The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: I suppose it beats the DHS Yukon?

The Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #O: "The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not."
Rule #1: "Document everything you do; if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."
Rule #2 [The Sixty Minutes Rule]: "Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew."
Rule #3: "Nothing Simple is Ever Easy"
Rule #4: "It's about the money; follow the money."
Rule #5: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Rule #6: "Politics is the enemy of good government."
Rule #7: "The biggest detriment to public service is the public."
Rule #8: "The second biggest detriment to public service is the service."
Rule #9: "There's a reason; there's ALWAYS a reason."
Rule #10: "The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good."
Rule #11: "Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you're a dickhead."
Rule #12: "No one really knows what you do."
Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]: "No one ever acts like the bastard they really are."
Rule #14: "Bureaucracy endures."
Rule #15: "The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction."
Rule #16: "Politicians are not smarter than you."
Rule #18: "Money is not created equal."
Rule #19: "Mediocrity is normalcy."
Rule #17: "Within any bureaucratic structure, resources (e.g. people, money, knowledge, etc.) are not distributed uniformly."
Rule #20: "Don't assume a fiduciary liability without a committed resource allocation."
Rule #21: "If you do your job and obey the law, they can't reasonably fire you."
Rule #22: "The Budget will always be wrong."
Rule #23: "Always sign in blue."
Rule #24: "A Bureaucrat must be able to explain and justify his/her actions to laymen without resorting to the phrase 'because the Rules say so.'"
Rule #25: "Never voluntarily relinquish control of an original document."
Rule #26: "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw the rules'"
Rule #27: "Change sucks."
Rule #28: "Sometimes the answer is 'No.'"
Rule #29: "It is very easy to make difficult decisions when no one has a clue what's going on."
Rule #30: "If you hang around long enough, eventually you will become an expert in something."
Rule #31: "Data, technology, and automatic processes can never completely supplant human interaction."
Rule #32: "Cover thine own ass."
Rule #33: "It's not real until it has its own acronym."
Rule #34:There is nothing more dangerous than an elected, resourceful idiot.
Rule #35: It will always take longer than expected.
Rule #36: Coming Soon...

Monday, March 24, 2008

I suppose it beats the DHS Yukon?

Well, there's this late breaking news from the combined Politics/Autonomous Robotic Automobile Department at the Trib:

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl plans to take a ride in Carnegie Mellon University's self-driving SUV on Tuesday, the mayor's office said today.

Boss, a robotic 2007 Chevy Tahoe, won the $2 million Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Urban Challenge robot race in California last year.

Ravenstahl will ride in the vehicle while visiting Robot City, located on the former LTV Steel Co. site in Hazelwood.

Boss was developed to meet the federal challenge for driverless vehicles that could deliver goods in dangerous situations.

I was assuming that this is just a safe way for the Mayor to make it home after the more, shall we say, rambunctious Steeler games and other community meetings.

BUT PERHAPS I AM WRONG! From Unpopular Mechanics'* more popular sister publication Popular Mechanics:

But here in Robot City, Boss is a well-trained circus animal, and when the call comes over the walkie-talkies that the 30-mph run is about to begin, I'm loaded into the back seat for what I assume will be a leisurely ride. Boss has other plans.

As heat cascades from the hardware stacked behind me, the truck lurches forward. Invisible hands wrench the wheel back and forth with surprising violence. Boss brakes hard ahead of every turn, then guns the engine halfway through, oblivious to the humans bouncing like crash-test dummies in the cabin. When Boss slams the brakes at the intersection, my face collides with the headrest in front of me, and I finally get it. Boss isn't trying to drive like a human. It is utterly singleminded. It moves without grace or half-measures, with a cold, binary confidence. And no matter how much it beats me up, I feel safer than when most people are behind the wheel. Not that Boss cares, of course. It wasn't built to chauffeur humans. Boss was born to outrun other robots, and until someone flips it back to manual mode, I'm just along for the ride.

So, perhaps the Mayor might want to (a) reconsider this ride before someone makes the obvious metaphoric connection between the the robot and his administration or (b) wear a helmet.

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* Most Popular feature: Do-it-yourself automated feces producer.**
** No, it's completely unlike a "blog," smartass.

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Monday, March 24, 2008

I suppose it beats the DHS Yukon?

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