Skybuck's Payment Method to Develop Software On Time.

[Ben Bacarisse]

You obviously didn't run this through the LOC Maximizer program.

If it claims to be able to live up to it's name, it's lying!

<snip>

 

[osmium]

"Gordon Burditt" wrrote:

There are several places on the tax forms where
they really mean "if less than zero, enter zero", but don't state it.

One of the stories on TV said they floundered around trying to figure out a
date format that the program would accept and never did find a format. I
saw a couple other somewhat similar things but they don't come to mind.

I personally saw an ad on TV that said to delete your cookies. I don't want
to even think about the hell I would go through if I deleted my cookies.
The thing you said above reinforces my guess. ISTM the work was done by new
grads with very little adult involvement. After a lifetime of engineering I
can't imagine letting new grads do anything very important for the first
year or two.

I think you've spent quite a bit of time looking at this; do you think I
might be right?

 

[J. Clarke]

:

<snippage>
This is the most informative thing I've seen on the ACA despite quite a bit
of exposure on various sites and so on. Congratulations!


I hope the actual question is whether you smoke or not. Asking about what
you used to do discourages quitting. The only practice punished by the ACA
seems to be smoking. AIUI a penalty of 50% in premiums. If that is the
*only* thing they punish, they could at least have a more reasonable
penalty, say 20%. It is far from clear to me that a smoker even costs the
system more. A relatively cheap death at 55 vs. a heart transplant later
on, for example. .

The most expensive thing you can do is live to a ripe old age and need
long term care. I don't smoke but I see the smoking surcharge as being
based entirely in political correctness.

I don't think there is any free coverage. The affordable care act says
_someone_ can afford it, most likely not you. For the short term there is a
subsidy due to the courtesy of the Chinese government.

Common myth. The Chinese hold less than 10 percent of the US national
debt.

 

[Les Cargill]

The most expensive thing you can do is live to a ripe old age and need
long term care. I don't smoke but I see the smoking surcharge as being
based entirely in political correctness.

Not entirely - there really is an impetus to protect the
health of the inventory... excuse me, population.

Common myth. The Chinese hold less than 10 percent of the US national
debt.

Yep. Which is just enough to hold themselves hostage
to *our* economic future. You don't claw your way to
the top of the pile in China without being pretty gosh
darn smart.

 

[Edward A. Falk]

Hello,

If you have a big software company which doesn't achieve deadlines for
software releases then here is my method to get it done on time the next
time:

Step 1. Give software developers a steady salary.

Step 2. For each second the software is late they pay X ammount of money
back to the company.

Step 3. For each second the software is on time they get X ammount of bonus
money from the company. (Optional).

I am pretty sure this will work wonders.

No. Bosses would set unreasonably short deadlines. Engineers would
push for unreasonably long deadlines. Without a reasonable and neutral
metric for determining in advance, how long a project should take,
this is completely unworkable.

And yes, the bosses would absolutely do this. I have a friend who used to
be in construction law. Primarly suing crooked contractors. There were
cases where major contractors (I'm talking about building major buildings
in downtown) would deliberately alter the computer-generated schedules
in order to give their subcontractors impossible deadlines, just so they
could collect the penalties.

 

[Keith Thompson]

[HUGE SNIP]

This thread started as an off-topic discussion about software
development, and has morphed into a discussion of the Affordable
Care Act and its implementation.

Before posting further, please consider whether
alt.comp.borland-delphi and comp.lang.c are really the best place
for this. (Hint: comp.lang.c certainly isn't; I can't speak for
alt.comp.borland-delphi, but the name strongly suggests that it
isn't either.)

I'm not aware of any shortage of forums that would welcome discussion
on these topics.

 

[Charlton Wilbur]

EF> No. Bosses would set unreasonably short deadlines. Engineers
EF> would push for unreasonably long deadlines. Without a reasonable
EF> and neutral metric for determining in advance, how long a
EF> project should take, this is completely unworkable.

Not to mention a reasonable and neutral metric for determining whether
the software is of acceptable quality.

Also? You want to penalize me for delivering software late, when the
reason the software is late is almost always something I have no control
over, while *optionally* rewarding me for delivering it early? Look,
this is me polishing my resume, because you don't realize what a
clusterfuck you're about to create and my next major professional goal
is to leave your company before it becomes obvious.

Either that, or I unionize.

Charlton

 

[Ken Brody]

(I assume you mean "early", not "on time".)

I guess it depends on your definition of "wonders".

[...]

Also? You want to penalize me for delivering software late, when the
reason the software is late is almost always something I have no control
over, while *optionally* rewarding me for delivering it early?

Actually, without that "optional" bonus, you'll actually be *penalized* for
being early. (For example, if you deliver a week early, you'll have been
paid a week's salary less for it.)

Make sure to not deliver it until a second before the deadline, so as to get
your full salary. Use all of that "extra" time reading email, updating your
Facebook status, and messing up Wikipedia entries.

[...]

 

[Mike Stump]

I hope the actual question is whether you smoke or not.

Yes, and it has a time component to it as well. Have you smoked in the past n months. I think it was 3.

The only practice punished by the ACA seems to be smoking. AIUI a
penalty of 50% in premiums.

Wow, that hurts. Glad I never smoked, will never.

I think it is hugely unlikely that the government is subject to the
bait-and-switch laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity They can consent
to being sued, if they want to be. They kinda need a compelling
reason to want to be.

 

[Mike Stump]

I dived into the site, and didn't see any
waiting. So, seems to be better... The site still gets an Epic Fail
from me, as it is impossible (as far as I can tell) to get any
information (on price) out of the site without playing with email. [
I was wrong, see below. ]

In order to see your choices, you need prices for *you*, right?

No. We need to see the price for the product we select.

That's ludicrous,

And yet, that is what 90%+ of the shopping web site do and this is how
90%+ of the brick and mortar establishments do. Are you are so
detached from reality that you don't understand how the world works?

For your homework exercise, take a trip out the the mall. See if you
can find products, see if there is something like a price tag on those
products, or if a price is listed on the shelf next to the product.
Take along a 10 year old, if you can't figure it out, have them
explain it to you.

especially for something as expensive as health insurance, and with a
2-to-1 spread on (unsubsidized) prices. I see no way you can select
some big-ticket item, like a car or a house or health insurance, and
only look at the price for the one you select.

You are out of the loop and out of date:

http://www.zillow.com/atherton-ca/

I see 24 prices currently, and I look at line and see exactly that
price. Welcome to the world around you.

No, I've had times when the prices were wrong.

And yet the fact remains that web sites have prices on them. And
those prices are very accurate. Likely 99% or better on 99% of the
web sites, though, this doesn't matter. My point was, web sites that
sell things, have prices.

If I am going to buy a new car, I want the base price and the price
of each and every option I would consider buying anyway. No price,
no buy.

And now you know in part why people that sell things often (but not
always) include the price in an easy to find manner.

Unless you plan to commit fraud, your income is not an "option".

Sure it is. Try it, let us know what you find. Hint, enter 999,999
if someone(something) presses the issue. It is an option, you
just don't realize it. Also, on the web site, you can enter any value
you want, and no value you enter is fraud. That word doesn't mean
what you think it means. Hint, go see if Khan
(http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy) has a course that covers
law. I'd not bet against it.

What's next, viewing prices on the silk road is in violation of the
law? Hint, no, indeed, it is not.

What county you live in is not an "option" unless you plan to move
based on what insurance policy you select.

Yes, often on the web sites, this comes in the form of a zip code. If
you want to option out of it, type 90210 for example. You can then
see products based upon the selection you choose. What you enter is
entirely up to you. The prices you then see are based upon the
information provided.

Whether you have smoked or not is not an "option".

Sure it is. You can get price quotes for plans with and without smokers.

According to the law, whether you cover kids is not an "option"
unless your spouse's insurance covers them.

? It is not against the law to enter anything you want on the web
site to see the price of that thing you want to see the price of. You
are deeply confused. Further, it is not against the law to sign up
and leave the wife off. Nor is it against the law to sign up and
leave the kids off.

I have a choice of 38 plans, with 38 prices. Except for the issue of
buying another policy for dental, I get to pick one of those prices.

No, you are mistaken. You can venture out to a larger number of
providers than those listed for on the Federal web site, offerring a
large number of plans (rather than just the the handful on the Federal
web site) and see prices from any of them.

Hint the Federal government didn't make it illegal to offer plans in
excess of the minimum standard nor to make it illegal to offer plans
in addition to those on the Federal web site. Nor to have prices on web sites.

Buying health insurance at the federal website is much more like
buying gasoline. The pump has maybe 4 grades (including diesel).
You can decide whether to fill your tank half-full or three-quarters
full or full. That's all the choice you have.

Sure, but, you can also buy any plan from from any provider as well.

It's unacceptable to give out wrong prices.

Right. And the web site aims to not do that. They give out the price
based upon the information you enter. Information isn't right or
wrong, it just is. Say I'm retirement planning and want to enter my
information, but with the age at 75, I can do that; the price
reflected on the web site, just is.

Does the CA web site have the equivalent of the "BUY" button

I'll plead ignorance. What I do know is that if you run 20 scenarios
on either the california or the fereral site, the 21st will take 20
seconds or less. This predicated on entering 999,999 for income.

Newegg does not sell auto insurance.

Oh my god, tell me it is not so. We can't buy car insurance because
newegg doesn't sell it. My world ends. [ pause ] Wait, so what? I
went to http://www.geico.com/, and apparently there are other
merchants on the internet and some of them purport to sell car
insurance. I clicked around and in a minute I had a price displayed
(quote) of $182.55/month. So, apparently the fact that newegg doesn't,
isn't relevant to anything.

One must get correct prices to make an intelligent buying decision.

You assume that the only utility of a price is a buying decision.
This is wrong. For example, a news reporter might want to survey
price differentials between high crime neighborhoods and low crime
areas and do a story on it. They can use the price to compute the
differences.

If the price depends on a whole bunch of factors, you *MUST* have
those factors available to compute the price.

If you want to see the price with those factors weighed in. A good
web site will let you explore the prices the way you want to.

Also, this info is privacy-sensitive, so storing it in a cookie or
something is not acceptable.

You're not yet a web site security guru, please study some more.