Nice, I didn't think of that!! But, I still love the thought that went into it.

At least they built a challenge response system into their hack, that's just f*'ing funny to me!!

It is also interesting that given the amount already spent they still have 60% of the system to build. They don[t have any way to distribute the funds yet , they made the front end without building the parts that would actually pay for the services.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cms-official-60-to-70-of-obamacare-architecture-not-yet-built/

Yea, already vetted or already made the right contributions to the right people/organizations.

  I have had friends try to do business in Washington and after the lobist gets them access they are told were to contribute if they want the contract :-(

The problem isn't that it was the lowest bidder. The problem was that it was probably the company that gave the most $$ in backroom deals to secure the contract with no sanity check on whether or not they could actually deliver!!

Here is the scenario. You go talk to a lobbyist about getting access to XYZ congress critter because you want to pitch your company for a federal contract. Next thing you know you are told that if you donate X hundred thousand here and Y hundred thousand there and show up to these 3 parties the contract is yours. You don't know the Washington ropes so you bow out and some company that does know the ropes gets the contract, but they don't have the tech chops to pull it off because they are better at backroom dealing than getting the job done.

I was working to connect a product of ours to a major financial processor and they couldn't set up VPN. So, it was either wait until the dedicated production circuit was in or test via PPP over a modem :-( The CC/banking systems are so antiquated it would frighten people if they really new.

Agreed.

So free lunch and breakfast makes up for ~$1200 per child. That still leaves a lot larger expenditure per pupil in MPLS. I guess all that I am trying to say is that $$ can not solve the problem. If kids are not taught to value education they won't, and if they are not asked about their homework every night they won't do it!

The schools can not parent the kids, but we expect them to. If we can't get the parents of the kids in MPLS to make school a priority then it will not be for the kids either. No amount of $$ will fix that, and no one is even willing to talk about that for fear of being branded a bigot.

PS I immigrated to the US when I was in the 3rd grade. I didn't speak the language and there was no ESL at the time - so I do understand that it can be challenging. But, I also get tired of it being an excuse.

I think the problem is it varies district by district. In some districts each room has a $8000 smart board and each student is given an ipad. The teachers get decent pay, but have a ton of time off. If you pro-rate for how much time off a "normal" worker has they make a very fair wage. They usually have a pension and great benefits. So, if you live in one of those districts and hear a teacher complain you don't have much sympathy.

Then you have rural school districts where the teachers really are very underpaid. The problem is that the way education is funded creates such a huge imbalance.

So out of curiosity I looked up the $ per pupil spent in our inner city schools of Minneapolis and compared it to what is spent in the well to do city of Edina. Just for fun I have included what my school district spends.

In 2011:

14,404 Minneapolis
9,699 Edina
8,510 Waconia

The majority of the difference in funding between Minneapolis and Edina is state aid. So even though I do not live in Minneapolis, I pay to make sure that they can spend more per pupil than one of the richest school districts in our state.

Sort of makes me think that $$ doesn't have everything to do with education, and that we need to start having some honest conversations about parental and community involvement. If the parents do not stress the importance of education and raise their children, the schools cannot educate them.

The American peasants of that time were wealthy landholders compared to the European peasants. So much so that it is hard to make the statement that you did. Because although it is true, it is not the whole story.

Wow, just re-read my comment. Sorry about the bad spelling and typos. Just tired I guess!

Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant that many of these systems EMR/EHR have a table or laptop interface that is used by the physician or assistant in the exam room. They will indicate what observations/tests they are doing and what the results are. Those systems will suggest other things they should do, in part to ensure good out come, in part to maximize the coding on the claims that will be submitted from that visit. That is the part I was suggesting would actually drive up the healthcare costs, not the support contract or professional services. Although, those are not cheap and the data/vendor locking is crazy. Once they have you they have you, so make sure you get everything you want thrown into the original sale price, because they will screw you later when you can't migrate to a competitor.

Actually makes things worse. Because when the EHR's are in place they usually make sure to maximize the billable services provided in the back office so that you make sure to submit every claim possible. This helps to raise healthcare costs instead of lowering them by reducing paperwork......

Actually in this context a self signed cert would maybe be more safe, although not really. If the proxy device has a root signing cert it can just sign one for the sight it is proxiing to on the fly and then re-encrypt chances are you would never notice.

Just to clarify, I wasn't bitching. It's hard to tell online. This was just an anecdote from my past that I thought related to the story.