Your payraise is terminated!
During my usual course of perusing various websites, I came across this story on Slashdot. I find it humorous on a number of levels: First, COBOL…seriously. Second, they only started to try to revamp the system 10 years ago (that’s 1998) when a number of “newer” programming languages were more viable 10 years before that. Third, they couldn’t migrate the payroll data into a modern payroll system that most companies, many municipalities, etc. use? Fourth, and totally non-technical, I applaud the Governator for doing this when the state can’t pass a budget. Fiscal reform NOW! Congress, states, etc. shouldn’t be blowing budgets when the American people can’t blow their own…oh, wait, apparently they can and we’ll just bail them out. Ok, note to self: GorT-land’s Constitution to prohibit fiscal irresponsibility.. The state controller described the state’s payroll system as “a computing relic on par with vacuum tubes and floppy disks”.
GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.