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Submission + - Yet another government software failure, nominated for award

belmolis writes: The Victoria Times-Colonist reports that British Columbia spent C$182 million on a new case management system for social services, whose system was so bad that in 2012 Judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Special Representative for Children and Youth, issued a public safety warning. According to a report by the Auditor General, the system only performs 1/3 of the functions of the systems it is intended to replace and fails to protect private information or monitor inappropriate usage. The defective system was nominated by its managers for the Premier's Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Civil Service.

Comment Re:Yes, a variety of ways (Score 1) 183

The UK is putting its judicial system under tremendous financial pressure at the moment, to the extent that some criminal cases are just being abandoned because there's insufficient money to run them. They're (finally!) starting to experiment with allowing small claims court cases to be resolved over the phone, and also looking at decriminalising TV license violations to reduce pressure on the system. But you get the idea - the judicial system innovates extremely slowly even when being sliced to the bone. So don't hold your breath.

They're also moving the low-level courts to use a lot more technology to support them, things like video links so remand prisoners do not need to be brought to court, tablet computers with the legal texts on them in searchable form, that sort of thing. These are the sorts of things that technology can definitely help with, even though they definitely change the nature of justice somewhat.

Comment Re:Judicial "system"? (Score 1) 183

This is one reason the US (which only funds healthcare for Federal employees, Federal retirees, 65-year-olds, and the poor) actually paid more per capita for health care then the Canadian Federal government did, despite the fact that the Canadian Feds provide 100% of health funding in that country.

The real key is that there is a body in Canada (other than the ordinary Joe on the street) who wants prices to be kept down, and which has the power to actually make that happen. Because keeping charges down is a priority, use of generic drugs will be more widespread, as will the use of programmes to improve general public health (because they tend to be very cost effective overall) and the more rapid progression from diagnosis to treatment. That last point can be both good and bad: good because if they got it right, you're getting treated sooner instead of having more expensive (and possibly invasive) tests done, and bad because if they got it wrong, you're not being treated for what's wrong at all.

Comment Re:Helping Castro (Score 1) 166

Israel has NEVER restricted the supply of staple foods to Gaza and presently imposes no restrictions whatever on the supply of food to Gaza. Nor do humanitarian organizations, such as the UN, not exactly Israel's best friend, say that the blockade has caused any humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In any case, were there restrictions on the transfer of supplies from Israel, the Gazans could get them via Egypt.

Comment Re:Taken to the cleaners... (Score 1) 132

As best I could tell from the video, he didn't deliberately damage the machine. He was checking it out in the same way a consumer who had had experience of shoddy construction would. Also, I wonder about the idea that those machines were to be used at the trade show. According to the article, the machines were located in retail stores, in the same city as the trade show, but not at the trade show location. So it isn't the case that he got onto the trade show floor in advanced and messed with the machines that they had set up for the show.

Comment Re:Everything old is new again (Score 1) 51

I haven't heard anybody discuss what the half-life of graphene is though, so it could be just as bad.

They're probably still working that out. It's one thing to know that it's theoretically possible, but another to demonstrate how to actually do it, so the report that it has been done (even if it turns out to not be very useful in the end) is relevant.

Comment Re:It doesn't matter what people think... (Score 1) 458

The US has the most corrupt political system... it's really fascism where the corporations and the rich control the government.

That's not true. It's that the rich control both corporations and government. Observe how many senior politicians move in the same circles as corporate board members, and typically have done since early in life. It's not precisely corrupt, it's just that they prefer to do things for their kind of people above and beyond all else. Joe Dumbass can always be told what to vote for on things where it matters through advertizing and related stuff. It's not total control though; they ignore much of the detail of local politics, since who is your neighborhood dog-catcher doesn't matter at all to those with real power.

Comment Re:libressl-2.1.3 (Score 1) 97

I'm not sure IRIX will ever work right

That matches my memory of trying to build things with the IRIX C compiler too, especially in 64-bit mode. Or were you talking about libressl specifically?

Comment Re:Breakdown of adult interaction, oral tradition? (Score 1) 351

How in bog's green earth is any sort of family unit supposed to deal with the current knowledge set? Hell, even a university level professor can barely keep track of what goes on in their own field.

That's what the professor's family is for, to keep track of all the rest of human knowledge that the professor hasn't got time for.

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