The death of project management?

Let's take a look at some recent debacles:

1.  The failure of the Lockheed-Martin designed speed skating suits at the Sochi Olympics.

2.  The debacle of the "Health Insurance Deform Act" portal at the federal level.

3.  The implosion, apparently, of up to 35 state exchanges for the Health Insurance Deform Act.

What do all of these have in common?  All admitted that they did not do significant testing prior to release, and as a result, all self-destructed.  In similar news, I've noted before that many of the "compact fluorescent" light bulbs I've bought--really anything but those producing about 500 to 800 lumens with the "corkscrew" configuration--are great candidates for getting a full refund because they simply don't last anywhere near the warranty period.  In other words, they didn't do reliability testing prior to release--and it would seem that the Department of Energy never called them on it, either.

(no surprise, really; the DOE has never, ever helped to develop an energy source that can compete in markets without subsidies.  It's not like they're interested in affordable energy or anything, after all)

Now it's particularly telling that these omissions were made, because the standard tools for risk management--FMEA, accelerated reliability testing, and the like--were by and large invented and promoted by none less than....the government.  And yet government officials allowed these programs to go live.

In other words, in government circles, the basics of program management are being ignored because the political realities loom greater for government officials than the impact on citizens.  Yes, be very, very afraid of the consequences, which shall be dire.

Well, there goes that theory

I've been of the view that the collapse of the American family is in great part due to the disaster called the Great Society and LBJ's "War on the Poor", sometimes mis-labeled the "War on Poverty."  While this may be true, it interestingly does not fit some of the data, specifically the proportion of American adults living in wedlock.  Take a look:

H/T Sunshine Mary

Now take a look; all ethnic groups show a decline starting not in 1964, when LBJ started the War on the Poor, but rather around 1950, when he was a junior Senator.  Particularly interesting is the plunge in black marriage rates at this time.  It doesn't correspond to the Great Society or even the Civil Rights movement--those were still in the future--but it does correspond well to both the second Great Migration and the graduation of the first soldiers studying under the G.I. Bill--soldiers who had served with all races in Italy and elsewhere with the 92nd Infantry and other units, and who had been welcomed as liberators there.

Of course, getting away from "Jim Crow" is a good thing, even if northerners were not altogether hospitable at all times(to put it mildly), but one thing that is likely here is that as blacks became a distinct minority in their new homes, they didn't have the clear support of institutions like family and church (those they'd left back in the South), and they also had to wait to establish themselves in homes before marrying and starting families.  And, of course, being lonely and far from home, I'm guessing some did what lonely people of all races do....with or without a marriage license, and their families and churches weren't there to give them a nudge towards marriage.

And so perhaps, just as the great migrations of whites to the West resulted in a culture (excepting the Mormons of course) with less regard for traditional mores, marriage, and the like, perhaps the migrations of blacks to the north and west did the same thing....and the question, then, is how to fix the problem after decades of hurt.

A parallel note; the rise in crime rates in the inner city started soon after this....again, exactly what you'd expect from lonely people of any race, and it is worth noting as well that the race riots of the sixties all occurred in the north and west.  Now granted, fear of "Bull Connor and company" may have suppressed things in the South, but Richard Daley was no slouch during the Democratic Convention of 1968, either.

The moral of the story, I think, is to welcome your new neighbors.  It'll do them, and you, a lot of good, and it's in the Bible, too.

Book Review: "Overdressed"

My wife and I recently read "Overdressed; the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion," by Elizabeth Cline, and we can recommend it with some reservations.  First the excellent; with what seems to be pretty keen instincts for reporters these days, Ms. Cline details the collapse of the U.S. clothing industry and some fairly shocking conditions and realities at clothing manufacturers and clothing retailers.  Those who wonder how "fashion" houses with little to add like Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, and Old Navy manage to survive will marvel at the marketing acumen used by these stores.

The book also details a process I commend; Ms. Cline's transformation from an addict of cheap fashions to a careful selector of better quality clothing--often vintage clothing.  This is something I can heartily commend, as I am wearing a 25 year old sweater right now.  (gift from my mom, Irish lambs-wool)  Apparently, she want from over 350 garments (pants, skirts, shorts, shirts, jackets, everything but undergarments) to a bit less than 100, and I can only say "well done."

While Ms. Cline has demonstrated quite well how to reform her own life, however, it's my opinion that she short-changes the reader in terms of the real costs suffered by those who are in a way "addicted" to the latest thing from their favorite store. 

Specifically, my 100 or so garments (not doing as well as Ms. Cline in this, sad to say) fill the top three drawers in a dresser and about four feet of closet space--including about two feet of shelves partially shared with blanket storage--take approximately 20 square feet of storage space.  Now if I triple that, my clothes would require about 60-80 square feet of storage space.  With a "cost to build or buy" of about $100/square foot, a "primo" A&F or Old Navy wardrobe for myself would cost me somewhere between $4000 and $6000--enough to buy a custom suit from a bespoke tailor, my wife reminds me.  Multiply that cost by my family size of eight, and it's enough to buy a brand new SUV.   Which, by the way, we recently did--one could argue our family's thrift in clothing has a very real benefit to us.

(we heartily recommend the GMC Acadia, by the way....solid all the way through)

Along the same lines, there is a cost in comfort.  Our family's mostly "natural fiber" wardrobe simply performs better in cold weather and hot, allowing us to keep the house a bit cool (65) in winter and a bit warm (78) in summer, saving us a good chunk of money on utilities--and my employer on space heaters that I do not use.  (there is that gift from my mom again)  The linen shirt my wife made me is cooler than a bare chest in the sun. 

This leads to a third major savings with good clothing; while other families are gathered around the TV in winter and summer to take advantage of climate control while they wear their poly-cotton blends and polyester stretch knits, my family is out skating, skiing, bicycling, and the like.  So just as a $10,000 bicycle has a pretty decent ROI (return on investment) when you consider the medical benefits of physical activity, so does decent clothing.  Just take a look at Lileks' pictures of men waiting for the trolley fifty years ago; think about doing that in poly blends and shiver.  Consider where people are at the church picnic in the summer--think that some people in the shelter might do well to consider real cotton?  I think so.

Two other places where I disagreed with the author were about her position on unions, and her position on natural fibers.  With regards to unions, her consistent refrain assumes that if only the workers in Bangladesh were unionized, things would be better--but the reality is that when the Maersk Line is ordering ten ships that dwarf the Emma Maersk, a union in Bangladesh will only result in production moving to Pakistan, India, or other developing countries.  Unions work well with capital-bound industries, but not so well with industries that can move as easily as clothing production.

Regarding fiber, is often claimed that there are not enough natural fibers to clothe the world, and just for kicks, I looked it up.  Between cotton, wool, linen, and hemp, there are about 27 million tons of natural fibers produced worldwide each year--about 8-9 lbs. per person, or about (assuming average of 6 oz. fabric) about 23 yards per person.  It takes about two yards of fabric to make a shirt or pair of pants for a large adult--so if you're keeping your wool shirts for 20 years, cotton shirts for 3-5 years, and your slacks for a decade (as I do), you're going to have little problem getting most of your clothing in natural fibers.  This is especially the case when you consider leather for clothing as well.

Plus, you'll be more likely to be able to afford that nice new SUV and the high end bicycle to ride when  you're not in the SUV.  Your doctor will be happy to wait for the business, I hope, and maybe it'll help prevent further debacles like the collapse in a clothing factory in Bangladesh last year that took over 1000 lives.

Well done, Ms. Cline, and may your reporting grow to understand the nuts and bolts of corporate governance, and may your wardrobe grow ever more delightful.

Thoughts on a blizzardy day in Minnesota

You might wonder what Minnesotans do when it's 15 degrees out with winds over 30mph.....well, in our family, we ski into town to get ice cream, and then when we find (boo hoo) the ice cream shop is closed, we get donuts. 

We had a wonderful time at a youth concert yesterday, and when tempted to complain, we can remember people like Bob, Tom, and Todd.  Bob is about 60, and lost his eyesight and his eyes 30 years back to diabetes.  Many would have been content to just take Social Security disability checks, but not Bob.  Through four transplants (three kidneys and a pancreas), he's also gotten a master's degree and worked for 25 years.  He just retired, just had heart difficulty, but you'd never know he'd had difficulty from his attitude.

Our family has also known Todd and Tom for years--twin brothers born with a congenital muscle disease that also entitles them to lifelong disability checks, they have both gotten degrees and--this is remarkable in this economy--both have found work in their area.  They are wheelchair bound for life and need special assistance in many areas, but you will no sooner hear them complaining then you'll see them wearing a dress.  My hat is off to them, at least.....when I'm inside. 

A question of the philosophers

Women are evidently routinely mocked because of wearing ill-fitting "Mom Jeans".  Now given that I, and most of my (male) colleagues wear loosely fitting denim as well, why are men not mocked for wearing "dad jeans"?

I blame the patriarchy!  We have met the enemy, and he is us!

Our political problems, illustrated by bridge construction

Now I have no idea whether Governor Christie actually intended the partial shutdown of the George Washington Bridge to be political retribution against political rivals--given he won in a landslide last year, he'd have been insane to do so--but there is a reality that very often, local politics is the dirtiest.

That, in turn, is a difficulty for those who would hope to clean up the system, because we find that even Presidents are often drawn from the ranks of community organizers who manage to persuade the courts to unseal divorce records of their opponents.  So if we wonder why we have a President who, after literally thousands (perhaps *billions, really) of felonies committed by the NSA and other departments, still has yet to even bother to fire anyone, let alone indict the perpetrators, we have only ourselves to blame.

We did not, after all, turn out the city council member or county commissioner who used his position the same way in our hometown, or home county, did we?  He might have been a member of our church, or a "respected businessman", and we didn't call him on it.  And now we might call him Congressman, or Governor, or even Mr. President, and we're all wondering why he's doing exactly the same things we let him get away with when he was an alderman, a county commissioner, or a state representative.

Well, duh.

*Yes, billions and perhaps even trillions; each lawless search of private records by the NSA is a count of that felony.

Thoughts on the Health Insurance Deform Act

It occurred to me that if my insurance agent knowingly lied to me in such a way that I lost my insurance, he would be liable to civil and criminal penalties.  Well, what about the guy who lied in such a way that up to 75 million Americans will lose insurance?

Brilliance from the Democratic Party

Fox reports that the Democratic Party is doing fund-raising for the 2014 elections (sigh) based on the premiss that if the GOP does well, they will remove Mr. Obama from office.  Now of course the paleo-conservative/libertarian in me would love to see Mr. Obama's public housing change from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to, say, Littleton, Colorado with his buddy Rod Blagojevich.  It's the tradition for Illinois politicians, and I have to say that with his blatantly illegal executive orders, obstruction of justice in the IRS case, and other issues, it's clearly the place for him.

However, the reality of the matter is that the Democrats currently control 55 seats in the Senate, and only 21 of them are up for election.  So even if they lost 100% of their seats this year, they would still hold 34 seats, enough to prevent the rightful removal of Mr. Barry Soetoro. 

Democrats; the party that cannot do basic math.  Remember that in the coming year as you contemplate the fact that a 1% increase in the cost of borrowing would cost your family over $1000 annually. 

It boggles the mind

If anyone has the idea that government can do things well, the funeral for Nelson Mandela ought to cure us of that view.  The host was of course the South African government and Mr. Jacob Zuma, a man who is not only clearly implicated in rape and corruption charges, but who also (here's your racial reconciliation here) charmingly sang a song "Shoot the Boer" at the centennial celebration of the African National Congress. 

Add to that world leaders who apparently think flirting and taking "selfie" pictures is appropriate at a funeral (because obviously no one would EVER take a picture of world leaders together) and a "sign language interpreter" who not only did not know sign language, but was also mentally ill and had an extensive criminal history including murder allegations, and I think you've got to conclude that if you think government will do things well....

.....well, you're hallucinating just as certainly as Thamsanqa Jantjie.

Beyond doubt, the Obama administration has been a time of great suffering for the nation, but if it helps voters dispel the notion that government can do something right, it could be useful after all.

You might be a redneck....

......if you view a state funeral as a chance to hit on the Prime Minister of Denmark. 

NSA: No Sentient Analysts

Why so?  Well, apparently, according to Fox News, the NSA is credibly accused of monitoring video game players, specifically those in a game called "World of Warcraft."  Apparently, you can figure out the performance parameters of specific weapons--just like you can with a simple Wikipedia search--and apparently you can get some decent training in hand-eye coordination using online games, just like you can with.....games you put into your Xbox.

And so we either have the NSA being completely ignorant of the fact that they're spreading a net to detect maladjusted young people wasting their lives in video games instead of actually detecting potential threats to our security, or (this is my guess) the NSA is staffed with maladjusted social rejects who are using the "surveillance" of online video games to play "World of Warcraft" themselves.

If anyone from the NSA is reading this; a little hint; men and women generally don't look like that without extensive help from a plastic surgeon, and you won't find any expert swordsman carrying a weapon that looks anything like that.  Please stop wasting your time and our money!

Obamacare portal, fixed?

Well, not so fast.  Beyond the obvious question of "have they really tested systems and whether they'll bear the proposed load" (not while the system is live they haven't), you've got the reality that the system may support 50,000 users per day, but for the system to get seven million people registered by the deadline, simple math says they'll need to achieve.....60,000 people per day.  Plus the load of people who browse but don't sign up the first time, and you can figure that the system will still be seriously overloaded.

Add to that known security issues, and the fact that more and more people are "unexpectedly" (to those who don't know the law's perverse incentives at least) losing their insurance, and it would appear that we're going to need to rename "SNAFU" as "SNAOU"; system normal, all Obama'ed up.

Which is, ahem, what anyone paying serious attention to Mr. Obama's curriculum vitae could have told you in 2008 or earlier. 

A motto for the Health Insurance Deform Act

One of the most powerful adages in quality engineering is this:

Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting.

Attributed to (my hero) W. Edwards Deming, it is generally a rebuke to managers who would dodge responsibility for disasters by claiming that "situations unknown" led to problems, and thus ignore the very real incentives and processes they themselves had--purposefully or inadvertently--put in place.

And thus it is the perfect rejoinder for our "Absentee in Chief", the man for whom the buck stops anywhere but at his desk, especially given the numerous perverse incentives he himself put in place for the Health Insurance Deform Act (HIDA, sometimes called the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare"). 

For example, HIDA requires that 80% of insurance receipts be paid out for medical expenses.  It sounds good until you realize that healthy insurance plans generally have a payout of 60% or so--and to get to 80%, insurance companies must add "coverages" that are day to day expenses.  The overhead costs don't change, after all, so the end result is that "Chevy" plans must be terminated.

In the same way, the President has, via executive order and the text of HIDA, added numerous coverages to insurance.  The end result is that actual medical insurance--pooling risk for unpredictable events--is now illegal, and the millions of Americans who had such (good) insurance now are losing that--and facing huge increases in insurance.  My favorite example is that college students are facing huge increases in the cost of their medical insurance--some by up to a factor of 15 or 20.   So the young skulls full of mush who screwed the country to get Obama's "free" contraceptive coverage are being screwed themselves by HIDA.  Poetic justice that might help collegiate chastity, I say.

Also important here is how the President has handled the HIDA internet portal; it is now becoming evident that the portal was headed for the rocks this spring, and the White House was warned not just by their consultants, but also health insurance companies though the summer and fall.  In ignoring these warnings, as well as failed alpha tests (not fair to dignify HIDA's flameout by suggesting they did a beta test, after all), the White House was telling all involved that they were not interested in anything but the official narrative.

And Dear Leader acts all surprised at this, of course, but those of us who remember Harry Truman and Deming remember that the buck does, in fact, stop at the White House, and we know that he's ultimately the one responsible for this debacle.

Say it again so the President can hear: Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting, Mr. Obama.  If he had any shame, he'd resign.

Not just a sign, it's got to be a tattoo

Andrew Napolitano reveals that, according to Ed Snowden--a good source in the past few months--the NSA actually spied on the papal conclave.

OK, so apparently it's a vital item for national security to know how cardinals view the doctrine of transsubstantiation and the doctrine of the Mass.  Or, possibly, the NSA doesn't have squat to do with national security, and everything with forming Jeremy Bentham's Panoptikon.  Or, possibly, the "geniuses" at the NSA are really intellectually more suited to a job at Chez Mac or the TSA.  No insult intended to the good people at McDonald's, of course.

If there ever was a time for a revival of the legal theories of Blackstone, it is now. 

Questions on the HIDA (a.k.a. "Obamacare") disaster

It's very interesting to read through summaries of the disasters that have been plaguing the Health Insurance Deform Act (HIDA, aka "Affordable Care Act" or "Obamacare").  Apparently, they've inverted the usual structure of a business website, bloated the number of lines of code to 500million (six times that of Windows 8 and ten or more times that of a typical e commerce site), and ignored basics like FMEAs, alpha and beta testing, and the like.

In other words, anyone who has worked on it in any position of authority--director or higher--ought to be fired for cause because they didn't sound the alarm that basics were being ignored.  For that matter, insurance companies have evidently been sounding the alarm for months about the deficiencies of Mr. Soetoro's system.

Which makes it very perplexing that the same insurance companies have, when asked, agreed to help sort out the deficiencies of this system.   With the magnitude of the problems, a quick fix is almost certainly impossible, which means that what's going on is that Obama is setting up the insurance companies for the blame for the failure of his administration.   The only reason for going along with this charade would be that Mr. Obama has something in his power that can destroy the insurance companies--the most benign possibility being that if the HIDA system doesn't work, the insurance companies cannot get subscribers.

I'd argue that this, along with IRS surveillance of Tea Party groups, the Benghazi cover-up, and the abuse of the NSA, really demonstrates the necessity for a number of special prosecutors with authority to demand unredacted documents, and authority to imprison those who do not comply.  We have a criminal in the White House whose activities seem to make those of Richard Nixon pale in comparison.