New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's battle to control every New Yorker's life has now been extended from the cradle to the grave - literally.
First it was a ban on smoking in city parks. Then he took on, among other things, trans fats and salt in restaurants and school meals, donations of food to the homeless, and super-sized sodas. Now he's trying to force women to breastfeed their babies in place of using formula. He's taking the phrase "nanny state" literally. But perhaps he should spend a little time dragging the infamous NYC bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
New York Police Department officials said the city is spending nearly $1 million to purchase and maintain typewriters for the police force.The above story was written in 2009. Three years later, in 2012, nothing has changed.
City officials signed a $982,269 contract last year with New Jersey typewriter manufacturer Swintec for the purchase of manual and electric typewriters during the next three years and last month the city inked a $99,570 deal with New York's Afax Business Machines for maintenance on the typing machines, the New York Post reported Monday.
NYPD sources said the vast majority of the typewriters are for use by police.
Most of the city's arrest forms have been computerized, but property and evidence vouchers printed on carbon-paper forms still require the use of typewriters.
"It just doesn't make sense that we can't enter these (vouchers) on computer," a police officer told the newspaper.
Dr. Edith Linn, a retired New York police officer and professor of criminal justice at the city's Berkeley College, said many of the 500 police officers she interviewed for a study told her the outdated equipment makes them less likely to perform arrests for minor offenses.
An NYPD representative told the Post officials are working on software that would eliminate the need for the typewriters.
The last city contract for typewriters ... is set to expire soon. Eighteen agencies use the machines, city officials said.
The city Department of Administrative Services recently put out a request for bids for new typewriters to replace the aging collection.
...Mayor Michael Bloomberg finds himself defending the city’s use of and spending money to maintain more than 1,000 pieces of retro technology called the typewriter.For a couple of decades I made my living updating and converting legacy systems to modern technology. It's really not that difficult -- at least in for-profit organizations.
“Particularly in old line government organizations, there’s still lots of forms where we have to fill them out in duplicate, and a computer doesn’t do that well...
But I guess government agencies aren't that worried about efficiencies and saving $$$...
4 comments:
Even I, the fogiest old fogy ever, threw away my typewriter last century. Unbelievable.
I just know that Cayce was right and there's going to be this BIG power failure that will last for years, so I got an old 2-Finger Remington in the Geeraage that I'm going to use on the Internet when this old HP dies. (One day, when the wife ain't looking, I'm going to 'clean' that geeraage; I an't seen the walls in nearly 20 years;-)
Oh Yes! About Bloomberg... I understand all the solar, low CO2, climate friendly, no-water flush, methane sequestration toilets are backed up at City Hall and the 43 other City Administration Buildings, and he's just trying to spread 'it' around so folks don't notice too much. Unfortunately the parts are made in China from rare earth materials and there's a big back order list from Europe that takes precidence over New Yak City and they've only trained 10% of the Iranian Nuclear Phyicists who will man the 14 million centrifuge pumps. Doesn't sound like his honor's little trick is working very well. I guess the old saying still holds water, you get who and what you pay for.
LOL, that is sadly funny...
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