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Somehow they think our household does a lot more e-stuff than it does.
The case of the missing "r".
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Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Monday, July 13, 2015
Two Recommendations--An Empire on the Edge and Ghosts of Versailles
Just because, I'd recommend a book and an opera.
The book is one I haven't finished reading, but I like very much. It's "An Empire on the Edge", a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer. It's the British side of the road to our Revolution, with lots of stuff I didn't know. (John Brown played as big a role in the Revolution as John Brown did in the Civil War.) Particularly like the interplay of politics, personality, economics, and government, with just a tad of bureaucracy thrown in.
The opera is "The Ghosts of Versailles", which we saw at Wolf Trap Friday in a chamber version. No DVD available for anyone outside the 1 percent, but if you have a chance, go see it. Laughed until I cried.
The book is one I haven't finished reading, but I like very much. It's "An Empire on the Edge", a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer. It's the British side of the road to our Revolution, with lots of stuff I didn't know. (John Brown played as big a role in the Revolution as John Brown did in the Civil War.) Particularly like the interplay of politics, personality, economics, and government, with just a tad of bureaucracy thrown in.
The opera is "The Ghosts of Versailles", which we saw at Wolf Trap Friday in a chamber version. No DVD available for anyone outside the 1 percent, but if you have a chance, go see it. Laughed until I cried.
House Ag Appropriations
From the House appropriations ag subcommittee;
Here's the committee report on MIDAS:
"Information Technology Waste
.—GAO and USDA’s OIG have issued reports that highlight poor program performance in the past and uncertainty regarding USDA’s capacity to effectively manage IT acquisitions in the future. Auditors found that the Secretary halted further development on the MIDAS program after spending almost $500 million for nearly a decade on planning and development of this critical system. This investment of time and limited resources has resulted in the delivery of about one-fifth of the functionality intended for twice the projected cost. While the Secretary has highlighted saving hundreds of millions of dollars on IT, the Committee notes that MIDAS is a prime example of government waste and inefficiency. MIDAS is still expected to cost another $330 million over the lifecycle of the project, yet the system will have severely reduced capacity. The total cost will equal almost three times the original projections.
GAO noted that problems with MIDAS were due to the lack of implementation of USDA and Farm Service Agency (FSA) program management policies and best practices covering key disciplines such as requirements for development and management, project planning and monitoring, system testing, and executive-level governance. Following project stoppage, the Department has been exploring other options—at an additional cost to taxpayers and time spent on these modernization efforts—to provide the functionality that USDA had promised Congress and the agricultural community, including a modernized acreage reporting system and an online office for American farmers and ranchers to access. Given the lack of IT leadership demonstrated by the Secretary on the MIDAS investment, the Committee remains concerned as to whether the Department will be any more successful with IT acquisition activities moving forward than it was in the past with MIDAS. The Committee includes statutory language that places spending controls on both MIDAS and other IT acquisitions.
FSA IT.
—FSA’s management of certain IT projects has produced increased costs, bloated budgets, and inaccurate budget estimates. These projects include the MIDAS program and increased or inaccurate charges from the National Information Technology Center, for which costs have tripled since fiscal year 2014. The agreement includes statutory language that allows FSA to release funds for farm program delivery IT projects only after review by the GAO and approval by the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate. The roadmap submitted by FSA in fiscal year 2015 was the first step to bringing accountability and guidance to almost a decade of mismanagement. In this regard, the GAO and the OIG are recommending that FSA establish a plan to guide the agency in adopting recognized best practices and in following agency policy. The GAO also recommends that the agency adhere to specific practices within key management disciplines before proceeding with further system development. FSA is directed to continue quarterly briefings in writing for the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate regarding all IT projects and activities related to farm program delivery.
And an "attaboy" for NRCS:
The Committee commends NRCS for its organizational realignment of administrative functions and appreciates the savings this will generate. NRCS has worked to become a more efficient, accountable organization, and the Committee encourages NRCS to work with other agencies within USDA to do the same
Here's the committee report on MIDAS:
"Information Technology Waste
.—GAO and USDA’s OIG have issued reports that highlight poor program performance in the past and uncertainty regarding USDA’s capacity to effectively manage IT acquisitions in the future. Auditors found that the Secretary halted further development on the MIDAS program after spending almost $500 million for nearly a decade on planning and development of this critical system. This investment of time and limited resources has resulted in the delivery of about one-fifth of the functionality intended for twice the projected cost. While the Secretary has highlighted saving hundreds of millions of dollars on IT, the Committee notes that MIDAS is a prime example of government waste and inefficiency. MIDAS is still expected to cost another $330 million over the lifecycle of the project, yet the system will have severely reduced capacity. The total cost will equal almost three times the original projections.
GAO noted that problems with MIDAS were due to the lack of implementation of USDA and Farm Service Agency (FSA) program management policies and best practices covering key disciplines such as requirements for development and management, project planning and monitoring, system testing, and executive-level governance. Following project stoppage, the Department has been exploring other options—at an additional cost to taxpayers and time spent on these modernization efforts—to provide the functionality that USDA had promised Congress and the agricultural community, including a modernized acreage reporting system and an online office for American farmers and ranchers to access. Given the lack of IT leadership demonstrated by the Secretary on the MIDAS investment, the Committee remains concerned as to whether the Department will be any more successful with IT acquisition activities moving forward than it was in the past with MIDAS. The Committee includes statutory language that places spending controls on both MIDAS and other IT acquisitions.
FSA IT.
—FSA’s management of certain IT projects has produced increased costs, bloated budgets, and inaccurate budget estimates. These projects include the MIDAS program and increased or inaccurate charges from the National Information Technology Center, for which costs have tripled since fiscal year 2014. The agreement includes statutory language that allows FSA to release funds for farm program delivery IT projects only after review by the GAO and approval by the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate. The roadmap submitted by FSA in fiscal year 2015 was the first step to bringing accountability and guidance to almost a decade of mismanagement. In this regard, the GAO and the OIG are recommending that FSA establish a plan to guide the agency in adopting recognized best practices and in following agency policy. The GAO also recommends that the agency adhere to specific practices within key management disciplines before proceeding with further system development. FSA is directed to continue quarterly briefings in writing for the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate regarding all IT projects and activities related to farm program delivery.
And an "attaboy" for NRCS:
The Committee commends NRCS for its organizational realignment of administrative functions and appreciates the savings this will generate. NRCS has worked to become a more efficient, accountable organization, and the Committee encourages NRCS to work with other agencies within USDA to do the same
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Clear Writing
Clear writing seems to be a perennial topic. When I started work, the (retiring) lead editor in Directives had completed a series of writing classes and had incorporated her wisdom in the handbook. 10 years later Jimmy Carter came along and we had to certify that our regulations were clearly written.
Skip ahead to today and this Post piece describes a new effort. The problem is eternal, and the fight against jargon is worthy.
Skip ahead to today and this Post piece describes a new effort. The problem is eternal, and the fight against jargon is worthy.
Dairy Farming in Italy?
I'm sure this isn't representative of Italian dairies. The story about driving cows 100 miles between winter and summer pastures is interesting, though it leaves many questions unanswered. (Since the lead character is a cheesemaker, I'm assuming these are dairy cows, though the wikipedia entry is less clear. ) My big question: when and where are they milked? Milking during the drive seems unfeasible, which would seem to imply milking only at one end of the drive or the other. So these surely aren't milked for the 300 days standard for Holsteins in my youth. And where are the calves--do they make the drive as well?
I vaguely remember in my youth reading about herds in Switzerland going from one pasture to the other. I suppose the same issues arise.
I vaguely remember in my youth reading about herds in Switzerland going from one pasture to the other. I suppose the same issues arise.
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Something Completely Different: a Cop
Via Kottke.org, this piece written by a New York cop, who used to be an aspiring actress.
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
How History Gets Distorted
The NYTimes in a roundup of interesting stuff mentioned the "EveryThreeMinutes" twitterbot which pumps out a tweet every 3 minutes describing a sale/purchase of a slave in the antebellum South. This is from the site (not up on Twitter, so don't know the terminology).
When you read the reference, available at Google, it's: "Slavery and the Numbers Game: A Critique of Time on the Cross", by Herbert George Gutman
Time on the Cross was a 1974 book which changed the historiography of slavery, as noted in the wikipedia site. Gutman's book and criticism of TofC is briefly described there.
According to the page displayed by Google, Gutman reasons this way: He asserts that 2 million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860, a statistic I've seen elsewhere. He goes on to say: " If we assume that slave sales did not occur on Sundays and holidays and that such selling went on for ten hours on working days, a slave was sold on average every 3.6 minutes between 1820 and 1860." This is the source for Every3Minutes.
Note, however, that the twitterbot seems to be running 24 hours a day, not 10 hours a day. Gutman is saying 167 slaves are sold every work day( (10 hours * 60 minutes)/3.6), twitterbot is saying 400 slaves every calendar day. How much difference does it make: it implies 5,840,000 sales over the 40 years, not 2,000,000. That's a big difference.
In the twitterbots defense, it's an easy mistake to make. Ordinarily when we say something like: " X people are killed every day by Y", it's 365 days a year, not 200 workdays. Gutman switched the usual basis in his calculations, presumably to make a more impressive case against Time on the Cross.
(I could quibble about Gutman's calculations--using his figures I get 3.74 minutes, not 3.6.
40 years times 52 weeks times 6 days a week (= 12480), minus 10 days for holidays, times 10 hours times 60 minutes = 7,482,000 minutes divided by 2,000,000 = 3.741 minutes. But since I'm going on only the page Google shows me, there may be something I'm missing.)
The bottom line is that twitter will spread the 3.6 minutes figure more widely, and it will become a concrete fact to be used in making history come alive, despite its inaccuracy.
Every Three MinutesLooking at the reference, it seems that the person/people between the twitterbot is stretching a bit: "Every Four Minutes" might be more appropriate if you follow normal rounding rules and don't want to go with "Every3.6Minutes".
@Every3Minutes[In the United States] a slave was sold on average every 3.6 minutes between 1820 and 1860 ~ Herbert Gutman
When you read the reference, available at Google, it's: "Slavery and the Numbers Game: A Critique of Time on the Cross", by Herbert George Gutman
Time on the Cross was a 1974 book which changed the historiography of slavery, as noted in the wikipedia site. Gutman's book and criticism of TofC is briefly described there.
According to the page displayed by Google, Gutman reasons this way: He asserts that 2 million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860, a statistic I've seen elsewhere. He goes on to say: " If we assume that slave sales did not occur on Sundays and holidays and that such selling went on for ten hours on working days, a slave was sold on average every 3.6 minutes between 1820 and 1860." This is the source for Every3Minutes.
Note, however, that the twitterbot seems to be running 24 hours a day, not 10 hours a day. Gutman is saying 167 slaves are sold every work day( (10 hours * 60 minutes)/3.6), twitterbot is saying 400 slaves every calendar day. How much difference does it make: it implies 5,840,000 sales over the 40 years, not 2,000,000. That's a big difference.
In the twitterbots defense, it's an easy mistake to make. Ordinarily when we say something like: " X people are killed every day by Y", it's 365 days a year, not 200 workdays. Gutman switched the usual basis in his calculations, presumably to make a more impressive case against Time on the Cross.
(I could quibble about Gutman's calculations--using his figures I get 3.74 minutes, not 3.6.
40 years times 52 weeks times 6 days a week (= 12480), minus 10 days for holidays, times 10 hours times 60 minutes = 7,482,000 minutes divided by 2,000,000 = 3.741 minutes. But since I'm going on only the page Google shows me, there may be something I'm missing.)
The bottom line is that twitter will spread the 3.6 minutes figure more widely, and it will become a concrete fact to be used in making history come alive, despite its inaccuracy.
Monday, July 06, 2015
Our Lying Founding Father
Ben Franklin is not trustworthy, as proven by this.
A diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for her country. It looks as if Ben was doing his own black propaganda.
A diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for her country. It looks as if Ben was doing his own black propaganda.
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