The smell of the greatness is overpowering here.
If anyone wishes to learn more about Elon Musk there is a recent biography, authorized by Elon Musk himself and written by Walter Isaacson.
Elon Musk is a very different kind of person than most people think he is. Every American should read the book.
Again, the irony⌠my wife applied for her Social Security benefit online, everything went perfectly fine. But if someone is poorly educated (someone said something about loving the poorly educated - canât remember it exactly) and they arenât comfortable doing things online, then they wonât be able to successfully apply for benefits.
From Google AI - " While itâs difficult to pinpoint an exact percentage, studies suggest that while a significant portion of seniors are now online, a notable number, around 27%, remain digitally disconnected, meaning they donât use the internet."
So if youâre one of those 27%, and you live in isolation and donât have relatives or friends to help you, youâre in trouble, because if they close local offices SSA youâll have to travel. Lots of poor people donât have cars or access to meaningful public transit.
Iâm zooming out on my Houston Google map, and I see SSA offices in Houston, then Brenham, League City, and Conroe in the outlying areas. If you close those small outlying office⌠seniors living there would have to travel at least an hour or more to get to a Houston office to see someone in person, assuming a Houston office remains.
YouTube has a former SSA supervisor talk about current SS issues like cuts and running out of money. Search Dr. Ed in YouTube as he cuts through some of the current rumors and political mis-statements.
Gee, what a surprise, the MSM fear mongering and using the latest Soros-approved words like âchaosâ.
Anyone who knows any programming language can learn COBOL, if they want. Programmers constantly chase the latest languages/frameworks.
IMO, yet another attempt to divert from the massive fraud, waste, and corruptionâŚ
I suggest you read up on Elon Musk and then look up the word CHAOS in the dictionary.
Hint: it does not mean well organized and executed. 
I think you mean MSN not MSM.
As a programmer since the 1970âs, yes programmers chase the new languages. I have used assembly languages (8080, Z80) Windows command language starting with Windows 2.1, BASIC, Fortran, COBOL, HPâs SPL and assembly language), PL1, Pascal, C, C++ and other (my friend chided me for not knowing APL). I think you get the idea. I would have needed weeks to study Social Security Administration mainframes and software and databases before even guessing if there were people getting illegal payments and which database was which. These college kids had little time to learn COBOL or the database structure before accessing the systems.
COBOL was designed in 1959 and certainly not a common language. While COBOL isnât as widely taught as in the past, some universities and colleges still offer courses or programs related to it, particularly for those interested in mainframe computing and legacy systems. Howeve it is not commonly learned unless you really want to work with legacy systems.
Databases may have included Image/Query (popular on IBM and HP systems) ICDB, SQL, MySQL, COSMOS [Azure] and so on. It appears that ICDB is the one used by SSA and I can admit that I have not used that structure and have not seen that the âkidsâ have.
Oftentimes large organizations such as government agencies dramatically modify either existing tructures or create their own, thus not off the shelf. Smaller businesses try to use existing software and database structures rather than hire programmers to write new. This is because if a system not for general use, they will be modified to take advantage of changes to speed up their specific application. So even if taught hardware and software in college, real-world applications will differ and require time to understand.
Just an observation from a guy who helped build a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system and writing software and managing mainframe computers for decades.
Hey Lavarock⌠you forgot QBE, one of my favorites.
This is the part that is not usually mentioned.
I 100% disagree. Itâs not that hard to get up to speed understanding the back end data. Orders of magnitude easier than understanding the application code.
And there are frameworks you can use that make it seemless to query nearly any backend data store.
The data integrity is apparently so bad, that weâre not talking about complicated queries (e.g. all active records where age > x).
This idea that somehow it takes decades to learn these things or have to be a certain age is simply not true.
Speaking of Social SecurityâŚ
Quick leaners. In just 6 weeks they mastered the systems and prodecures of half the government.