Category: government

04/10/10 06:08 - ID#51363

Six Catholics and Two Jews

Who would have thought, it's possibly the end of Protestants on the supreme court.

Today, the court is made up of six Roman Catholics, two Jews and Justice Stevens

Permalink: Six_Catholics_and_Two_Jews.html
Words: 36

Category: government

06/01/09 02:23 - ID#48814

Workfare instead of welfare?

A continuation of (e:paul,48807) What about a workfare program? What if instead of paying people to stay home, we give them state job doing all the things that need being done.

Obviously, I am only talking about people who are physically capable. If childcare is an issue than they could pick child care providers out of the group and have them watch children while the parents took turns working.

I mean our society has so much stuff that need to be done, and a lot of people that "desperately want jobs but can't find them." We pay them either way, why not let society (the people themselves included) reap some benefit from the tax money spent.

Then their salaries can just show up with all the other state workers? Is that ok?

There were plenty of examples of this during the depression with public works projects.

metalpeter writes at 08:33:55 06/01/09 - Comment #48862: What (e:theecarey) says it correct. I think workfare is through the county. Maybe it could go through the state also. I remember hearing that one of the big problems with workfare was that a lot of the Jobs people could do they didn't have the education for. If you think about it that makes sense. See if they had the education then they could get a job and not abuse the system.

heidi writes at 08:31:43 06/01/09 - Comment #48861: Paul -

To give you some numbers, I need to know what kind of "welfare" you're objecting to/curious about... there multiple social programs that someone considers to be "welfare":

TANF: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. This is the program that replaced AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) back in 1996 with Clinton's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which is the program that (e:James)' comment describes. As both names suggest, they're focused on kids and their parent(s). The exact program regulations and $ benefits vary by state, but it's the main program that is called "welfare"
:::link:::

Social Security (federal welfare for old people and kids who have lost a parent)
Social Security Disability (federal welfare for people w/disabilities, including HIV/AIDS)
Supplemental Security Income
Medicaid (state-administered federal health care for poor people)
Medicare (federal health care for seniors & disabled)
SCHIP (state-administered federal health care for poorer kids)
HEAP (heating/cooling assistance for poor people)
Food stamps
WIC (women, infants & children food assistance)
Title XX (funding for childcare for working parents)
Unemployment Compensation
Workers Compensation (workplace injury care)
Earned Income Tax Credit (returns earned income tax dollars to poor people)

Here's the NYS list of assistance programs:
:::link:::

In PA, the equivalent of the Safety Net Assistance program is "general assistance" and the benefit was approx. $197 per month. I'm pretty sure the recycling collectors along Allen St. make more than that.

I'd also like to contrast TANF expenditures, which in the Obama FY2010 budget would be approximately $19.3 billion with "corporate welfare": "According to the Cato Institute, the U.S. federal government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year 2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, and General Electric.[5]" (I don't particularly trust Cato, but it's a nice line for my purposes at the moment.)

FY2010 US Dept. of Health & Human Services budget
:::link:::
I couldn't find actual FY2008 TANF expenditures, but Bush's budget was approximately $15 billion - and let's not discuss all the "marriage promotion" activities that included.

ajay writes at 06:33:00 06/01/09 - Comment #48854: A few years ago, NYC decided that if you're physically capable of working and on welfare, then the City would require you to work cleaning up the streets, etc. IIRC, a lot of the folks affected protested. The protesters were all hefty guys who could have done the job easily; but they were protesting the fact that the jobs were "beneath" them....

I think if someone's on welfare and they're not (a) in school, bettering their sills, or (b) doing job interviews, then they should be required to do mundane tasks like cleaning up grafitti, sidewalks, abandoned houses, etc. Alternately: give preference to contractors who will take welfare people off the rolls.

theecarey writes at 04:21:25 06/01/09 - Comment #48850: Interesting, (e:jim). I forgot that many of the recipients are children only.
I wouldn't be opposed to giving them "government chores", though.
On that note (e:paul),as part of the welfare process, if an individual is physically capable of working,then they have to look for work and/or be expected to work an assigned amount of hours per month as part of being in the system, at a location predetermined for them. It could be shoveling public sidewalks, picking up garbage, clerical duties, farming, etc. So there is a workfare program in place. At first consideration, I do like your idea about childcare- choosing some qualified individuals from the mix to look over the others children (and that may already be in place?)
The amount "paid" to those in the workfare program is the absolute minimum. There are two things I am unsure on:
1. what the rate of pay actually is. It used to be much less than "minimum wage", with the idea that the individual would be better off finding independent employment that would likely pay much better. That "pay rate" may have changed to provide a minimum monetary expectation now. Anyone have data? and,
2. There has/had been much debate as to whether these people are considered "employees" of anyone, and if they have employee rights etc. Again, I haven't checked recent data to what, if anything has changed over the years. If they are still not classified as "employees" then their "wages" as per criteria would not be published based on this.

On a related note, to what degree would/does having low wage "workfare participants" benefit the state (and some private companies) more than if they hired out right workers? We may have people abusing the system, but that would also include the state and businesses that hire them- an initiative to keep people in the system, perhaps? Just thoughts..

deeglam writes at 03:07:10 06/01/09 - Comment #48847: fabulous idea.

paul writes at 02:53:11 06/01/09 - Comment #48846: James: I am curious about that plus total payouts.
Jim: I think plenty of people have additional dependents to stay on it. that is why I suggested the childcare part.

james writes at 02:45:25 06/01/09 - Comment #48845: This is from a 1994 report from the House Ways and Means Committee. Though, it would be very interesting to see more up to date information.

Race
--------------
White 38.8%
Black 37.2
Hispanic 17.8
Asian 2.8
Other 3.4

Time on AFDC
---------------------------
Less than 7 months 19.0%
7 to 12 months 15.2
One to two years 19.3
Two to five years 26.9
Over five years 19.6

Number of children
-------------------
One 43.2%
Two 30.7
Three 15.8
Four or more 10.3

Age of Mother
------------------
Teenager 7.6%
20 - 29 47.9
30 - 39 32.7
40 or older 11.8

Status of Father 1973 1992
-------------------------------------
Divorced or separated 46.5% 28.6
Deceased 5.0 1.6
Unemployed or Disabled 14.3 9.0
Not married to mother 31.5 55.3
Other or Unknown 2.7 5.5

jim writes at 02:44:13 06/01/09 - Comment #48844: If you are capable of working, and don't have dependents, you can't stay on welfare for very long already.

"About 44 percent of TANF households are not subject to federal or state time limits because they are â€œchild-only casesâ€ â€" typically, children living with a relative or families in which the parent is not eligible for benefits."

So, almost half the list would be names of children. That's not very awesome.

paul writes at 02:39:38 06/01/09 - Comment #48843: Ya, that part is true? Where are those numbers? That is kind of what I am asking for?

james writes at 02:37:38 06/01/09 - Comment #48842: But that, more or less, happens a lot already.

Last year I qualified for HEAP, food stamps, and medicare. I didn't have any of those and I worked almost all of last year except December. It wasn't for the government, but I worked like a lot of people who receive assistance do.

I think it would be important in this discussion if we had some actual facts and figures on welfare. How many people receive it, how many work, how long people are on it, etc. Otherwise this is just speculative.

Permalink: Workfare_instead_of_welfare_.html
Words: 147

Category: government

05/31/09 10:22 - ID#48807

State Employee Salaries and Welfare

I wrote about this before but I want to discuss it some more. It is interesting that you can see the names and salaries of all state workers

They are a little behind, its not real time number but last year's numbers - still interesting.

I understand why people want this - the public pays the salary - the public wants to know where the money is going.

I like this kind of transparency and think we should take it one step further.

I think we should also publish the names and amount that people reap in social welfare benefits, and how about unemployment too? Seems only fair.

What do you guys think?

metalpeter writes at 08:27:36 06/01/09 - Comment #48860: I have to say no one's salary should be public. I would say you could publish a department and give averages. But here is why, it is a private matter. Yes if you are an elected position then that is different but the mayor pretty much makes the same for the time that the last guy got. Knowing what someone makes just causes problems. Say I work for the state If I can look up what everyone else makes and I see that lazy ass hole who just surfs online all day mostly makes the same amount as me a year there is going to be a problem. What about the fact that kids could look up how much their parents make or even parents (assuming they are state workers or public sector jobs) of kids they are in school with. I understand that people want accountabilty but it shouldn't be to everyone that has internet access.

paul writes at 02:25:57 06/01/09 - Comment #48839: Just to be clear, I don't feel victimized at all by the salaries being public information. I think it should all be public. I am thrilled that they made the information public and I think all tax spending should be documented. I am also not comparing the two, being a state employee and using social services. Just saying both are publically funded.

As I said before, there should be no social stigma associated with using social services temporarily to help you through difficult times. That is what it is there for, and that is why we all pay into it, so that it happens to us - the safety net is there.

I really don't care if people are embarrassed about being on social services. Shouldn't they just be happy that they have social services? Isn't it a miracle in itself? In any other era they would have just been in shanty towns or bread lines.

If you really aren't abusing it, you would show up really low on the list. What about just a list of the top payees?

joshua writes at 02:02:14 06/01/09 - Comment #48837: All of this is predicated on the idea that people on public assistance are the same as people who work for the state. That is an obvious fallacy - both may be "drains" on the public tax dollar, but that is where the similarities end. I can't believe that anybody would equivocate the two.

If you work in the public sector, the fact that your salary is public information is simply one of the prices you pay for working in the public sector. This is an interesting example of a major difference between the public and private sectors that few people consider until it is their name that they see on a state fact sheet on a web site. This sort of thing is a fact of public sector life that you have to understand and accept, then move on. No public worker should feel victimized by that web site - they should have known anyway, in my view at least.

Bleeding Heart Joshua agrees with (e:libertad) on this one, at least partially. I don't buy that such an idea would hurt a person's job prospects necessarily, but I think it is compelling to suggest that the net effect of this would be to humiliate people who are otherwise amongst our most disadvantaged. To me that isn't just wrong, but obscene.

If it were done in a general way, in order to illustrate on average the degree of waste in the social welfare system, I'd be all for that. To what degree our system is wasteful should absolutely be public information.

I think there is an aspect out there of people wishing to humiliate the serial abusers, which is a sentiment I completely understand. More statistics should be available to disseminate welfare statistics, but it should be done a general way. Comparing a welfare recipient to a state worker is apples and oranges.

james writes at 01:56:06 06/01/09 - Comment #48835: Salaries and benefits of public employees should absolutely be made public knowledge. That is an excellent way to help track patronage and corruption which you otherwise could not track. Salaries are paid for from a variety of sources, including city taxes, state taxes, federal money, grants, and others.

But welfare, What is the point?

We already know how much we spend on these services because it is in the budget every year. Even if the revenue source come from multiple places, it is all placed in the budget.

As Jim said, it is a minority of people who abuse the system. They should be investigated and punished. But punishing everyone by making this information public will only lead to humiliation and discrimination.

That said, I understand where your frustration is coming from and I hope Tony moves in.

jim writes at 01:44:08 06/01/09 - Comment #48834: My mom hated that we had to go on food stamps for a little while after my dad left us. There's no way she wouldn't have been embarrassed if it was public, she was plenty enough embarrassed as it was. Most people who use these services use them for brief periods of time - I know there are some who stay on forever, but most don't abuse and don't stay on.

If my mom were here today, and were going for a job interview, and they googled her name and found out she was on food stamps, mightn't that serve as stigma branding her as poor forever? Nothing on the Internet goes away.

If it was made public back then, she probably wouldn't have taken it and we'd have been much worse off. The people that would least abuse the system are the ones too proud to have their names released.

So count me totally against this, doesn't seem to do any good except to gawk. I also dislike having every government official's salary released, too. Most people get tax credits, so by this logic everyone's tax returns should be public - yuck. No thanks.

ajay writes at 12:37:09 06/01/09 - Comment #48833: Making the pay/benefits of State Employees public is a great idea.

Correlate this list with, for example, the professors in UB and see how some of the shittiest profs are making top salaries; whereas the really good ones are severely underpaid because they don't play the system.

As for people on welfare? I know where (e:paul) is coming from (given the tenants in his property). When I drive by some of the projects here in SF, I'm surprised to see BMWs and Audis parked on the street (of course not _every_ car is such, and there are lots of crappy ones too). I met a guy in Burning Man who spends his entire year partying, doing BM, Coachella, Rainbow, etc. because he's on "disability" since he injured his back. Ignore the fact that he was lifting heavy stuff into/out of his truck when there. So yeah, there's a lot of abuse too.

I am all for openness where **tax-payer funded** things are concerned. I don't care what the top executives at Apple make. But if it's my tax dollars, I want to know, dammit!

tinypliny writes at 10:38:57 06/01/09 - Comment #48825: We don't have even the first layer of transparency in India, which is one of the many reasons I admire your country. At least your government is making an effort. :(

jenks writes at 09:57:40 06/01/09 - Comment #48824: i'm with Paul.

paul writes at 09:46:26 06/01/09 - Comment #48822: If people are truly in a predicament which results in then needing public assistance they should not be embarassed. Only people who abuse it should be embarassed.

What I was trying to say is that seeing as many people want to know where are extremely high taxes are going, they should have the right to know.

Same with all those other programs for heat assistance, food stanps, etc. Maybe instead of breaking down what the person was paid for, they just break it down to total amount per person with no details involved until you apply in writing for that info.

In general see through government expenditure should be encouraged.

theecarey writes at 08:40:07 06/01/09 - Comment #48818: Interesting idea. I get what you are saying. However, my opinion is that I dont think salaries or benefits (or anything) should be public knowledge; but I am pretty private and don't really think it is anyone's business to know who makes what- even state paid employees. A grade range for a position, maybe, but not down to the pennies. I'd be fine with not even having immediate access to that either.
For all else, I agree with (e:libertad) entirely. I dont need to see who is receiving what benefits and in what amount. The impact, the stigma- it would hurt those it is really trying to help, and not make a difference for those that "abuse" it. As for unemployment, those same people have paid into it at some point and no one needs the added public exposure to a trying time in their life.

lilho writes at 11:53:47 05/31/09 - Comment #48817: i'm all for that idea.

libertad writes at 11:43:11 05/31/09 - Comment #48816: I don't think that is a good idea. Social welfare is and should be intended to helping people who are in a bad spot. They should not make a public list of people who are receiving government benefits because that could adversely affect their prospects for employment and also serve as public humiliation. It reminds me of that school that was pulling kids out of lunch lines because their parents did not give them any lunch money and serve them a cheese sandwich while everyone else ate hot meals.

Permalink: State_Employee_Salaries_and_Welfare.html
Words: 123

Category: government

12/13/08 12:24 - ID#47052

Throwing your money "at the windows"

This is just a continuation of (e:paul,47049) as I am still so angry about this issue.

(e:james), you are right, we need to get some politicians behind this. Even just starting with the city of buffalo, there must be so much in possible savings. The problem is getting information about what they currently are using. We need a tech person on the inside who cares. I think tax payers are not outraged because they do not understand the issue, all it would take is some awareness.

The City of Buffalo represents a perfect candidate for free and open source change because:

1. It is so poor and our taxes are so high.
2. It is a pure government entitity unlike Roswell where some of the money comes from grants.
3. Its not that big compared to New York State.
4. We have access to policticans who could make it an issue.

Building Future Workers
A interesting way to promote this would be to pick an OS for the city customize the build to its needs. Then release the live CDs on the cities website so that citizens could download the OS for their own computers. It would help people who can't afford to buy windows products and it would also effectively train new city workers in using the software. If you use open office, firefox, etc at home then you won't have a problem using it at work. With all the money that would be saved, you could afford to have more programers customizing Free and Open Source software for the government needs, so they could get what they really want and need.

The Nay-sayser
The worst part of transitioning anything are the government employees who say I am only trained in microsoft tech. Well, you know what, getting a government job should not be the only pre-requisite to keeping a state job - as it seems to be. Especially, in technology. Technology changes and people need to adapt to new technology and more importantly - new budgets. Their lack of willing to learn and train in cost savings alternitves should equate losing their jobs to people who are committed to cost saving technologies.

Its not that hard to learn new technology. If you are a computer server tech, you could definately learn linux - if not capable of that you are in the wrong field.

If you are an administrative assistant, you can learn to type reports on open office

software. It kills me to think how much money is thrown out the window or as I said in the last post "thrown at the windows"

drew writes at 06:20:29 12/13/08 - Comment #43279: I think it would be really cool if Buffalo became the US's first (as far as I know) "open source city." If we did it big and did it right. it could attract some people and maybe even jump start our tech economy. People can program from anywhere, and Buffalo is a pretty cheap/awesome place to live!

heidi writes at 05:10:56 12/13/08 - Comment #43276: I usually work with small scale organizations - 1 to 5 computer users with no IT staff. I encourage people to use OpenOffice but they get frustrated if it doesn't work "right" the first time, and compatibility can still be problematic. Sometimes I just demand that they use Firefox (gently but still a demand) because of the safety issues. (e:Zobar)'s right about municipal software being old - there are still DOS water/sewer/garbage programs being supported. What a nightmare.

But as you scale up from the little shops, it's hard to tell where the line is where your IT staff is good & strong enough to handle switching to opensource, and where your staff will be okay with switching (balancing resistance & time/skill, I guess).

zobar writes at 03:59:58 12/13/08 - Comment #43274: You'd obviously save a buttload on software licensing fees. You'd save on ongoing server costs too because while the Linux server platform is occasionally arcane, it's generally quite solid and efficient, whereas the Windows server platform is extremely frustrating and seems to be less stable in general.

I think the desktops would require less maintenance but slightly more support. You'd need to increase help staff during the transition of course, but I don't think you'd ever completely get over the unfamiliarity thing.

The real big question is about vertical-market applications that you may have to replace and phase out. My impression is that the majority of ready-to-use municipal-government software is either Windows-based or really old like AS/400. If you can't bring in a Linux replacement app, you need to consult or hire your own developers, which will cost more than the status quo.

- Z

gardenmama writes at 02:17:31 12/13/08 - Comment #43271: I am so out of the technology loop - I think I need to explore. My home computer is really old, and at work, though the district provides extensive professional development for teachers, they provide very little (ok, almost none) p.d. for support staff. We all use MS Office products at work and I came in (8 yrs. ago) knowing how to do a lot more with the software than many of my co-worker who had been there for many years. I frequently find myself teaching my co-workers about capabilities of the software and how to use it. Part of the problem for us is there is a huge disparity in people's knowledge of the software and you can't "make" them learn it. Some people will actually say "I don't know how to do that, and I don't want to learn" and the union would protect them because our job descriptions do not really include anything about technology skills (other than must be able to accurately type at 35 words per min. - hell, you can do that with the hunt and peck method). Also, when the district used to offer some support staff training, I wanted to take a 3-course series (one day each) on the MS Office database program (which would have benefitted our office) but my supervisor said she would only be willing to let me go for one day, but that 3 was too much. Well, I ended up not going to any because I knew that just the one would be sufficient to suite my needs.

tinypliny writes at 01:04:07 12/13/08 - Comment #43265: Heh.. OpenOffice is exactly the same as MS Office but with added PDF output features and several customizable options. There is hardly anything to "learn".

paul writes at 12:48:52 12/13/08 - Comment #43262: Its a complicated issue. Its just just the tech people being dumb as it might seem. The problem are the vendors. They built software that works on IE6, then they made all their money and don't care about upgrading or helping. Its a viscious cycle. That is why I think the government should be required to only use open source software, so that at least its own tech team could the opportunity to change stuff.

Stuff can be open source and the companies can make money on support, which is fine. Its not like every vendor product would be replace by software managed entirely by internal staff.

I guess in it a way it is the tech support staff's fault because the buy the sofwtare without checking. A good example would be our new web based time tracking system purchased by HRI Albany that only works in IE. We just bought it in 2008. Hwo can there even be web software in 2008 that is not standards compliant enough to work in any modern browser.

jenks writes at 12:39:15 12/13/08 - Comment #43259: I haven't used openoffice much, but it seems more than adequate... I installed it on parallels and bootcamp b/c I didn't want to buy another stupid $$$ copy of Office that I will almost never use, but need just in case I have to open a .doc file or whatever.

I sent the tech support people at BGH a while ago an email saying how ridiculous it is that they still use IE6. of course they didn't respond and nothing came of it.

You don't even need to learn new things to upgrade from IE6 to 7. And it's FREE. Frankly I think everyone should use safari/firefox, but if they insist on stupid IE, at least get 7. Apple's mobileme stuff won't even RUN on 6.

Permalink: Throwing_your_money_quot_at_the_windows_quot_.html
Words: 441

Category: government

12/12/08 10:07 - ID#47049

Cut costs, open source, free software

What prompted this?
So, New York State is in this horrible budget crunch that is going to involve all kinds of budget cuts. It stresses me out every time I think about it. I wouldn't want to lose my job but it would also be bad having the same amount of work and less people to do it. Through the grape vine I heard that the union is working with the state on making us take 5 day pay cut, to be paid back upon retirement in order to save money now. Supposedly, we will get it back at our retiring pay rate, which is great - if NYS has any money then. Not to mention that we already gave them two weeks pay at the beginning.

I say stop borrowing from the employees and start borrowing from the wasted money spent on vendor contracts, and propriety OSs and microsoft products.

Why doesn't the government consider letting go of Microsoft and expensive vendor products, especially for web servers and office products or other systems where there are free open source alternatives that are even more robust.

In terms of the office products it is exceptionally ridiculous when most of the users don't even use any of the high-end features. You don't need expensive office software to type memos or spell check a report. Its almost like they never heard of the multitude of free office type products, most specifically openoffice.org. Moreover, its so crazy when people cling to things like Internet Explorer 6.0, software from almost 10 years ago that is light years behind where the web is now. Imagine what the web could have been if IE 6 was abandoned yers ago. Everything is always developed for the lowest common denominator. If your vendors are 5+ years behind the times, then maybe you should realize they suck. Converting stuff to work in standards complaint brosers is not rocket science. Most of the blocks are caused intentially by vendors using micorosft technology that locks the end users into microsoft solutions. As tax payers, you should really hate this. There are billions of dollars thrown out the window or should I say "at the windows."

Roswell Park alone spends a fortune on Microsoft and Microsoft related vendor products. .NET is costly and really doesn't offer much of an advantage, especially when you are using it to develop simple form based web apps. Luckily, we have changed that significantly since I came onto the scene but it needs to be more hospital and state wide.

It is the same with all government institutions from the city, to county, to state to country. Take the NFTA site

or the City of Buffalo site

or the Erie County site

or Roswell Park Cancer Institute's main external site

Why are they all in asp and aspx - because the vendors convinced some IT people who really don't understand what they are doing, that it is necessary. It is especially true for web sites using content management systems. There are so many free, open source content management systems that run on Linux. I wonder what will happen when the old people who cling to the Microsoft ideals retire.

Our new web content manager is finally committed to this. It is so financially irresponsible to use Microsoft products and then to pay huge vendor fees on top of it for a stupid CMS. Not to mention that the vendor products are closed source, so we just keep paying and paying every time we want a new feature and are completely dependent on vendor release time lines for changes.

My Suggestion
We as tax payers should force all government institutions to use free operating systems and to create and use open source software. We as tax payers should also force them to share, making all software produced by government workers, open for re-use in other departments and sectors to reduce duplicative error. You and I as tax payers should be demanding this - we pay for the government. Better yet, why not even have an official government or healthcare OS. Maybe that is my calling.

Voting Machines
This is exceptionally important in things like voting machines. At the minimum, this software should be created by government workers, completely open source and auditable by the public with the possibility of submitting patches and bug fixes back to the government to keep stuff honest. I mean why should we let any company control that.

What I have done so far
I have done a lot to try and reduce spending in IT at Roswell. All new web app development is done in Linux with CENTOS(free) / apache(free) / php(free) instead of Windows (costly and old) / microsoft IIS(costly /.NET(costly) / mssql(costly) / oracle(costly++). We also do our development in eclipse (free) instead of visual studio (costly). It is such a huge savings.

I wish other people would see this as a big issue. I guess they won't until things like having their pay reduced or delayed started to happen.

My dream job would be some sort of technology cost control manager for the state. Just so I wouldn't be some lazy ass bureaucrat leach on the taxpayers, I would want my salary directly proportional to how much I save, so that if I get lazy I get less money. I am so confident that so much money is being wasted that I think that would never be an issue all the way through my natural work life.

The hypocritical part
Some people might think this is hypocritical as I have a mac at work. I really like mac hardware so much and for what it offers the price point really isn't that high - I would consider a lenova thinkpad instead or even a Dell. I would go macbook instead of pro but I really need the larger screen size to be productive. It has to be powerful but also very portable as I carry it around everywhere for meetings and back for forth home several times a day.

If they told me I had to get rid of my mac OS for linux, I would in a heartbeat. I mean I spend 90% of the time on the mac, working on the linux servers. The mac basically become a dumb terminal. Unfortunately, being a web developer and I constantly have to test everything for mac, especially as it becomes more popular and the mac lets me test windows, mac and PC while a linux laptop only lets me test linux and PC. That might be changing with OS X running in vmware or the possibility of just sharing one mac that we all VNC into.

jenks writes at 11:21:52 12/13/08 - Comment #43256: Paul I seriously think you should try to be heard on this... you're absolutely right, it could save tons and tons of money. Go you.

jason writes at 10:21:14 12/13/08 - Comment #43254: Paul, I don't think you are a hypocrite for choosing Mac hardware. Your beef is with expensive proprietary software, and I agree that your strategy is preferable to pay cuts especially because we already know the state expects to be more in the hole in coming years. Long term, if it meets your needs, it is a no brainer.

Not to further trigger your gag reflex, but I know for a fact numerous government entities and contractors use very expensive proprietary web software on Windows Server. A good friend manages hundreds of such servers. I'm talking across the board, the State Department, DOD, on and on.

tinypliny writes at 01:08:36 12/13/08 - Comment #43252: Never fear, (e:drew). The suggestion-box is 100% virtual. :D

drew writes at 11:56:15 12/12/08 - Comment #43251: Just make sure you email it into the suggestion box--I hear there is somebody at Roswell who gets upset everytime paper is used.

tinypliny writes at 11:30:35 12/12/08 - Comment #43250: Hey, till now I have only whined about the recycling and plastic in the suggestion box. Why not about opensource??!! That's it. The suggestion box is going to get a heavy dose of BRING IN OPENSOURCE. SAVE MONEY. this week. hehehehe. Join me in the suggestion-box bombardment, (e:roswellpeeps)!! :)

drew writes at 11:20:29 12/12/08 - Comment #43249: Absolutely. Open source all the way.

james writes at 11:14:12 12/12/08 - Comment #43247: Paul, if you can figure out about how much Roswell is spending on this crap I would write up a budget plan comparing the two and shop it around town. Talk to Sam Hoyt and Bill Stakowski. Roswell doesn't seem like a place that is capable of seeing what a mess it is, like other government institutions in this state. Getting some politicians on this might actually get something done. If you need any help send me an email.

tinypliny writes at 11:13:48 12/12/08 - Comment #43246: Okay - one more rant. WHY does the library pay for hideous reference management systems like refworks when FREE and INFINITELY more efficient alternative reference management systems like CiteULike (citeulike.org) exist?? The library pays nearly $100 for EACH user EACH year for refworks. ALL faculty and students have refworks accounts. Do you know how much that adds up to? What a ton of money wasted for a completely non-essential bit of reference software that can easily and gracefully be replaced by a FREE one??

Oh yeah, don't give us the red mufflers. That's sure to save a truckload of money, Roswell.

tinypliny writes at 11:03:47 12/12/08 - Comment #43243: I HATE YOU PAPER-WASTERS. I also hate you garbage creating non-recyclers. You have fallen from my good will forever.

tinypliny writes at 11:02:23 12/12/08 - Comment #43242: And really, do you HAVE to print out everything that you won't even READ or even LOOK AT?? I am looking at all the downright environmentally unfriendly reams-and-reams of paper-wasting grad students and faculty and staff. :/

tinypliny writes at 10:58:54 12/12/08 - Comment #43241: I could not agree more with you. My work computer has installations of:
- OpenOffice
- Paint.NET
- PDFXChange
- Firefox
- R statistics software

My home comp is completely opensource except for windows itself - that I am trying to ditch for linux.

I scarcely use micro$oft bloat at office or at home (except for the omnipresent windows OS). I don't see why Roswell cannot implement an opensource policy. Employees who can learn archaic windows rot can easily switch to more efficient opensource!

I am sure you received a letter from the CEO saying how we were not going to be receiving our corporate christmas muffler this year because of the impending recession. Yeah, those red mufflers probably cost like 30 cents a piece in bulk last year. Why can't they look at things that are *really* breaking the budget?? SAS (blood-sucking) licenses cost upwards of $1000 per work terminal per year. WHY THE HELL are people still using SAS when R can be promoted and learned? SAS code is not even peer-reviewed!

Really, all this makes you think all this "money saving" "cost-cutting" tactics are just such a load of fake complacence candy and nothing else.