I'm not really taking Oracle's side on this but having worked on a lot of Government (Local, State, Federal) projects over the years I have seen this sort of thing happen time and time again.

The first problem you encounter is that, almost without exception, government projects are fixed bid rather than time and materials. The procurement system requires them to do it that way. Fixed bid projects can be successful - but only if you tightly control scope and expectations. And in my experience, scope creep is a way of life on government projects.

The second problem is that when scope creep occurs the project manager, being a political position in large part, will invariably agree to the scope creep to "keep the customer happy". That puts pressure on the rest of the team to deliver more in the same amount of time. Often, quality suffers in the name of getting it done on time.

Problem number three - the customer sometimes doesn't know what they want. Or worse, they think they know and ignore the advise of their consulting partner. Or worse yet, the customer listens to the consulting partner and the partner is giving bad advice. If any of these things happens your project is in deep, deep trouble.

Problem four - salespeople will make unrealistic promises (i.e. they will lie through their teeth) to win the contract. In most places, salespeople are paid their commission based on a percentage of the revenue in the contact. Not what it actually costs to implement the product or service. So by the time the shit hits the fan the salesperson has collected their commission and moved on to the next deal. The project team is left to clean up the mess. If the project goes over budget, or gets cancelled, it has no real impact on the salesperson. They get paid either way. In short, the problem is that the commission is tied to revenue rather than profitability.

Now I've worked with Oracle before. Some of them are very good, some of them are very bad. I suspect that by the time this whole thing is investigated there will enough blame for all sides. Sure, Oracle has screwed up projects before but I'd be very surprised if all the blame lies at their feet on this one.

Well, that's a step in the right direction. But having rules in place and enforcing those rules are two different matters entirely. It's a big ship and it takes a long time to change the direction.

I spent a few years as a public servant before doing what I do now. It was, to say the least, an eye opening experience. If you want to learn exactly how NOT to run a business go work for the government for a while.

The procurement system is completely whacked. Everyone seems to know it but nobody wants to do anything to fix it. Democrats and Republicans alike have both had ample opportunity to fix it and both have shied away from it.

It is nearly impossible to fire an incompetent federal employee. The best management can do is put the person in a crummy job and hope they quit. Likewise, management is forbidden from giving bonuses to top performing employees. It doesn't take long before people realize that they get paid the same whether they put in an honest days work or sit there with their feet up on the desk.

Efficiency in government is punished, not rewarded. If you find a way to save money your reward is a reduced budget for next year. No raise, no promotion, no bonus, no thanks. So you end up with year end spending sprees to ensure that you spend every penny allocated to your department.

It's very difficult to measure success in government. If you are selling a product you can say we sold X last year and this year we sold X+2. Therefore, this year was better than last. In public service how do you measure it? We had fewer complaints this year than last?

It seemed to me that if you worked in government you had one of two choices. You could either suck it up and wait for your pension or leave and do something else. I chose to leave. I did find a lot of good, hard working people in government. I also found a lot of lazy, good for nothing doorstops. Such is life.

First of all, this would end up costing at least twice what they say it would. Let's say the first coal plant sells for $1B. The second one says...hmmm...they got $1B...I can get $1.2B....and so on.

Secondly, the US is far from the largest coal user and polluter. Even if you could shut down every coal plant in the US you would have to repeat the process in every country in the world that uses coal (starting with China). Yeah, good luck with that.

Thirdly, they suggest having it publicly funded or letting the rich guys pay for it. Obamacare is the latest huge publicly funded project in the US. Before that, it was TARP funds for infrastructure projects. Both of them have failed to meet stated goals. Both of them went vastly over budget. Both of them were rife with abuse and cronyism. Am I the only one that sees a pattern here?

So let's get the rich guys to pay for it. Ahh...the battle cry of the Socialist. And how is that going to happen exactly? Are we, the public, going to ask them to voluntarily give up large swaths of their fortunes to fund this project? Uh huh....not gonna happen. So then what? We take the money whether they like it or not through taxation or penalties or some other such method. This has been tried time and time again. They will simply hire accountants and lawyers to find a way around it and the middle class guy - who can't afford to hire the fancy accountants and lawyers - gets stuck with the bill.

So what to do? Why not try investing some of that $50B into finding ways of making coal safer to use and less harmful to the environment?

Absolutely right. I'm not passing judgement on people that are gaming it. Who am I to tell someone with a family to feed how to make that choice? People do what they have to do. I blame more the system that has evolved that practically forces you to cheat to stay in the game.

And others...with even more insight...might actually try to answer "why". Oh, I see that's missing from your response.

What do you think the reason is?

I don't pretend to know what it is - but I know what it isn't and that's discrimination. This two-wrongs-make-a-right type of approach when we tilt things one way and then re-tilt them back to address some supposed injustice just doesn't work.

How about we let the market decide? When IT jobs pay enough and have the right balance of home/work and provide whatever it is that would make it attractive to women as a career option they will join the ranks.

Do you really think that Google offering $100 to some schoolgirl is going to magically re-balance the workforce? It's nothing more than feel good, PR bullshit.

Right. So what you end up getting in interviews are people that "inflate" their resume (i.e. lie about their skills). And you get people that know how to "game" the system by using the right buzz words to fool the software and/or HR. Doesn't sound like much of a talent pool to me. Personally, I'd rather hire someone that just told me "you know, I don't have every single skill listed on there but I have a lot of them and I've proven that I can learn quickly".

If you're really lucky you might get a rockstar that actually has all the requirements you are looking for.

another solution looking for a problem. The reason there are fewer women in IT is not because they are being discriminated somehow. It's because they don't see it as a viable occupation for them. They are choosing not to enter the field - for whatever reason - but it is a choice that women have made.

This is not something that needs "fixing" but yet another diversity fuck-wit.

So Google is handing out $100 to girls that complete the JavaScript course? That's great but how about giving it to boys too?

-- Sarcasm begin: Oh but make sure you don't give it to any white boys. They have enough advantages in life already, don't ya know. What about those asian boys? Nah - we have enough of them in IT already. They don't need the $100. Yup, better just stick with giving it to the black and hispanic boys. They are, no doubt, under represented as well so they need a helping hand. And all girls - even white girls - will get the money. That should even things up. -- Sarcasm end

See where this is going?

"Meanwhile, employers say managers are struggling to find qualified workers in STEM fields" - at the wages they are willing to pay and with the qualifications they require. This notion that we don't have enough STEM workers is ridiculous. The reason that Employers want more H1-B workers is that H1-B workers don't have the same employment protections that US Citizens have and will work for less money. Period.

As I see it, here are the problems:

1) Unrealistic expectations on the part of Employers - Have you seen some of these job postings? They want the applicant to know everything under the Sun and the starting salary is 50K. Good luck with that.
2) Resume screening programs/HR people - Often, good candidates are excluded from even applying for a job unless they meet each and every requirement. Sometimes the rejection is done via software and sometimes it's someone in HR that simply doesn't understand what the requirements mean and their relative importance to the position. The whole system encourages lying and gaming in order to get the interview.
3) The insistence that candidates have a 4 year degree - I'm not against higher education but I've been in the business long enough to know that lots of jobs in IT can be done by someone that does not have a 4 year degree, as long as they get the proper training and mentoring. Heck, even people with 4 year degrees need training and mentoring. This notion that people without 4 year degrees are incapable of learning IT skills is elitist and absurd.

Start addressing some of these issues and the STEM "shortage" will disappear.

Higher Ed, by the way, loves this idea of giving out more H1-B visas. Why? Because it will attract more foreign students to their schools if the Student can get a Green Card the day they graduate. And foreign students just happen to pay about double the tuition that an in-state, US Citizen would pay for exactly the same courses.

One thing I have learned working with big Universities over the years - they love money as much as the greedy private sector capitalists that they love to deride.

So Big Business and Big Education promote the idea of STEM shortage as a means to an end. The US STEM worker gets left out in the cold.

is similar to yours. I had a relatively cushy job working for the local government. It was a great training ground and I had advanced as far as I could go. The pay was OK but not great and raises were hard to come by. I got an opportunity to take a job with a very small company (less than 10 employees) doing what looked like really interesting work.

The pay was less than what I was making and I had to move to a more expensive city. But the opportunity excited me and I was young so I took it. Best move I ever made. The small company never went public or anything like that but I learned a great deal and it positioned me to take on increasingly responsible (and lucrative) roles in the future.

I'm convinced that if I had stayed in my cushy government job I would still be making peanuts and wishing I'd done something else with my life.

It taught me that the worst move you'll ever make is the move you never make. Sometimes you have to take a step sideways, or even backwards, in order to get ahead.

If FB shut it down it was only because they could not find a way to make money off it. Let's face it - everyone has caught on to these creeps and how they operate. Does anyone actually use their real name on there anymore? Does anyone actually sign up using their primary email address (with all your contacts and every important email message you have ever sent)?

FB reminds me a lot of Microsoft. You can only piss off your users so much before they 1) stop trusting you with their data and 2) start looking for alternative services. Microsoft has seen this happen over the past several years, particularly in the Consumer market. Witness the rise in Mac vs. PC sales. Witness Microsoft's almost complete lack of presence in either the tablet or mobile OS market. I think a lot of people just got pissed off with MS and started looking for other (better?) ways of getting things done.

Now lets take a look at FB. What do they offer? A place to post your photos, exchange news with your friends and a way to chat with them. So along comes Instagram and a lot of people switch to that for posting photos. Similarly, a lot of people have switched to Twitter for exchanging news information with their groups of friends. WhatsApp offers a way to chat with your friends around the world with no SMS charges, just like FB chat does.

So what is FB's response to this? They buy up Instagram and WhatsApp. Rumors continue to swirl that they are trying to buy Twitter. If you can't beat em, swallow them up.

What should be very disturbing to FB is that users are continuing to flee their service. Why? Because we don't trust them to be good custodians of our data. FB has a well documented history of terms of service head fakes and slights of hand.

If I were a FB user (and I'm not) I would be filling my profile with completely fake information, rendering their supposed advertising powerhouse completely useless. And if you have to go to that extent what's the point of even using it?

Well, there are different models of Tesla but I would argue that they are all high performance cars. Even the "low end" model (with the 60kWh battery) is capable of 0-60 in 5.9 seconds. This is posted on their website if you want to have a look (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/design). While there are quicker cars, 5.9 is pretty darn quick in my books. And the torque comes on instantly so I'm sure it's a heck of a ride.

You make a fair point on diesel fuel. It does cost more but you get far better mileage than the average gas powered car. And if you're looking to make an environmental statement then diesel is hard to beat. Modern diesels are extremely clean. There is very little of the "clatter" associated with the older diesels. They typically have TONS of torque. The engines require less maintenance and have proven reliability.

In Europe and Asia diesel fuel is cheaper than regular gas so diesels tend to be very popular there. In the USA, as you noted, diesel sells at a premium. So if you look strictly at pump prices then, yes, gas powered cars are cheaper. But if you look at the whole picture I think that diesels make a compelling choice for many people.

Very interesting post. It seems that the Tesla Superchargers are the real deal. Coupled with the much longer battery life on the Tesla vs. Leaf and Volt it really does seem like a viable alternative. But again, you are in the Bay Area with lots of chargers. Yes, I know there are Superchargers all over the country but not in the same density as they are in California. I expect that to change in the coming years but as of now, it's not optimal.

The vast majority of Teslas have been sold in California. I know that because I happen to be doing some work in Silicon valley at the moment and I see a Tesla (or 5) every single day. I don't think I've seen one Tesla where I live.

The difference is that in California there are lots of charging stations set up so you can "plug in" when you need to. I'd be willing to bet there are not many charging stations in Montana.

The Leaf is a commuter car, the Tesla is a high end sports car that just happens to run on electric power instead of gas. The Tesla is an expensive car. The people driving them are the same people that a year or two ago would have bought a Porsche or a top end BMW or Audi. These are people that like fast cars and have a lot of disposable income.

Above all, the Tesla is a status symbol. It's a rich guy's way of saying I could drive a Porsche but I choose to drive a Tesla because it's environmentally friendly.

The Leaf, sadly, is DOA. Unless you start getting charging stations everywhere the only practical alternative is the hybrid. That's why the Prius, and to a lesser extent the Volt, have been so successful. It won't leave you stranded.

If you get stranded in the Tesla you just call Jeeves the butler to come pick you up in the Range Rover and all is well :-)

From what I understand WhatsApp requires you to use a real phone number (your cellphone number in fact) in order to receive text messages via your data plan rather than the SMS plans that cost extra with many carriers.

Sure, Facebook has a messaging app but they don't have your phone number. You can give it to them but I suspect that most people either leave it blank or put in a fake number. I suspect that a large part of this deal is getting a hold of that huge phone book that WhatsApp has now. Once FB has your cellphone number they can serve up ads to you via text messages even if you are not logged on to FB. Or maybe they will just sell your number to someone else.

Just watch - they will bury this 10 layers deep in the service agreement where nobody reads it. Next thing you know you'll be bombarded with junk...all in exchange for "free" text messaging. It's one more reason not to trust Zuck and company.

I'm not a WhatsApp user but if I were I'd be closing my account and looking for an alternative - pronto.