mindrape

as if this article on the atrocious state of unemployment systems in america wasn't bad enough, take a look at this little tidbit on everyone's favorite social, economic and political catastrophe, california:

Perhaps no state is as troubled as California, which has not met timeliness standards for nine years. As in most other states, its 30-year-old computer runs on Cobol, a language so obsolete the state must summon retirees to make changes.

Yet a major overhaul in California has been delayed for five years, with $66 million in federal funds still waiting to be spent. In part, the shelved project was meant to upgrade the call centers, which were “completely swamped” last winter, a legislative analyst wrote, with “desperate unemployed Californians dialing and redialing for hours.”

Cobol. COBOL? I want to make some kind of history of computing-related joke, but I'm completely at a loss. The kind of guys who programmed in Cobol were already senile when movies about computer programming, movies like "Weird Science," first became popular. When everybody else found out what computers were, these guys were shitting into bags. Ben, you should ask what system they use to process criminal background checks. I've got a feeling that we might end up finding what really happened to the Pony Express.