>Now, to be fair, that $1.4 million total may well include the purchase price of the physical iPads or perhaps the cost of getting the app to work on other, non-iPad devices. But still, the iPad app alone cost about $336,000, which is a really hefty price tag for big arrows.
>The motivation behind this project is not terrible: In theory, having an unbiased app direct passengers left or right should remove the possibility of unfair TSA agent bias, which could—intentionally or not—lead to agents unfairly targeting people they don’t like for extra harassment.
http://rare.us/story/the-tsa-spent-1-4-million-on-an-ipad-app-that-randomly-points-left-or-right/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_KmFJ2gGzw
Does software engineering need a crash?
>>53872034
>Does software engineering need a crash?
meh... at least the product does what it says it's going to do. Better than the billions wasted on security scanner contracts for scanners that could never be used.
If there's one thing defense contractors are good at, it's cashing checks and keeping their mouths shut.
I'm sure the NSA spent more than that ensuring that all modern OS have a predictable sequence in their rand() functions.
>>53872187
That's hardware determined not OS determined
It was actually just $47,000 paid to one programmer.
>>53872362
>never heard of stdlib
>OurProtectors.jpg
The fuck?
>>53872034
>>53872378
This is why capitalism is a fucking joke.
Only the best and brightest succeed my ass, From where i'm sitting it's starting to look more like blind luck to me.
>>53872438
>blind luck to me.
luck doesn't exist, connections do
>>53872034
actually it was "only" $47000
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/tsa-spent-47000-on-an-app-that-just-randomly-picks-lanes-for-passengers/
If you think that the $330k price tag for the randomization software is the result of the industry being speculative and overhyped, then you're retarded.
This is fundamentally an issue with bureaucracies and public mismanagement, as well as the overwhelming need to cover their asses.
Imagine if someone sued TSA for discriminately sending certain people in certain circumstances to a stricter or laxer agent. This software would be the key piece of evidence in determining whether some preferential treatment was going on.
As a result, there's a lot of legal ass-covering that has to go on in the delivery and verification of the requirements of this software.
The government takes its shit very seriously. So seriously that a development firm might need to go through the effort of doing a dozen different types of tests just to verify that something is working correctly. Or even if they're not required to *per se*, the system might be such that the person awarding a bid is encouraged to award the contract to a more thoroughly tested piece of software, even when the software is as simple as flipping a coin.
The problem is that American culture is unbelievably litigious compared to other cultures around the world. If you're not from the US you probably simply can't understand this, but as an example, when I was growing up a teacher asked my class what to do if you slip and fall at a zoo and people yelled back "Sue!"
As in, kids are already indoctrinated by age 10 or so that the immediate response is to seek some sort of legal action if something doesn't go your way.
So yeah, the TSA is going to pay a fortune for a simple app. Because some company is promising to be legally responsible for it to some extent. And that actually means something in our hyper-litigious culture.
>>53872474
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVjCRWbvM4c
It's literally all bullshit.
>>53872509
>It's literally all bullshit.
welcome to the real world
>>53872034
No, people just need to learn how to spend money better.
>>53872509
Are you aware that the movie Wall Street was fictional?
Do you think Planet of the Apes is a foretelling of real events that will happen just because it seemed to happen in a recognizable world as well?
pic of the app
>>53872548
Towel head approaching, quick hit the randomize button until it points toward him.
What's the difference between going left and right though?
>>53872509
>"I create nothing!"
except the building he's operating, the secretary he's paying, the houses he's buying all exist in their current capacity because someone will buy them. He's creating demand which drives supply, even if the author of his lines doesn't realize it.
>>53872545
>>53872612
two wild shills appear...
>>53872663
Shouldn't you be in school junior?
>>53872612
and keeping track of who owes whom money (or more directly, offering to lend someone money rather than hording it for yourself) is a value to society.
The notion that you're not adding value to your community just because you're not making, building, farming, etc... something is incredibly stupid. It's barely a step away from saying that anyone who doesn't farm his own food is just dead weight that society has to carry.
Pajeet could have done it for a tenth of the price though!
>>53872599
Directions to the bathroom for trans people, I think...
>>53872695
>ad hominem
You guys don't even bother following protocol anymore do you?
At least try not to make it so obvious.
>>53872501
the simpler the app, the simpler I fell it would be to prove that it was random. some huge complex app to fucking randomly pick one of two outcomes is only gonna make people think it's not that random if they can't understand it
>>53872663
I was going to reply to >>53872438 about how a connection I made some years ago online secured me a decent income and it's truly just about networking, but the video was too absurd.
I'm sorry you think I'm shilling though.
For government spending that isnt too bad senpai. Prices are always bloated because contractors gotta milk congress for as much money as possible
Doesn't it cost thousands for the military to get a 6 pack of coke?
>>53872793
budgets. If you dont use it you loose it
>>53872758
$40,000 of the payment was for the geiger counter hardware attached to the pad. They get random data coming off as ions from the people they just x-rayed.
>>53872770
You are failing to see your own hypocrizy.
Do you know how many blue collar joes bust their ass for 47k per year? And you are trying to tell me networking is hard work?
No one in this system is rewarded accordingly, It's all bullshit.
Call it luck, Call it Networking or whatever delusion you choose.
>>53872805
You loosen the budget?
>>53872805
sounds like the >unused ram is wasted ram
meme.
>your job will never merely consist of pressing the screen of an ipad
kinda jelly
>>53872812
why is whatever artificially random computation using machine time not good enough? The whole point is that there is no realistically controllable factor determining left or right - nobody can predict a decent Rand function, why do they need to do fucking Schroedinger's half life shit
>>53872832
well your computer doesnt destroy unused ram
>>53872832
How is that false?
>>53872840
>Your job will never consist of nodding at strangers and randomly anal probing one here and there
>>53872817
I didn't say networking is hard or that those people aren't busting their ass. They're paid $47k per year because that's what they and their employer have agreed upon.
>>53872832
Millitary bases literally lose their future budget if they fail to use or waste previous budgets.
>>53872854
It's false because even if you aren't "using" the ram, you system can still use it for caching files and programs.
>>53872034
this has nothing to do with the tech industry and everything to do with government contracting
out of 3-5ish bidders, the lowest one wins. Even if $1.4 million is the lowest bid
>>53872758
>the simpler the app, the simpler I fell it would be to prove that it was random.
You could do something likefrom random import choice
return choice(["left","right"])
in Python, but how sure would you be that the choice function is implemented correctly? What if you looked into the underlying C code and found that it generally looked right but it wasn't sufficiently tested to completely cover the government?
I agree that the system is fucked up, but it's not the software that's fucked up, and we all must know that. Software projects that cost 100 times what we think they should cost, and public works projects that take twice as long to complete as they should, and welfare projects that cover only half or fewer of the people for whom it was designed... these are all symptoms of terrible mismanagement.
And to be clear, I'm not levying an indictment against government in principle, just the shitty execution of government projects (and I admit that there's more tolerance in the public sector for being a market failure, in part because that's not the point of public projects)
>>53872890
Then the RAM isn't unused
>I Dont Know How Government Budgets Work: The Thread
>>53872409
Clearly satire family
ITT a thread full of people supporting shit pay for software engineers
>>53872911
its a meme because people dont realize that its actually being used.
>>53873101
What's the RAM usage on your machine right now? If it's anything other than 100% you're wasting money.
>>53873119
>>53873119
So you like your system to write to it's swap/page file constantly? It's as is you want your PC to run shitty
>>53872545
No but the wolf of wall street sure wasn't.
>>53872034
Could this be done with a Rasp Pi and 20inch monitor?
>>53874651
this could be done with a microcontroller, a button, and two lights
>>53874670
or by flipping a coin
costs of deployment - literally one cent
>>53872501
>>53875026
the coin can be biased by the amount of weight on either side or by conditions. though i mean if you're willing to set that aside it's a major cost savings
>>53872034
>may well include the purchase price of the physical iPads
iPad at around 300 a unit, around 1000 iPads plus paying someone to set it up, sounds about right
