Re:Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?
by dragontamer on Sunday January 09, 2022 @11:28AM
(#29864704)
The polar opposite of startups is large-government.
I happen to be close to some people who work at the CDC tabulating death statistics. You know what one of their greatest success stories over the past few years was?
Updating their death-reporting from once-per-year to once-per-month (albeit preliminary / unreliable statistics, but monthly reports nonetheless). They still revise the numbers up to a year out but it turns out that having this project done _BEFORE_ COVID19 hit helped a lot, since decision makers at the White House (and other parts of the country) got the statistics they needed faster.
And before you say its easy: the 50 states have 50 different death certificates. The information is standardized but the data-entry and reporting methodologies are non-standard. Plus territories (ex: Wash DC, Puerto Rico, Guam also have their own death certificates). Pushing for more standardization (ex: the rules for how to report COVID19 deaths and on what line) and pushing that training out to doctors also results in partisan bickering, as you might expect.
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Doing these kinds of things is a massive undertaking in general. If computers were easy, everyone would do it. A lot of it is just growing up and realizing that the Iron Man movies you watched 10 years ago are unrealistic crap, and that the daily grind to make small bits of progress are hugely important.
Other bits are to truly celebrate these accomplishments, even in the face of widespread disdain. There's a ton of people giving crap about the CDC's death statistics with regards to COVID19 (some legitimate criticisms due to the accelerated release schedule they've got behind monthly statistics). But a lot of the criticism is just partisan bickering that no one really takes seriously. Everyone basically agrees that monthly-reporting (though less accurate) is better than waiting a whole year.
Still, its hard to argue against progress or the usefulness of this "monthly death statistic reporting" project. Originally created in response to Hurricane Maria (where US Newspapers reported a different death number than the CDC), the whole project was launched just in time for COVID19 (and was online for part of the opioid epidemic as well).
EDIT: That goes to show what a "real success" is like. Its like lighting in a movie: if you do it perfectly, no one notices. If you make the slightest mistake, a ton of people online make a big stink about it. High risk, low / non-existent reward. But its hard to deny the importance of the project. This is the prototypical "easy job but not really" scenario, everyone just expect it to get done, people don't really realize how hard it is to do (50+ states with 50+ different formats. In the case of the Opioid Epidemic, there was new language being used on Death Certificates that didn't exist before, words like Fentanyl, and people just expected the CDC system to automagically detect these words, new-misspellings and collate results together despite no one actually asking for that feature, etc. etc.)
I happen to be close to some people who work at the CDC tabulating death statistics. You know what one of their greatest success stories over the past few years was?
Updating their death-reporting from once-per-year to once-per-month (albeit preliminary / unreliable statistics, but monthly reports nonetheless). They still revise the numbers up to a year out but it turns out that having this project done _BEFORE_ COVID19 hit helped a lot, since decision makers at the White House (and other parts of the country) got the statistics they needed faster.
And before you say its easy: the 50 states have 50 different death certificates. The information is standardized but the data-entry and reporting methodologies are non-standard. Plus territories (ex: Wash DC, Puerto Rico, Guam also have their own death certificates). Pushing for more standardization (ex: the rules for how to report COVID19 deaths and on what line) and pushing that training out to doctors also results in partisan bickering, as you might expect.
----------
Doing these kinds of things is a massive undertaking in general. If computers were easy, everyone would do it. A lot of it is just growing up and realizing that the Iron Man movies you watched 10 years ago are unrealistic crap, and that the daily grind to make small bits of progress are hugely important.
Other bits are to truly celebrate these accomplishments, even in the face of widespread disdain. There's a ton of people giving crap about the CDC's death statistics with regards to COVID19 (some legitimate criticisms due to the accelerated release schedule they've got behind monthly statistics). But a lot of the criticism is just partisan bickering that no one really takes seriously. Everyone basically agrees that monthly-reporting (though less accurate) is better than waiting a whole year.
Still, its hard to argue against progress or the usefulness of this "monthly death statistic reporting" project. Originally created in response to Hurricane Maria (where US Newspapers reported a different death number than the CDC), the whole project was launched just in time for COVID19 (and was online for part of the opioid epidemic as well).
EDIT: That goes to show what a "real success" is like. Its like lighting in a movie: if you do it perfectly, no one notices. If you make the slightest mistake, a ton of people online make a big stink about it. High risk, low / non-existent reward. But its hard to deny the importance of the project. This is the prototypical "easy job but not really" scenario, everyone just expect it to get done, people don't really realize how hard it is to do (50+ states with 50+ different formats. In the case of the Opioid Epidemic, there was new language being used on Death Certificates that didn't exist before, words like Fentanyl, and people just expected the CDC system to automagically detect these words, new-misspellings and collate results together despite no one actually asking for that feature, etc. etc.)