LOLWut?
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Amusing (not) story about Buttigieg and the DOT (excerpted):
"Pete Buttigieg was having a fairly unusual problem: He couldn't locate the Department of Transportation’s vaunted library.
"Indeed, the department, through its years, has built up a library. And Buttigieg wanted to find it, only … it was nowhere to be found.
“The Trump people, being Luddites, did something with the library,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who had gotten together with Buttigieg last weekend. “And nobody’s quite sure where it went.”
"After asking aides about it, Buttigieg and his team discovered that much of the department’s trove of research materials was digitized and that they, indeed, had access to them. Secretary Pete found the books and other documents he needed."
Really? With all the money stress issues the feds are facing, they spent some of the $90 billion (!!!) on digitizing a library? That couldn't wait?
You could argue that the digitizing saved money by enabling people to search the thing from their desks instead of chasing all over the building to get to the paper stuff. But how much of an offset -- if any -- is that to the cost to digitize it in the first place?
Wanna bet nobody on earth can answer that? Well, maybe Ax . . .
Auxilliary Note #1: Vaunted? The library of the Department of Transportation is vaunted? The whole DOT isn't vaunted!
Auxilliary Note #2: Nice shot at the Trump "Luddites" -- that blew up in your face.
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Note to Author: Funds are budgeted for specific purposes far in advance. His complaint about the money spent digitizing is a straw man.
The fact that
MayorSecretary Pete couldn't find the "library" is another straw man. Does the author really claim that every person in the DoT who did the digitizing and knew about it left with the Trump Administraiont? C'mon man, these are gummint employees. Someone knew, and no one thought to ask?"The Trump people, being Luddites..."
@Catseye3 , you're right. The sophisticated, suave SecTrans (pun intended) was looking for paper books.
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Note to Author: Funds are budgeted for specific purposes far in advance. His complaint about the money spent digitizing is a straw man.
The fact that
MayorSecretary Pete couldn't find the "library" is another straw man. Does the author really claim that every person in the DoT who did the digitizing and knew about it left with the Trump Administraiont? C'mon man, these are gummint employees. Someone knew, and no one thought to ask?"The Trump people, being Luddites..."
@Catseye3 , you're right. The sophisticated, suave SecTrans (pun intended) was looking for paper books.
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Digitizing and making the DOT information searchable is a big deal. That’s the foundation for doing good analyses and good planning efficiently down the road. For the same amount of time and labor, you can dream up and do projections for many more “what if” scenarios when you have large trove of digitized data than otherwise.
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The rest of the article from which the OP was excerpted:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/29/pete-buttigieg-transportation-478276
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Digitizing and making the DOT information searchable is a big deal. That’s the foundation for doing good analyses and good planning efficiently down the road. For the same amount of time and labor, you can dream up and do projections for many more “what if” scenarios when you have large trove of digitized data than otherwise.
Digitizing and making the DOT information searchable is a big deal. That’s the foundation for doing good analyses and good planning efficiently down the road. For the same amount of time and labor, you can dream up and do projections for many more “what if” scenarios when you have large trove of digitized data than otherwise.
Ha! I knew you'd have this, Ax!
Although, since this is government we're talking about, how many new scenarios does the DOT need to dream up? Aren't there bridges falling apart and other infrastructure deteriorations that could keep them busy? How much of that could have been repaired/replaced with the digitization money?
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I can’t believe with the hundreds of thousands of cases of Government waste, you pick this? Transportation os one of the few delegated responsibilities of the Government. Efficient and productive access to these records and books are absolutely necessary to every single project the DOT undertakes. This will save hundreds of thousands of man hours per year! I can not comprehend anybody complaining about this.
The Brad
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By the way, paper doesn’t last forever. Many of those books are well over 70 years of age. That data needs saved immediately.
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By the way, paper doesn’t last forever. Many of those books are well over 70 years of age. That data needs saved immediately.
@lufins-dad said in LOLWut?:
By the way, paper doesn’t last forever. Many of those books are well over 70 years of age. That data needs saved immediately.
Paper lasts far, far longer than anything electronic, for myriad reasons. But yes, redundancy is important.
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@lufins-dad said in LOLWut?:
By the way, paper doesn’t last forever. Many of those books are well over 70 years of age. That data needs saved immediately.
Paper lasts far, far longer than anything electronic, for myriad reasons. But yes, redundancy is important.
@aqua-letifer said in LOLWut?:
Paper lasts far, far longer than anything electronic,
Remember how they said CDs would last forever?
Good times.
But, in the defense of the Trans Dept., having everything searchable is a huge benefit. May we never have to return to the days of the card catalog to find a book.
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We don't keep anything on paper any more at work.
A well-targeted EMP attack, and literally tens of people could be seriously disadvantaged.
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I can’t believe with the hundreds of thousands of cases of Government waste, you pick this? Transportation os one of the few delegated responsibilities of the Government. Efficient and productive access to these records and books are absolutely necessary to every single project the DOT undertakes. This will save hundreds of thousands of man hours per year! I can not comprehend anybody complaining about this.
@lufins-dad said in LOLWut?:
I can not comprehend anybody complaining about this.
First, I wasn't complaining about transportation. I was complaining about the digitalizing. Second, I wasn't complaining about waste but about the timing. But as George pointed out, the project was approved far earlier than the doing of it, so I could've been out about that.
