Humanae Libertas
11-22-2011, 07:05 PM
The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application (http://gun.io/blog/the-governments-200000-useless-android-application/)
The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
By Rich Jones, Nov 21, 2011.
The theme music to this post is: Public Enemy - Bring the Noise.
This is a tale of massive waste in a tiny little corner of a tiny little department of the US Government, how it came to light and a few small suggestions about what could be done about it.
Getting Hot in Here
I'm not quite sure how I stumbled onto it, but I found that OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the United States Department of Labor) have an Android application. The purpose of the application is to provide information about the heat index and the corresponding safety warnings. Essentially, it is a temperature converter, it converts a temperature into a safety level. Being an Android developer myself, I wanted to give it a try to see how it handled.
It's a steamy pile of shit.
Lookin' good.
Pardon my French, but I really cannot stress how bad this application is. Firstly, it isn't actually capable of the function it is supposed to do. When I first tried the application, it told me that it was currently 140F in Boston. It is also extremely slow, it looks like butt, and it crashes all the time. It is completely horrible in every way. If I had to reproduce it, I'd say that it would take be about 6 hours at the maximum. At my hourly rate of $100, that's $600. Now, the quality of the product didn't surprise me a huge amount - I don't ever expect very much from the federal government. Still, I was curious about how much we taxpayers payed for the program - and it knocked me off my feet.
--CLICK LINK TO READ MORE--
The Feds putting your tax money to good use.
The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
By Rich Jones, Nov 21, 2011.
The theme music to this post is: Public Enemy - Bring the Noise.
This is a tale of massive waste in a tiny little corner of a tiny little department of the US Government, how it came to light and a few small suggestions about what could be done about it.
Getting Hot in Here
I'm not quite sure how I stumbled onto it, but I found that OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the United States Department of Labor) have an Android application. The purpose of the application is to provide information about the heat index and the corresponding safety warnings. Essentially, it is a temperature converter, it converts a temperature into a safety level. Being an Android developer myself, I wanted to give it a try to see how it handled.
It's a steamy pile of shit.
Lookin' good.
Pardon my French, but I really cannot stress how bad this application is. Firstly, it isn't actually capable of the function it is supposed to do. When I first tried the application, it told me that it was currently 140F in Boston. It is also extremely slow, it looks like butt, and it crashes all the time. It is completely horrible in every way. If I had to reproduce it, I'd say that it would take be about 6 hours at the maximum. At my hourly rate of $100, that's $600. Now, the quality of the product didn't surprise me a huge amount - I don't ever expect very much from the federal government. Still, I was curious about how much we taxpayers payed for the program - and it knocked me off my feet.
--CLICK LINK TO READ MORE--
The Feds putting your tax money to good use.