(no subject)

[bolson]

Law makers need more software engineer friends. We know some things about designing large systems of complex rules for sanity and future maintainability. I read two pieces of law yesterday (redistricting related, one passed, one on the ballot in Nov) that fail miserably in some obvious-to-me ways.

Comments

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Which ones, how do they fail and what would you like to see improved?

[soong.livejournal.com]

The California redistricting proposition recently passed wrote into the state constitution a reference to a specific piece of federal law. Well, Congress could change that law out from California at any time. We know what can happen due to bad deep/hot linking: goatse.

I blogged longer here: http://blog.bdistricting.com/2010/03/florida-plan-nitpicking.html
On the ballot in November is a Florida redistricting plan that specifically says "The order in which the standards ... are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other", and much as flexagon notes below, lack of precedence is dumb.

[flexagon]

No freaking kidding.

I went to a short estate planning class today, and the teacher listed the 4 or so ways that property legally changes hands after a death. I and someone else both simultaneously asked if that was the order of precedence when there's a contradiction (for example, if you list a person as the beneficiary for your 401(k) but then you list someone else in your will).

The teacher said nobody had asked that before. Really? I mean, REALLY? Come on.