Sorry, I posted this somewhere esle - should have been here: Sadly nothing new here in terms on government "understanding" of the need to: 1. Freeze the specs. 2. Have your Lawyers look at the contract for the tiniest of loopholes and then hold the contractors to it. 3. Be aware that contractors (especially the big ones - no acronyms supplied here) will indeed be like Lawyers and say "ooh you didn't specify that - it's a change request" 4. Test early, test often - and then test, test & test again. 5. Pay good attention to usability. Check this out: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn [theguardian.com]. Sixteen billion US expended so far (and still counting) - negligible returns.

Um, POTUS says it has to be on-line by midnight?

Sadly nothing new here in terms on government "understanding" of the need to: 1. Freeze the specs. 2. Have your Lawyers look at the contract for the tiniest of loopholes and then hold the contractors to it. 3. Be aware that contractors (especially the big ones - no acronyms supplied here) will indeed be like Lawyers and say "ooh you didn't specify that - it's a change request" 4. Test early, test often - and then test, test & test again. 5. Pay good attention to usability. Check this out: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn Sixteen billion US expended so far (and still counting) - negligible returns.

Oh, but it could never happen now . . .

Agreed. It seems a primary attribute of good usability that you don't let your users "commit suicide" (lose data, kill the app . . .)

Can't we keep "on-thread"? Forget "Best Buy", "The four Boxes of Liberty", "the traffic congestion in the Twin Cities". The issue is about "telecommuting". 1. Question: Does it work for everyone? Answer: No - lots of people need the "warmth of human contact" and feel isolated when they are not with with their corporate colleagues. 2. Question: Can it be productive? Answer: Yes - for those who are comfortable working without the immediate physical co-location of other humans, working from home can be much more productive than the corporate 9 - 5 (plus commute) work day. Truth is - you work much more at home than in the office. 3. Question: So what's the problem? Answer: Middle managers get paid to manage people. If "their" people aren't physically around, middle managers worry about their own reason for existence and if "their" staff are being as productive as they could be. The easy option is: "when in doubt, get the staff back in house so we can see what they are doing" ;-( Pardon me, but don't we live in a virtual world these days?

1. It's a classic usability issue. "Become your client" - address your intended audience. 2. Technical writing is an art not a science - you've either got the talent or not - you can't spray-on creativity. 3. General heuristic #1: if you are new to a process or activity - ask someone who might know or RTFM. 4. Specific heuristic #35924 - if it's burning your fingers, don't touch your eyes ;-)

I said "Intersects" not "interacts". Are we here in this forum to be pedantic logic-choppers, or or we here to share knowledge and ideas? You appear to be someone who only believes in what they can measure. Do you, by chance, have an engineering degree? Before you can measure, you have to theorize. Quantum Theory indicates that we might be part of a multiverse. If this theory is true, "our reality intersects with many others". Interaction would be interesting but that's for the future . . .

Read the David Deutch books: "The Fabric of Reality" and/or "The Beginning of Infinity". Good "layman" descriptions of quantum theory and the possibility that we are indeed living in a multiverse where "our reality" intersects with many others . . .

Agreed - even though this is an experimental, utility, launch. Commercial spaceflight has to set safety standards the public can believe in. NASA management should have listened to their engineers and been MUCH more careful regarding their Shuttle Astronauts welfare (two catastrophic failures and 14 lives lost in some 100+ launches). If it looks wrong - shut it down and ignore the potential politics. Hopefully, Space-X will make it the next time, or the next time after that . . .

Wow. Apparently Android will take over the smartphone world soon and Apple is dead in this market by the end of 2012. I presume you are a troll, but on the off-chance you are just deranged or having fun mind-f**king Slashdot - you say:

These are lovely ("mine's bigger than yours", tech specs) but the issue you don't address is - what is the device like to use? If you'd really used both an Android phone and an iPhone, the differences - "ahem" - in Apple's favor would be obvious.

Anyone ever hear about Ted Nelson? He invented hypermedia in the mid-'60s - it just took another 20+ years for the wires and connections to physically realize it as the internet.