Mastodawn

The BOM data services do definitely need am overhaul, but I hear that this money is coming from the pot which would have paid researchers' salaries. Not much point having a data service if theres no one collecting the data for it... also a massive WTF at getting Accenture to do it again after the last time.

I learned recently that while a lot of BOM staff are in ongoing roles (yay!) this is not true of the researchers, who are largely on fixed contracts (boooo!). Just thinking about how many staff could be funded with $16 mill...

#AusPol #BOM

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-24/company-in-96m-bom-site-redesign-gets-16m-contract/106478264

Company that built botched new BOM website wins $16m contract for new site

The company responsible for the highly criticised BOM website wins a $16 million tender to build a new climate data website for the government.

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Raff Karva 1d ago

@michcampbell

The story behind "Hot Prices" comes to mind:

https://www.wired.com/story/heisse-preise-food-prices/

TL; DR: Austrian government announced a price comparison tool development with an estimated cost of mllions € and timeframe of a few months. Mario Zechner, an independent software developer, heard the news on the radio, sat down and built such tool in two hours, which he then open-sourced on GitHub. A few months and €20m vs two hours and free. It's easy to spend someone else's money.

This Website Exposes the Truth About Soaring Food Prices

A developer in Austria created a comparison website that helped open up the opaque world of food costs as regulators investigate the food industry.

WIRED

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Book

@RaffKarva A great story. Thanks for sharing.