Excuses, excuses
- Thread starter Big Money
- Start date
christiefan915
Catalyst
What a classy lady.
WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to Americans Wednesday for the dysfunctional website that has hamnpered the roll out of the new national healthcare law.
"You deserve better," Sebelius said in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I apologize. I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."
As Republican calls for her resignation grow louder, Sebelius was subjected to sharp, partisan grilling from lawmakers who asked her about technology, website security, the law's mandate that people obtain insurance, and a host of other issues. The hearing grew testy at times and the look on Sebelius' face was often one of frustration.
"Hold me accountable for the debacle. I'm responsible," Sebelius said after a heated exchange with Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., about who was in charge of the website.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/30/sebelius-health-care-house-hearing/3308771/
WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to Americans Wednesday for the dysfunctional website that has hamnpered the roll out of the new national healthcare law.
"You deserve better," Sebelius said in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I apologize. I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."
As Republican calls for her resignation grow louder, Sebelius was subjected to sharp, partisan grilling from lawmakers who asked her about technology, website security, the law's mandate that people obtain insurance, and a host of other issues. The hearing grew testy at times and the look on Sebelius' face was often one of frustration.
"Hold me accountable for the debacle. I'm responsible," Sebelius said after a heated exchange with Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., about who was in charge of the website.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/30/sebelius-health-care-house-hearing/3308771/
Then she blamed Verizon and insurance companies...
And delivered this gem:
"I would suggest the website has never crashed. It is functional but at a very slow speed and very low reliability."
Twitter, of course, chimed in.
"The Hindenburg didn't crash," wrote @ClarenceWhorley. "It was just flying on the ground while on fire."
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/tech/web/obamacare-site-sebelius-crash/
What a classy lassie...
christiefan915
Catalyst
How is that wrong? "Crash" means total lack of operation. She's right, the thing works badly but it's still up.
Tech community, how does that sound?
"The site was crashing," said David Kennedy of online security firm TrustedSec.
"A crash is defined in the basic sense as an application not behaving as anticipated or not being able to handle something due to programming flaws," Kennedy added.
"The system doesn't work or stops serving because of the issues," he said. "Basically, exactly what happened to the HealthCare.gov website."
The definition at Internet-centric encyclopedia Webopedia is similarly broad. It defines a crash as "a serious computer failure."
"A computer crash means that the computer itself stops working or that a program aborts unexpectedly," the definition continues.
Kennedy said that what's been happening with the health care website is different from slowness caused by heavy traffic, which is not uncommon when sites debut to higher-than-expected popularity.
Instead, Kennedy said, the site is delivering error messages and not letting people register, suggesting flaws in its coding.
Technicalities aside, the wags of the Internet were having fun with Sebelius' comment.
"Depends what the meaning of 'crash' is," wrote conservative blogger Keith Koffler. "Like, was it driving a car and it didn't crash into anything, so the website made it home from soccer practice? Or, does the website only go to parties to which it has been invited?"
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/tech/web/obamacare-site-sebelius-crash/
CNN shows Obamacare website down while Sebelius is testifying that it’s never crashed…
christiefan915
Catalyst
I rue the day that smiley hit cyberspace.
wanderingbear
Radical liberal
I rue the day when Walmart stole mr. smiley from the hippies.
In 1963 there was an American children's TV program called The Funny Company, which featured a crude smiley face as a kids' club logo: it was shown on their caps, in the end titles and the final message, "Keep Smiling".
At the same time, Harvey Ball – a commercial artist in Worcester, Massachusetts – designed a simple Smiley for a local company, State Mutual Life Assurance. Noting the depressing ambiance of the town (which is real, believe me, I've stayed there), State Mutual started "a friendship campaign" so that their employees would feel good when they interacted with the public and each other.
However, neither he nor the company copyrighted the design, which has left its precise origins open: a Seattle designer called David Stern has also claimed authorship.
What is not disputed is the extent to which the Smiley took off.
In September 1970 two brothers based in Philadelphia, Bernard and Murray Spain, came up with the classic Smiley design to sell novelties. Adding the words "have a nice day", the Spains shifted at least 50 million Smiley badges in 1972.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/feb/21/smiley-face-design-history