I'm in the wrong business

[tangor]

Guess How Much the TSA Spent on an iPad App That Randomly Points Left or Right
The Transportation Safety Administration said Monday that it spent nearly $50,000 on an iPad application that randomly points left or right.

The iPad app, seen in action below, is used by TSA employees to randomly select individuals for extra screening in the Pre-check program, according to Fusion.
Developer Kevin Burke filed a Freedom of Information Act Request in December 2014 to determine how much the federal agency paid for the app.

He initially reported the cost at $336,000. However, the TSA said, according to Fusion, that particular figure represented additional apps in development.

The “randomizer” app, the agency said, only cost $47,400.

[theblaze.com...]

Link included, even though that is the entire article. I'm in the wrong business if something that simple can suck at the government teat for that much moolah.

[engine]

Good grief!
Someone's having a laugh at the taxpayer's expense!

[londrum]

i'm working on one that goes up and down -- i'm rich!

[LifeinAsia]

So if someone was randomly "swiped left" (and was ale to bypass the extra screening) and ended up blowing up a plane, I'm sure some lawyer would find away to include the app developer in the survivors' lawsuit. So maybe the inflated price was for the CYA liability insurance?

[tangor]

I recall $600.00 toilet seats and other absurdities.

But this does go to show I've been targeting the wrong audience.

[lucy24]

I've got something in my wallet that will perform the identical task for a somewhat lower price. Can I keep the remaining $47,399.99?

[J_RaD]

yet we are laughing at gov waste in the election?

ha....ha...ha.............................................................

anything gov contracted has long been buddy buddy padded pockets corruption...and this is new?

vote with your brain this year.

[johnhh]

Lucy24, I'm afraid not The said item would have to be an 'approved' item inspected to ensure no bias.

On top of that each user would, of course, have to attend an intensive health & safety course in how to use the item to ensure they didn't injure themselves. The act of using it would have to be in a cage so to protect the public from any harm.

Then there's the distribution cost, plus the reserves of 'approved' items in case of loss. Each use and the random result would have to be recorded , in triplicate, before being sent to central administration.

Obviously that can't all be done easily, so it would be a 5 year project, after an initial one year pilot scheme ( monitored). So say $10million per year project cost.

Oh I guess that additional security cameras, monitored 24 hours a day, would have to installed to check the item was being used correctly. The staff would, of course, have an annual refresher course.

[toidi]

The tsa employs 47,000 people. If each of them have the app on their device then they paid $1.00 per app which is not unusual.

[lawman]

Haha johnhh, don't forget the environmental impact studies, and sensitivity training, and background checks, and . . .

[LifeinAsia]

...and annual compliance training to ensure that employees still know how to use the app.

[tangor]

Unless tenured.