04 August 2013

Feathering The Nest

Along with the stat stuff, this endeavor is mostly about replacing code bloat with svelte relational database schemas. While part of the motivation is DRI, part is pure efficiency. Sad to say, accountants have figured this out first. Who'd a thought accountants were smarter than computer geeks?
Perhaps the biggest problem, though, was that billing by the hour incentivized long, boring projects rather than those that required specialized, valuable insight that couldn't (and shouldn't) be measured in time. Paradoxically, the billable hour encouraged Blumer and his colleagues to spend more time than necessary on routine work rather than on the more nuanced jobs.

Substitute "long, boring" with "convoluted spaghetti code".

The BLS is also in the midst of increasing the GDP number by "counting" movies. Who knew? Whether an economy which makes movies, and has a higher GDP than an economy which makes food, clothing, and shelter for its citizens, is the superior economy? We can't all be parasitic economies like the Caribbean and European money laundries.

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