http://www.wtop.com/?nid=596&sid=1622618

It is also interesting to note that both of Obama’s half-siblings have married chinese: his half sister from his white mother’s side is married to a chinese-canadian and his half-brother from his Kenyan father’s side lives in China, is fluent in Mandarin and is married to a chinese woman.

unfortunately, my experience is that bureaucrats are more inclined to go with the company that show maximum risk aversion (and maximum umbrella insurance coverage, 3rd party liability etc) because that is the nature of the beast

Not to belabor the point but this is very true of the private sector too. Not for nothing is it said that you can’t get fired for buying IBM. (Thankfully, Obama is at least talking about limiting no-bid contracts, which seem like they would engender the worst form of cronyism, lack of accountability, and, at its most benign, the low risk aversion that you allude to. I hope he is successful although as Yes Minister demonstrated so wonderfully, the best of intentions are no match for a determined bureaucracy.)

thus… we have (to quote you)

generated by expensive private contractors who make a lot of money, and sometimes leave the government with systems that are years behind schedule, over budget, and don’t even work (like the IRS computer upgrade).

and not…

Moving towards off the shelf systems, when possible, will avoid a lot of that and produce more modern, robust, computing solutions.

the verld is a wampire.

what i meant was that it is not possible to work inside the system and not be compromised by the powers that be. unfortunately, my experience is that bureaucrats are more inclined to go with the company that show maximum risk aversion (and maximum umbrella insurance coverage, 3rd party liability etc) because that is the nature of the beast. the little guys unfortunately do not have the budget to cover all their risks. accenture, ibm etc thrive in this environment because htey create a perception of solidness despite being utterly mediocre in their services organization. hence they win the contracts. it’s that, plus the ex-bureaucrats and the pop tarts they have working for them. Among the group – they know what triggers to push and for whom. government IT is not for indie ventures.

agreed man. it’s called the bicycle model and Intel is a master of the game. All comp manufacturers are held hostage.
but dont mind me. i’m having a horrible day. these kids will make my lustrous daarhi totally chitta in no time. le singhada.

Now Kundra could surround himself with 60 year old experienced tech hands, but their experience would largely be with mainframes (now called giant servers, they still dominate both large private and public jobs)

Lastly, the old hands in the last Bush administration, like Cheney and Wolfowitz, were in some ways the most revolutionary.

While your insights are always brilliant, I’m not following you on this one, possibly because it’s a bit too wise for somebody of my callow youth to appreciate

the more things change… le singhada. when trudeau came to power at the height of trudeaumania, he had much the same idea. he pushed through a college in toronto where the students taught themselves and awarded themselves degrees. many an idiot got a graduate degree in that era. reports abound of stevedores arriving fresh off the boat from england and getting a master’s in english (hey! it’s their native tongue after all) within a year – and off to the public trough teaching in a school.

youth has much going for it. wisdom is not one of those things. i sorta have a vision of those robin williams like teachers in university who’d try to be down wid it and come off being ineffectual and looking like idiots. i hope kundra does the right thing and surrounds himself with experience. change for the heck of change is a heck of hooey.

I’m a bit more troubled by his relatively short experience in the public sector, I don’t think he was in his job long enough to see the problems that might occur, but this is an administration that doesn’t shy away from hiring young people for important jobs.