You know that virtual fence that they are beginning to build on the borders of the U.S? I'd almost forgot about it as if it were a bad dream, but it turns out the first segment of it was scheduled to be operable three months ago and -- guess what? -- it doesn't work. A glitch, they report.
Sure, being new technology one might expect delays in the start up portion of the project, but a few things have me puzzled:
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About three-fourths of the $20 million cost for the 28-mile project has been paid, homeland security officials said. The fencing was announced as part of a $67 million initial contract awarded last September to Boeing, the bulk going to set up program management, systems engineering and planning support.
Okay, as a homeowner, I have learned that when you hire someone to install or fix something, you don't pay more than half of the project costs up front. So why have we already paid 3/4?
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''We are now looking to begin acceptance testing in about a month,'' Chertoff said -- meaning the point at which contracting officials give the go-ahead for testing -- ''and we will then kick the tires again.''
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Acceptance testing is ''a little bit like buying a car. We didn't want to get stuck with a lemon,'' Chertoff said.
The individual components worked well, but the system integration did not, he said.
Enough with the car-buying metaphors. Is Chertoff seriously suggesting that purchasing a system that will monitor the movements of human beings in order to apprehend them is a lot like buying a car?
In this case, the car is 3/4 paid for, so I guess they are stuck with a lemon anyway if the components never work together.
Car-buying is not kind of metaphor that I want to hear about: for me, buying a car starts with reason and ends with emotion. Ah, that lumbar support. Ooh, feel the way it smoothly shifts gears.
Electric border fence buying is a process that starts with emotion and will end with emotion, if it never works, or especially it does work.
I was kind of hoping the Virtual Fence had Virtually Disappeared.