So that's where our taxes goes...

[Cospa]

Just an interesting tidbit:

I got a summer job working for the federal government and was waiting for some freight elevators and noticed the cleaning lady bring out some recycle from one of the floors. I notice 2 empty boxes for Asus X800 pci-e videocards... hot damn, I bet running microsoft excel must be a breeze now

[Blazin_Sunfire]

maybe it was for graphics design for advertising or something

[ferkel]

and what are we getting in return for our tax dollars from you besides snooping into government garbage?

[Absolute]

I used to work at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, in the IMSB (computers, network, etc) department. One of the departments I supported had just upgraded from Windows NT to Windows 2K, and discovered that all of their video cards weren't compatible with Win2K.

Now, these were $2000 video cards, as they were engineering designers who used ProEng, and needed those cards to properly display their massive 3-D constructions. Since they were incompatible above WinNT, we had to buy them all new $2000 video cards, and take the old ones out.

There were over 30-40 of these old $2000 video cards, and they just chucked them into the junk pile! I couldn't believe it, they didn't even try to recap their losses.

It almost made me cry, they couldn't even let me take one, as they were property of the NRC still. When I left a few months later, they were still just lying around waiting to be junked.

[divx]

I used to work at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, in the IMSB (computers, network, etc) department. One of the departments I supported had just upgraded from Windows NT to Windows 2K, and discovered that all of their video cards weren't compatible with Win2K.

Now, these were $2000 video cards, as they were engineering designers who used ProEng, and needed those cards to properly display their massive 3-D constructions. Since they were incompatible above WinNT, we had to buy them all new $2000 video cards, and take the old ones out.

There were over 30-40 of these old $2000 video cards, and they just chucked them into the junk pile! I couldn't believe it, they didn't even try to recap their losses.

It almost made me cry, they couldn't even let me take one, as they were property of the NRC still. When I left a few months later, they were still just lying around waiting to be junked.

damn those wildcats

[blackhawk]

when I was in the miltiary, we had to shout "bang" 90% of the time due to the cost of blank ammunition, just like when you were a kid

[devious9191]

Most government departments lease their computers, no? They get new ones every couple years as part of their contracts.

[Cospa]

No, it's not graphic design or anything fancy like that. Our floor does OAS/CPP applications which is also called Income Security Programs. The most graphic intense program these people run are... Internet Explorer? The screens they do their work on look like DOS screens...

[Absolute]

Another example; our company bid on a pile of "surplus furniture" from the government last year, for $350. We had no idea what it was, just a general list of what it included.

There was alot of junk, but we also got 6 desks, that must have been over $1500 each! We were astounded, and were told that the department they came from had expanded so they needed additional desks. The original desks they had weren't in production anymore, so they bought all new desks for them all to match.

The government gives away alot of good stuff for less than they paid for it.

[simms]

No, it's not graphic design or anything fancy like that. Our floor does OAS/CPP applications which is also called Income Security Programs. The most graphic intense program these people run are... Internet Explorer? The screens they do their work on look like DOS screens...

You'd be surprised but it's pretty secure given that most hacks and viruses today are based upon the Win32 platform.