CENSUS

[Fulvio]

This just in:

[Pedro]

Makes me now feel so very confident completing my form :dodgy:

Pedro

[Fulvio]

Makes me now feel so very confident completing my form

Heh, why you think I opted for the paper version, like every other geek I know?

[Pedro]

Actually, the thing that came to mind when reading it was that it was part of a Benny Hill skit :biggrin:

Pedro

[JeffH]

I read somewhere that most computer geeks opted for the paper submission as soon as they found out IBM was contracted for the on line system.

Could just be scuttlebutt but, maybe, a kernel of truth in it.

[Unicorn]

:laugh2: ..... kernel ......

I thought I was the culprit of corny! Well maybe Unicorny ......

I won't post my thoughts & many years of experience dealing with IBM ....... needless to say.

[Fulvio]

I won't post my thoughts & many years of experience dealing with IBM ....... needless to say.

Its all well documented anyway. "And Tomorrow the World - Inside IBM" does a pretty exhaustive job of it.

[Nevol]

We managed to fill ours out earlier tonight.

[ausjack]

I posted ours yesterday. But what I want to know is how do they know if you lied, if they know everything what's the point in filling out anything :blink: All a load of crap if you ask me and this BS about it helps schools and roads etc, how as there's not one question asking about our thoughts on schools or our local roads..humbug :dodgy:

[JeffH]

If you didn't watch GRUEN on AB TV tonight (still not too late if you are in W.A.) then check it out on iview. Series 8 episode 3.
That is a real hatchet job -I await with interest to see what response it provokes.

And I love Todd's T shirt (can't imagine robbiegal wearing that one).

[Fulvio]

If you didn't watch GRUEN on AB TV tonight (still not too late if you are in W.A.) then check it out on iview. Series 8 episode 3.
That is a real hatchet job -I await with interest to see what response it provokes.

And I love Todd's T shirt (can't imagine robbiegal wearing that one).

It was a good show I reckon. Especially the ad about the arsehole becoming a hero.

BTW, check this out:

http://eftm.com.au/2016/08/how-two-uni-students-built-a-better-census-site-in-just-54-hours-for-500-30752

Two guys, one weekend and $500 beat the many millions the government wasted on the Census.

[markn]

If you didn't watch GRUEN on AB TV tonight (still not too late if you are in W.A.) then check it out on iview. Series 8 episode 3.
That is a real hatchet job -I await with interest to see what response it provokes.

And I love Todd's T shirt (can't imagine robbiegal wearing that one).

I didn't mind the show but it reeked of "20/20 hindsight" IMHO.  And when one of the panelists said "oh so 2 million people needed to access the website all they needed was 50 different landing pages ready to go, it's really not hard" I cringed.  There speaks someone who knows NOTHING of the technical issues behind running a high traffic website.

One of Fulvio's favourite websites, Reddit, suffered some downtime last week (about two hours) and it's a high traffic site.  The reddit tech guys started a thread over there about what went wrong and the hoops they have to jump through to deliver their users a good experience.  It's certainly not easy and several orders of magnitude more difficult than "having 50 different landing pages ready to go".

And Coleman Sweeney, he was a total asshole

[Ozcoins]

If you didn't watch GRUEN on AB TV tonight (still not too late if you are in W.A.) then check it out on iview. Series 8 episode 3.
That is a real hatchet job -I await with interest to see what response it provokes.

And I love Todd's T shirt (can't imagine robbiegal wearing that one).

It was a good show I reckon. Especially the ad about the xxxx becoming a hero.

BTW, check this out:

http://eftm.com.au/2016/08/how-two-uni-students-built-a-better-census-site-in-just-54-hours-for-500-30752

Two guys, one weekend and $500 beat the many millions the government wasted on the Census.

That is a great attention grabbing story, but the more I think about it,  the less relevant it actually is to anything which has happened.
Without knowing the original specifications, they could have no idea of what was supposed to be built.
They would not be comparing apples with oranges - more like apples with rocks.

[Fulvio]

They would not be comparing apples with oranges - more like apples with rocks.

Not really. Any online form is basically the same. Throw up a question, get the answer, validate it, stuff it in a field, rinse and repeat, write the record into your database. How you pack your data has some bearing on performance, but the point they were making was that with a big enough back end, you're going to have a tough time crashing it. And there are plenty of existing real-world solutions that handle big data without such expensive and embarrassing screwups.

And Coleman Sweeney, he was a total asshole

That was kind of the point. He turned out to be useful in the end though.

[Ozcoins]

They would not be comparing apples with oranges - more like apples with rocks.

Not really. Any online form is basically the same. Throw up a question, get the answer, validate it, stuff it in a field, rinse and repeat, write the record into your database. How you pack your data has some bearing on performance, but the point they were making was that with a big enough back end, you're going to have a tough time crashing it. And there are plenty of existing real-world solutions that handle big data without such expensive and embarrassing screwups.

Let's say someone says "Why does it cost so much to get 2000l of milk from Sydney to Melbourne - I can do it for much less"
They go to the farm with 8 x 250l barrels strapped to an old car trailer towed by the Falcon they already own.
They fill the barrels, drive to Melbourne - Job done!
Just how many problems can you see with someone doing that?
Surely no specifications could have been overlooked?
The job is done, right?
No one needs all that other rubbish like
- temperature when it left being recorded
- temperature when it arrived being recorded
- training on delivering milk safely
- refrigeration during the trip
- processing of the milk so it's pasturised
-not using barrels previously used to hold diesel fuel
Also
- the car is overloaded posing a danger to other road users and insurance is void

The requirements and specifications matter.

The guys in the story would have been purely guessing at a small part of the requirements.

Everyone with any clue knows it is possible to design and implement something to do the census, so these guys proved nothing.