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Rhetorical question: were you a licensed CPP, CPA or an actuary when you were a temp in your secondary education unit? That's literally my point. Yes, these t

by pp19dd 8y ago

Rhetorical question: were you a licensed CPP, CPA or an actuary when you were a temp in your secondary education unit? That's literally my point. Yes, these things can all be done by amateurs. By tinkerers. We all here know it. We've done it. You've done it. Simple devices with telemetry and some logic. Simple programs that do complex things in the aggregate. Take it to your back yard, and either one of us or a highschool student could make a traffic light cheaper than $250,000 - $500,000 per intersection (WA state estimate). But neither one of us could build, install and maintain a quarter million of them, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to mobilize an army of nerds to make it scalable. Yeah, for all we know a PE was involved in oversight of the project. That's an unknown that TV reporters didn't dig into and should have, because I think the story would discover a much more relaxed time. But if one wasn't involved, I'm saying it took faith on behalf of the administration to assume responsibility for risk in backing this project, whether consciously considered or not. And there are risks with electrical projects beyond the computers, namely things catching on fire. What were the safeguards here? What if a logic error burned out a fan? What if someone hesitated to use the radios during a regular comm window out of habit and there was a medical emergency? Faith here was well-founded because obviously nothing burned down and no one died. But who today would accept that risk without going to a licensed professional?

ValleZ 8y ago
Seems you have to much faith in licensed professionals.
- pryce 8y ago
  I didn't take the earlier point as a hagiographic endorsement of licensed professionals, so much as a comment on the changing mindsets of the people making these hiring decisions, and how over several decades that has moved from a sort of cowboy "anything-goes" approach towards a far more risk-averse one. Outside of interesting questions like whether amateur tinkerers and hobbyists can be as reliable as professionals are other (also interesting) questions like "what factors drive the way institutions and corporations perceive and react to risk?"
coldtea 8y ago
>Rhetorical question: were you a licensed CPP, CPA or an actuary when you were a temp in your secondary education unit? That's literally my point. Well, in the real world it didn't matter at all. The payroll sheets were then sent to the state's revenue service so that teachers would get paid. If there was an issue, the revenue service would spot it. Occasionally there were a few slips, because this or that law regarding teacher compensation, insurance contributions etc changed 2-3 times a year. We'd just calculate the differences and issue correction invoices to compensate. At worst a teacher would get a month's salary when they shouldn't (e.g. they have stopped working, but the school didn't notify in time), and then have to give it back. >Yes, these things can all be done by amateurs. By tinkerers. We all here know it. We've done it. You've done it. Simple devices with telemetry and some logic. Simple programs that do complex things in the aggregate. Take it to your back yard, and either one of us or a highschool student could make a traffic light cheaper than $250,000 - $500,000 per intersection (WA state estimate). But neither one of us could build, install and maintain a quarter million of them, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to mobilize an army of nerds to make it scalable. The story is not for "a quarter million" of traffic lights, though (which would require tons of money, installations, construction work, big material orders, etc), but about an AC/heat controller for a school district. Such things as the latter, a "tinkerer" can often do much better, faster, and more effectively than some "specialized" firm. >But if one wasn't involved, I'm saying it took faith on behalf of the administration to assume responsibility for risk in backing this project, whether consciously considered or not. And there are risks with electrical projects beyond the computers, namely things catching on fire. What were the safeguards here? What if a logic error burned out a fan? The student didn't install the AC/Heat units themselves. And the school could always have a "licensed professional" come and check the student's program for correctness, for 1/10th or less of the cost of a 1.2 million dollar replacement, how about that?
- pp19dd 8y ago
  BTW, I wasn't against the idea of a right-sized approach, or against your previous work. Very much in favor of both those things. Your work obviously did very well. So did this automation 30 years ago. My whole original remark is about a temporal dimension, which is why I brought up the lights to anchor them to today. Back then, you could do things more freely with less capable and available hardware. Different environment. Concept of computers was scratching the surface of what they could do for us, and people didn't have a notion of liabilities. And yes, the student didn't install the HVAC systems, but how did tele-operated harwdware interface with it? They didn't have echo dots and knockoff power plugs back then. Today, you have all that available hardware but can't realistically do things as freely. Suffice it to say that the environment has clammed up on all fronts for an amateur to enter an industry. In some cases rightfully so (only experts for surgeries, plumbing and wiring for me please). In others, egregiously wrong barriers. For example, commonly the first thing that happens in a public institution or agency is that the losing bidder files FOIA requests trying to litigate why their solution was passed up and by whom, including copies of correspondence between them. Imagine having to deal with that dimension. Back to traffic lights: for something so rudimentary yet so vital, it costs millions of dollars for a handful of intersections, and they're everywhere. Nearly a prime candidate for a four raspberry pi solution, right? You'd think someone would have attempted it.
1996 8y ago
I agree with your statement. 49% of the costs are about cover-your-ass. 49% of the costs are about mass production something that doesn't need mass production. The rest is the actual cost of the product.

by pp19dd 8y ago

ValleZ 8y ago

Seems you have to much faith in licensed professionals.

pryce 8y ago
I didn't take the earlier point as a hagiographic endorsement of licensed professionals, so much as a comment on the changing mindsets of the people making these hiring decisions, and how over several decades that has moved from a sort of cowboy "anything-goes" approach towards a far more risk-averse one. Outside of interesting questions like whether amateur tinkerers and hobbyists can be as reliable as professionals are other (also interesting) questions like "what factors drive the way institutions and corporations perceive and react to risk?"

coldtea 8y ago

>Rhetorical question: were you a licensed CPP, CPA or an actuary when you were a temp in your secondary education unit? That's literally my point. Well, in the real world it didn't matter at all. The payroll sheets were then sent to the state's revenue service so that teachers would get paid. If there was an issue, the revenue service would spot it. Occasionally there were a few slips, because this or that law regarding teacher compensation, insurance contributions etc changed 2-3 times a year. We'd just calculate the differences and issue correction invoices to compensate. At worst a teacher would get a month's salary when they shouldn't (e.g. they have stopped working, but the school didn't notify in time), and then have to give it back. >Yes, these things can all be done by amateurs. By tinkerers. We all here know it. We've done it. You've done it. Simple devices with telemetry and some logic. Simple programs that do complex things in the aggregate. Take it to your back yard, and either one of us or a highschool student could make a traffic light cheaper than $250,000 - $500,000 per intersection (WA state estimate). But neither one of us could build, install and maintain a quarter million of them, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to mobilize an army of nerds to make it scalable. The story is not for "a quarter million" of traffic lights, though (which would require tons of money, installations, construction work, big material orders, etc), but about an AC/heat controller for a school district. Such things as the latter, a "tinkerer" can often do much better, faster, and more effectively than some "specialized" firm. >But if one wasn't involved, I'm saying it took faith on behalf of the administration to assume responsibility for risk in backing this project, whether consciously considered or not. And there are risks with electrical projects beyond the computers, namely things catching on fire. What were the safeguards here? What if a logic error burned out a fan? The student didn't install the AC/Heat units themselves. And the school could always have a "licensed professional" come and check the student's program for correctness, for 1/10th or less of the cost of a 1.2 million dollar replacement, how about that?

pp19dd 8y ago
BTW, I wasn't against the idea of a right-sized approach, or against your previous work. Very much in favor of both those things. Your work obviously did very well. So did this automation 30 years ago. My whole original remark is about a temporal dimension, which is why I brought up the lights to anchor them to today. Back then, you could do things more freely with less capable and available hardware. Different environment. Concept of computers was scratching the surface of what they could do for us, and people didn't have a notion of liabilities. And yes, the student didn't install the HVAC systems, but how did tele-operated harwdware interface with it? They didn't have echo dots and knockoff power plugs back then. Today, you have all that available hardware but can't realistically do things as freely. Suffice it to say that the environment has clammed up on all fronts for an amateur to enter an industry. In some cases rightfully so (only experts for surgeries, plumbing and wiring for me please). In others, egregiously wrong barriers. For example, commonly the first thing that happens in a public institution or agency is that the losing bidder files FOIA requests trying to litigate why their solution was passed up and by whom, including copies of correspondence between them. Imagine having to deal with that dimension. Back to traffic lights: for something so rudimentary yet so vital, it costs millions of dollars for a handful of intersections, and they're everywhere. Nearly a prime candidate for a four raspberry pi solution, right? You'd think someone would have attempted it.

1996 8y ago

I agree with your statement. 49% of the costs are about cover-your-ass. 49% of the costs are about mass production something that doesn't need mass production. The rest is the actual cost of the product.