agencies procure custom software, the price tag is often driven up because the agencies are unwilling or unable to reduce the complexity prior to beginning the acquisition process. The complexity and associated uncertainty is obvious to vendors, so when asked to provide a firm fixed price bid, they’re going to price it for …
Category Archives: ShortLinks
Government should procure custom software as open source.
Government software becomes vastly better when it’s procured as open source. Normally, government buys closed-source custom software. Government never looks at the source code. The public can’t inspect it. Is it any good? No, it is not. There is no incentive to make it good. In fact, there’s a perverse incentive: hard to maintain means …
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Vote ”yes“ on VA’s redistricting constitutional amendment.
Gerrymandering persists because it’s the rational choice for elected officials. The way electoral districts are drawn in most of the U.S. is that state legislators decide what they want their districts to look like. The majority party that controls the legislature draws their own districts to allow them to cruise to reelection, using fancy redistricting …
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Make sure your UI modernization plan includes an open source clause.
Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs this year. Overall, over 35 million people have made unemployment benefit claims since the crisis began. State unemployment systems are crumbling under the load, and they’re desperate to modernize. The CARES Act, passed March 27th, expands benefits for those who lost work due to the pandemic, …
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Open your data.
This is a piece I wrote about the importance of media outlets sharing the raw data on which their articles are based, as they do with prose (e.g., FOIAed documents) with increasing frequency. →
McDonnell’s Rolex.
I want to emphasize a small but crucial point about Bob McDonnell’s defense in this unfolding scandal. His defense is that all of the gifts—$15,000 for one daughter’s wedding, $10,000 for another daughter’s wedding, $70,000 to his business, $50,000 to his wife, etc.—weren’t to him, but to his family members and his business. One of …
Randy “Duke” Cunningham has been released from prison.
I enjoyed the hell out of covering his misdeeds in 2005. I hope he can provide the world with more fodder for hilarious tales of corruption in the years ahead. Given his lack of contrition (he regrets pleading guilty!), I think that’s likely. →
Why fresh-squeezed orange juice turns bitter.
Several times recently I have squeezed a large number of oranges, enjoyed some of the delicious fresh-squeezed juice, and then been disappointed by the rest the next day. It tastes bitter, and becomes worse rapidly. This turns out to be the result of naturally occurring limonoate A-ring lactone (aka "LARL," a tasteless substance) breaking down …
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Everything you want to know about gun violence in the United States.
My friend Jonathan Stray put together an entirely fact-based FAQ on American gun violence for The Atlantic. Everybody can learn something from this. →
That “fresh squeezed” orange juice is anything but.
I’m more interested in orange juice than is probably healthy for somebody who doesn’t work in the industry and, as such, I’m excited to see Bloomberg Businessweek shining a spotlight on the horseshit that is "fresh squeezed," "not from concentrate," and "all-natural." These are all lies. It was squeezed months ago. It was concentrated to …
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