A few days ago, I made a long mention of the failure of the MSM to get the story of that South Carolina Train Derailment right. I suggested it’s an exaple of how the press loses the ‘feel’ of the story, because they donb’t understand how things work. Well, here’s another example; CBS News is running a story on the failure of a major overhaul of FBI software.
Now, look, I’ve got about two decades of computer support under my belt, and I know without even talking to anyone on this, that the MSM has screwed up, bigtime. Here’s the problem; Such upgrades are NEVER a total failure, and therefore can never be considered a total write-off. Such upgrades almost invariably involve a lot of systems upgrades at the OS level and at the hardware and networking levels, all as a prerequisite for the proposed software working at all, much less correctly. The OS and hardware and networking upgrades are usually needed in any event, even if you’re not planing new software to run on it.
Example (and let’s bring this home for the purpose of really showing you what I’m talking about) ; You decide you need a video camera for your PC. But you find that most if not all cameras you can get only run on XP… and you’re still running Windows 98. And in any event that old P-II/400 isn’t gonna cut it… not really. Well, you don’t complain much about the costs of the new computer and operating system, you simply replace it, since you really needed to do that anyway…and then get your camera.
Well, let’s extend this a bit further. Turns out the camera you’ve bought is a pile of crap. It doesn’t work. Do you call the hardware and software you bought a bust, or do you keep using it because it’s faster, and better than what you had? And in any event; anything else you buy for your computer’s gonna work better with the newer hardware and OS anyway, and many won’t work without it.
Well, that, I suppose to be the situation the FBI is finding itself in at the moment.
Trust me, gang… this is NOT a $171m loss.
Now, think; what advantage would the MSM see in spreading a story about $171m wasted, hmmm?
Tags: BitsBlog
