I think part of the reason everyone was an adult here is that you actually had folks with tech knowledge talking and not “figureheads” who really are just magpies of the entire scenario and thus respect was given to all who testified and we didn’t have to live through the the Antics of “let Todd work”. He’s not the one hands on, the engineers are and I would almost bet we have quite
a few what is called “sandboxes” going to where the various portion of the project are isolated in a testing and code writing environment for work. I would also not surprise me to see a sandbox Oracle Weblogic server happening as well as that’s would I would do, have a set of engineers work on keeping the gimping site going while an entire engineering restructure took place with other “best practices” technologies. In the interest of time it’s sometimes best to combine both commercial and open source software based on capabilities, code already written for integration and so on. Sometimes it’s a whole lot faster to take a module and write it up from scratch with looking at the error consoles in the existing application.
Myself I found this to be the best so far of all the testimonies and Congressman Issa was professional and did not act like you see reported in the news half the time. Sometimes you have to take what is reported with a bit of a grain of salt as the soap opera effects get added to get your attention to read the articles, as they have a job to do with getting rated on how well they function as well.
More Healthcare. Gov Testimonies Next Week From Government Technologists At House Oversight Committee Called By Congressman Issa, Technologists Park, VanRoekel & Chao
I could understand Chao and his frustrations too with responses as prior to this hearing he had spent 9 hours being questioned behind closed doors so he’s had a ton of exposure time. What was also impressive here was to hear from Congressmen who are “smart’ and have some technology in their backgrounds, and even Issa himself owns a technology company, so I ask why are those folks “buried” half the time and only the whack jobs like Cruz and McCain 
get all the media? This also makes a great case to restore the non partisan Office of Technology Tool for Congress, a non partisan agency that can research and be their right arm place to get their questions answered as needed, and when better educated we know they might get along better. I would like to hear more intelligence and less OMG and whack job information coming from Washington.
Jon Stewart Discusses “Little Paper Senator Cruz”–Yet More Startling Proof For the Need to Restore the Tool Congress Needs–The Office of Technology Assessment
There were some pointed questions and I could understand how Park and all the technologists answered as sometimes you CANNOT be more definitive with some of the complex answers. I’ll tell you if you have not been on that side of technology, there’s a lot of stress there today with complexities and it’s not easy. That’s why I don’t want to code anymore as I had my share of it and it is a pressure cooker and the brain work that it takes is extensive especially when you cover many areas of technology at once and are expected to be proficient in all. Your brain has to take a few seconds sometimes to shift gears and I’m sure that happens with them as well.
Where’s The Thanks for All the Technologists and IT Folks That Have Slaved Hours and Months Working on the “Insurance Exchange Betas”-World Belongs to Geeks As Nobody Else Wants It (Or Appreciates It)
After listening you do wonder if Chao was blind sided a bit with the whole idea of using all open source technologies and not a mix? Did the contractors sell the timing element as being able to write all of this code in a short amount of time? Was he even involved in the contract selection or was he just handed the task after all was said and done with the antiquated procurement system in place? It was good to have VanRoekel there too as he did a nice comparison with Microsoft and the fact that Windows XP is still being patched all the time and again not an excuse but more of the reality that this is on going all the time and again his immediate exposure here as not daily either.
Again I think all was handled with respect and much more so than the Sebelius figurehead testimonies as these guys know their technology and she doesn’t and has stumbled many times in public with statements and opinions…she thinks we need to “hurry things up” by just saying we want to do that:) She belongs to the Algo Duping club that is wishing on algorithmic fairies to bail her out. The Algo Duping page has some great videos that will help you see and look for patterns of when you might be duped with stats and reports, as it’s alive and well out there. This professor likes the term, image below.
Speed Up Rate of Change in Health IT?–“Short Order Code Kitchen Burned Down a Few Years Ago and There Was No Fire Sale”..IT Infrastructure Chance and Revisions Takes a Lot of ”Code”, “Time” and “ Most Importantly Money”
This is what you are dealing with at the link below, all the complex math models used by insurers as that’s what the law was built around. Sebelius comes across very much so with body language that she dislikes this part of her job and that’s because she doesn’t have any IT background and is fearful and why we need agency heads with a “little” tech background so the can pick up the logic and not have agency heads running in fear as it’s not going away. Gov can’t model very well and gets stuck behind the 8 ball.
Not ObamaCare That is Failing, It’s the Models and Subsequent Algorithms that Execute Within IT Infrastructures Intersecting, Changing And Conflicting– The Affordable “Complexities” Act…
I had to laugh at the reference to Larry Summers saying DeParle was not qualified to run this and he was right but look at the pot calling the kettle black! Sadly the President need some replacements on board it seems and sometime folks are there for transition periods a few have hung around too long. If you want more on Summers, listen to what it was like to work for him on this video from a former Wall Street Quant who totally wasted her talents. He’s an economic guesser turning a blind eye to math models at times and there’s a great video at the Algo Duping page by PBS that confirms drinking the Bob Rubin Kool-aid who seems to understand math models coming from Goldman Sachs all too well.
Modeling for Inequality With segmentation, Insurance Industry Uses Backwards segmentation As Some Models Stand to Threaten Overall Democracy
So let’s hope whatever needs to happen here gets done and again putting a time for the coding to be done is impossible, ok to have target dates but understand they are
just that. Again this is a cold hard reality lesson for both consumers and government on the affect of data infrastructure complexities out there today and it’s not a magic wand fix and it’s not getting any easier as whether it’s an insurance or stock exchange rogue algorithms, flawed data, math models that lie are all out there and not just in the markets.
Again, I thought today was pretty much held to a very professional venue and again I still think that the folks got duped with the procurement system and the contractors again do want to write code from the bottom up as they get paid more; however when you have a short time frame like this, it’s time to also look what’s available with integration code already built and make your best choices with a configuration with the least amount of code to write. That’s my opinion anyway and down the road writing laws and adding infrastructure after the fact is yet one more issue to be explored. Congress is also going to need bigger query tools, i.e. Watson or something along that line as well to create laws real soon. BD
The Quiet Rise of Machine Learning-Like IBM Watson Offers With Speed and Learned Analytics-Congress Needs Technology This To Make Better Laws & Collaborate
“These problems are unacceptable,” Mr. Park said. “The website is getting better each week, as we work to improve its performance, its stability and its functionality. As a result, more and more individuals are successfully creating accounts, logging in, and moving on to apply for coverage and shop for plans.”
The chairman of the oversight committee, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, denounced the administration’s decision to go forward on Oct. 1.
Other Republican House members suggested that the so-called navigators program, which hires outside experts to help consumers sign up for insurance, might be vulnerable to fraud, because it did not require background checks on individuals recruited for this work.
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