ObamaCare in 2016: Happy Yet?

Three years after the disastrous launch of the Affordable Care Act, most of the website troubles finally have been ironed out. People are now able to log on to the government's ACA website and to most of the state health-insurance exchanges. The public has grudgingly come to accept higher insurance premiums, new taxes and increases in part-time workers who were formerly full-time. But Americans are irate anyway—because now they're seeing the health-care law's destructive effect on the fundamental nature of the way their care is delivered.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/22/obamacare_in_2016_happy_yet_318400.html
Similar Articles: Never Forget 9/11   Tami Erin   Justin Morneau  

Liberal Hand-Wringing Aids the Unhinged Right

As predictably as night follows day, on Monday the media establishment pivoted away from obsessing about GOP extremism and the party’s alleged “civil war” to the “train wreck” that is, allegedly, the Affordable Care Act.

And liberals helped lead the pivot.

Don’t get me wrong: The problems with Healthcare.gov are real, and disturbing, and must be fixed asap. (Think Progress has a dispassionate assessment here.) But excuse me if I believe the president knows that without my telling him. It’s like watching the 21st century version of the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council, and I feel the way I did back then: On the one hand, yes, it’s important for Democrats to acknowledge when government screws up, and to fix it.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/23/liberal_hand-wringing_aids_the_unhinged_right_318407.html
Similar Articles: Cressida Bonas   mariano rivera   monday night football   taylor swift   Laurie Forman  

5 Million Lines of Obfuscation

Last weekend, some anonymous “specialist” told the New York Times that “5 million lines of software code may need to be rewritten” in order to fix the mess that is healthcare.gov. (The good news, according to the source, is that the project has a total of “500 million lines of software code,” so only 1 percent has to be rewritten. So the code’s 99 percent good—or something.)

I don’t mean to jump back on my hobbyhorse of complaining about lack of knowledge in tech journalism, but printing a claim like that is egregious.

Why? Well, here’s a line of C++ code:

The close curly brace signals the end of a block of code. It could be put on the same line as the previous, more substantive line, but for the sake of cleanliness, programmers tend to put it on a line of its own. When it comes to coding in HTML, Perl, and AJAX, different programmers have different styles. Some will split code up into many lines; others will compress it into a handful of lines. I’ve seen nearly identical segments of code written in 10 lines or in 50.

Here’s another line of C++ code.

// TODO: make sure this code doesn’t crash!

That’s a comment. It doesn’t do anything—those two slashes at the beginning tell the compiler (which converts code into actual computer instruction) to ignore the line. It’s there to explain things to people reading the source code, or in this case to remind the programmer to fix whatever lies immediately below. I’ve written cryptic bits of code that required more lines of comments than lines of actual code, simply to explain what on earth was going on.

On the other hand, here’s a line of APL (“A Programming Language”) code:

(~R∊R∘.×R)/R←1↓ιR

That code prints out all the prime numbers from 1 to R. APL is a notoriously terse and nightmarish language. I have successfully avoided ever coding in it. One single line of APL code could contain half a dozen bugs.

The sources may well be “specialists,” but their specialty is more likely the art of procuring government contracts.

So not all lines of code are created equal. As a programmer, I had weeks where I produced 1,000 lines of code. I had weeks where I produced 20. Usually the latter weeks were more grueling, because any 20 lines requiring that much time and effort are going to be a) important, b) complicated, and c) bug-prone. The 1,000 lines were far more likely to be simple stuff that I could code by rote. I even had weeks where I removed 2,000 lines of code by removing redundancies between similar blocks of code. Those were the best weeks of all, because less code means fewer bugs.

Programmers who do user interface code—which is responsible for the visuals and input components of software—tend to produce far more code than other programmers, because user interface code requires a lot of boilerplate. I knew programmers who wrote 10,000 (good) lines of user interface code in a week. Many of them were copied and slightly modified from other projects or example code.

Consequently, it’s rather silly to say, as the Times article does, that “a large bank’s computer system is typically” 100 million lines of code. Investment banks have far more complex code than commercial banks—they need more in order to do all their clever, sneaky trading. Assuming the Times is referring to commercial banks, there is such variety among implementations and coding standards that speaking of an “average” amount of code is meaningless. Bank code written in FORTRAN will be far longer than bank code written in Python. Does it make a difference? Not really.

But while the numbers in the Times article don’t tell us much about the healthcare.gov codebase itself, they do tell us something about the “specialist” sources that inform the article. The sources are not programmers, because programmers would not speak in terms of lines of code with no further context. We hear that “disarray has distinguished the project” in part because government “officials modified hardware and software requirements for the exchange seven times.” The officials probably modified them 70 times—requirements for any software project are constantly in flux, and it’s expected that project managers and software engineers will adapt. Modifications alone do not signal a project in disarray.

We hear that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) lacked the expertise to link the individual pieces of healthcare.gov together. That does not explain why the “data hub”—the single component provided by Quality Software Services Inc.—proved to be “a particular source of trouble,” something I had surmised two weeks ago. If individual contractors were producing garbage, CMS’s expertise or lack thereof wouldn’t have made a difference to the final product.

The sources also say that CGI Federal, which won the $90 million contract to develop healthcare.gov’s back end, was asked to replace the data hub, though this approach was abandoned as “too risky.” That’s a hint that the article’s sources seem eager to shift the blame to CMS, to the White House, and to QSSI, and away from CGI. The Times claims that CGI was not responsible for healthcare.gov’s “integration,” but the Washington Post’s Lydia DePillis reports that CGI Federal was in fact responsible for “knitting all the pieces together, making Quality Software Services’ data hub work seamlessly with Development Seed’s sleek user interface and Oracle’s identity management software.”

I have no idea who the Times’ sources were, but they sure sound like employees of CGI Federal. Because they almost certainly aren’t programmers, I’d guess they are probably mid- or high-level managers who are trying to salvage CGI Federal’s reputation. They may well be “specialists,” but their specialty is more likely the art of procuring government contracts.

This is to be expected. What’s less expected is that such anonymous sources would be treated with this degree of credulity by national reporters who lack technical understanding of their subject matter and are thus more likely to parrot whatever a “specialist” tells them. The Times has a great tech reporter, Natasha Singer, who has done well-informed work on consumer profiling, taking little for granted. They should put her on this story.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2013/10/healthcare_gov_problems_what_5_million_lines_of_code_really_means.html
Tags: Americas Cup   miss america   Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 11   Eydie Gorme   cote de pablo  

The Fix: How Jon Stewart became President Obama’s biggest problem (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/335729550?client_source=feed&format=rss
Similar Articles: steve bartman   Colorado flooding   freedom tower   school shooting   whitney houston  

Reds choose Bryan Price for next manager

FILE - In this May 26, 2012, file photo, Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Bryan Price watches a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, in Cincinnati. The Reds have chosen Price to replace Dusty Baker as their next manager, according to a person familiar with the decision. The club plans to introduce the 51-year-old Price at a news conference later Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made.(AP Photo/David Kohl, File)

FILE - In this May 26, 2012, file photo, Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Bryan Price watches a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, in Cincinnati. The Reds have chosen Price to replace Dusty Baker as their next manager, according to a person familiar with the decision. The club plans to introduce the 51-year-old Price at a news conference later Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made.(AP Photo/David Kohl, File)

Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Bronson Arroyo (61) talks with pitching coach Bryan Price during the third inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

FILE - This is a Feb. 16, 2013, file photo showing Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Bryan Price. The Reds have chosen Price to replace Dusty Baker as their next manager, according to a person familiar with the decision. The club plans to introduce the 51-year-old Price at a news conference later Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

CINCINNATI (AP) — The Reds stayed in-house for their next manager, giving pitching coach Bryan Price a three-year deal Tuesday to take the team deep into the playoffs.

The job carries enormous expectations for the 51-year-old Price, who has been one of the most successful pitching coaches in the majors but has never managed at any level. He and Triple-A manager Jim Riggleman were two in-house candidates considered for the job.

Dusty Baker led the Reds to three 90-win seasons and three playoff appearances in the last four years, but Cincinnati got knocked out in the first round of the postseason each time.

The Reds fired Baker with a year left on his two-year contract after a final-week fade that included an implosion by the pitching staff. Cincinnati lost its last six games, including a 6-2 defeat at PNC Park in the wild-card playoff against the Pirates. General manager Walt Jocketty said the closing slump was a major factor in the decision to change managers.

Baker led the Reds to their best stretch of success since Sparky Anderson managed the Big Red Machine to World Series titles in the 1970s. Price will be expected to keep Cincinnati winning deep into the playoffs in 2014 with the core of the team under contract.

Like Baker, he has an even-keel personality. Unlike Baker, he comes to the job with no previous managing experience.

"We've all seen his work here with our pitching staff," Jocketty said in a statement. "He has proven himself to be an excellent communicator and leader and clearly is one of the most respected people not only in our clubhouse but in baseball in general."

Price was a left-handed pitcher for six years in the minors, his career scuttled by elbow surgery. He started his coaching career in Seattle's farm system and was the Mariners' pitching coach from 2000-05. He moved to Arizona as pitching coach from 2006-09, resigning there after Bob Melvin was replaced.

Jocketty hired him to replace Dick Pole in Cincinnati, where he helped the Reds' staff develop into one of the NL's best during his four seasons working with Baker. Now, Jocketty has several important lineup decisions to make to try to keep the Reds competitive in the NL Central, which sent three teams to the playoffs.

Division champion St. Louis opens the World Series against Boston on Wednesday. The Pirates passed up the Reds for second place and home-field advantage for the wild-card playoff during the final week of the season.

The pitching staff will have some changes in the offseason, with starter Bronson Arroyo eligible for free agency after completing his contract. Left-hander Tony Cingrani made his debut last season and showed he could win in the majors, but was sidelined by back problems in September. Ace Johnny Cueto missed most of the season with shoulder problems.

The Reds have to decide whether to keep left-hander Aroldis Chapman as their closer or move him into a starting role.

The offense struggled last season with no consistent right-handed hitter. Cleanup hitter Ryan Ludwick tore cartilage in his right shoulder on a slide on opening day and missed most of the season. He hit only two homers after his return in mid-August, with the shoulder still bothering him. Brandon Phillips drove in 100 runs for the first time in his career, but no other right-handed hitter produced runs with any consistency.

Joey Votto and leadoff hitter Shin-Soo Choo led the NL in on-base percentage, but Choo is a free agent. Billy Hamilton created a sensation with his speed when he was called up in September, but struggled to get on base consistently in Triple-A before his first promotion to the majors.

___

Follow Joe Kay on Twitter: http://twitter.com/apjoekay

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-22-Reds%20Manager/id-6c76b29496c9462f9ca96bdb9a4b4c7c
Similar Articles: columbus day   reggie bush   friday the 13th   heidi klum   Royal Baby Pictures  

Teacher Who Died Trying To End Shooting Remembered As A Hero

A Sparks Middle School student cries with family members after a fellow student killed a math teacher and himself Monday in Sparks, Nev.

Kevin Clifford/AP

A Sparks Middle School student cries with family members after a fellow student killed a math teacher and himself Monday in Sparks, Nev.

Kevin Clifford/AP

Michael Landsberry, the 45-year-old middle school math teacher and Afghan War veteran who was killed Monday trying to talk down a student shooter at a Nevada middle school, is being remembered as a hero.

Witnesses at Sparks Middle School in the city of Sparks, near Reno, described how Landsberry approached the armed 13-year-old boy and tried to get him to surrender a semi-automatic pistol he had used to shoot two fellow students. The boy then turned the weapon on Landsberry, fatally shooting him, before using the pistol to take his own life.

"In my estimation he is a hero," Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson said at a news conference Monday.

Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez said: "We have a lot of heroes today, including our children ... and our fallen hero, an amazing teacher."

A Facebook page in honor of the fallen teacher "Rest Easy Mr. Landsberry" had more than 12,000 "likes." Other photos of Landsberry can be seen here.

"It's very unfortunate that [the life of] someone like that, who protected our country over there and came back alive ... had to be taken at his work, at a school," Sparks Mayor Geno Martini said, according to CNN.

Landsberry, a former U.S. Marine who later served in Afghanistan with the Nevada Air National Guard and held the rank of senior master sergeant, wrote on his classroom webpage: "One of my goals is to earn your respect while you earn mine. I believe that with mutual respect that the classroom environment will run smoothly."

Chanda Landsberry said her brother-in-law loved teaching.

"He loved his schoolkids. He loved the Guard," she said. "It defined him."

She said he leaves behind his wife, Sharon, and two stepdaughters.

Authorities tell ABCNews that one of the wounded boys had been through surgery and the second is said to be "doing well."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/22/239681615/teacher-who-died-trying-to-end-shooting-remembered-as-a-hero?ft=1&f=1013
Category: tim tebow   silk road   Teyana Taylor   Blacklist   cnet  

WSJ: Microsoft prototyping Google Glass-like device

It's pretty clear that wearables, whether they be made for the face or the wrist, are going to be the next big thing in hardware. According to The Wall Street Journal's sources "familiar with the matter," Microsoft doesn't want to be late to the party, and is currently playing with prototypes of ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/iBnpRKhLh7s/
Category: Ed Lauter   cory booker   National Cheeseburger Day   Sons Of Anarchy Season 6   Eddie Lacy