WTF Delaware?
joshliptzin.svbtle.com
joshliptzin.svbtle.com
<div id="forceDOMredraw"></div>
height: 3000px
width: 3000px
position: absolute
top: 0px
z-index: 50000
Killing it makes the site responsive. No idea what it's there for. I'm guessing that it should be moved by JS, but the JS is failing. There's a lot of these:
Uncaught TypeError: Property '$' of object [object Object] is not a function
[blocked] The page at 'https://corp.delaware.gov/paytaxes.shtml' was loaded over HTTPS, but ran insecure content from 'http://www.delaware.gov/CLF2012/js/jquery-1.5.1.min.js': this content should also be loaded over HTTPS.
Just don't use any security, and everything will work just fine. :-) This problem seems to cover the entirety of corp.delaware.gov, too.
Also, the 404's the article mentions,
GET https://corp.delaware.gov/undefined?1394573701086 404 (Not Found)
EDIT: That came off a bit more snarky (snarkier?) than I meant. To the OP: If you inspect the element, you can then delete it with the backspace/delete key to get to the link that you need, which ultimately leads to a separate subdomain that doesn't seem to exhibit this problem: https://delecorp.delaware.gov/eCorp/LoginAnnualReportsCLF
Don't be too quick to write the site off as "utterly dysfunctional". Any one of us could have made a similar mistake, and once you get past that glaring bug (which only appears on pages served over SSL), it's not bad for a state government site.
Perhaps you or someone else could get in touch with them to explain the issue? http://corp.delaware.gov/contact.shtml
That's odd too, it was basically my first thought to inspect the element which used this pointless div and then tried deleting it. Total time spent: 15 seconds, less than reading this rant.
(This is actually a habit I formed by getting rid of huge overlay ads that cover the page or try to force me to log in. No sir, I'll just have this node removed, thank you very much)
From the PDF:
<div id="forceDOMredraw">: A div that forces the browser to redraw the content if it is displayed incorrectly.
Oh wow, a "My tax dollars!" complaint in the middle of a "My tax dodge is inconvenient!" complaint with a little "Thanks, Obama!" thrown in for good measure.
Also, I am criticizing the $200 million spent on healthcare.gov, not Obamacare itself, or Obama.
What should one expect from a person so out of touch with the impact of health care access on the lives of ordinary Americans that they would carry on about how improved access is a social ill? The best I can say about the article is that rather than two piles. a great deal of ignorance and foolishness has been gathered in one place.
Delawares taxes are competitive but not actually the lowest. The following is a succinct explanation from a 3 second Google search on the issue.
"There are two major reasons for Delaware's dominance of the corporate incorporation business. One reason is the bi-partisan political consensus in Delaware to keep the Delaware corporation statute modern and up-to-date, and to rely on Delaware's corporate law specialists for advice in how to do this. As a result, law students at every law school in the United States study the Delaware corporation statute and the decisions of Delaware courts interpreting that law."
"The other major reason corporations choose to incorporate in Delaware is the quality of Delaware courts and judges. Delaware has a special court, the Court of Chancery, to rule on corporate law disputes without juries. Corporate cases do not get stuck on dockets behind the multitude of non-corporate cases. Instead, Delaware corporations can expect their legal disputes to be addressed promptly and expertly by judges who specialize in corporate law."
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/brandywine-to-broad...
A fifth reason is that it's extremely easy to incorporate in Delaware; it's the Internet's default choice, too.
Of course the cliche "shitty little photo sharing startup" runs perfectly all the time 24x7 no down time no code errors.
How about checking back in a day and seeing if the problem has been fixed at least?
So a site isn't working. Happens quite frequently, right? Happened to me trying to access HN last week and a few times before. Happens when I am trying to get to netflix occasionally.
Doesn't mean they aren't aware or aren't working on it. Nice for the OP to try and pile on them of course as if it's all an issue of the government screwing up.
I really hope the "Easter [sic] Time" is from the original site, not a typo in the blog.
The only other business I've seen do this is B&H[0], which refuses to accept online orders during the Sabbath, as well as during several other Jewish holidays (such as the first and last days of Passover).
The only other business I've seen do this was my previous landlord[1]. They used to let me pay my rent online. However, their system only let you pay during "standard business hours", completely negating (for me) the convenience of an online payment - I like to take care of my bills after-hours at home, not at work, thank you very much.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%26H
[1] Unlike B&H, the management company was not run by Hasidim.
I was there in January this year and did not encounter this at all. The worst was an "after hours" fee of a few hundred yen at a Mitsubishi UFJ foyer ATM (after 10:00 PM IIRC).
Tufts recently hired a huge team to "fix" SIS. It's now called iSIS and you can tell it's still using SIS underneath. (The HTML markup returned is the exact same as before, but it's dressed up a little nicer.)
Nuts.
I was at Worcester State before Tufts, and part of their registration had to be done via paper (in person at the registrar). It was almost as convenient as these online systems... (Assuming I was on campus anyway.)
I hit this period several times without knowing what was wrong. The warning isn't very obvious.
- Fixed number of columns/rows output on a given page and rendered in a fixed-width font so things would align.
- The need to navigate through "pages" of information that were far smaller than what a browser could handle, but would make sense in a terminal window.
- A form-driven interface with buttons for separate actions; the buttons seemingly would map to certain keypresses in a terminal interface.
I'm guessing the original computer-based system provided a telnet interface in the '90s but this was deemed insecure/out of date as the years went by. Not wanting to significantly change the architecture, a web wrapper must have been deemed the best option.
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...
> Our new hours of operation [for the application] are Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern time.
It's pretty common when you've got a mainframe-type system that needs to do a bunch of batch processing and report generation. It's an excellent way to ensure that no data will be altered while the reports are running.
You can also find some documentation speaking about Netscape.
They must have linked a .js that wasn't on a https.
W. T. F.
Why yes, I have been in THAT meeting, just not in Delaware.
This is generally followed by the hiring of some consulting firm to propose the solution you wanted budget for at a fair multiple of the original budget. They, after all, are consultants and you are a peon.
I mean, you have to go out of your way to break things this badly. If you just play normally, your website cannot and WILL NOT crash and burn like this.
I attribute it to malice, I just don't see it happening this badly without intent.
Easter is on the 20th of April this year. You will miss the boat completely!
I use AZ and Nevada, Nevada was horrid but got a little better, still on par with insurance sites or offshored services. These types of systems would never survive if they didn't collude a useful or required service behind them.
The worst services I have to deal with are paying my state taxes (EFTPS for federal isn't too bad) and insurance websites for healthcare. The healthcare.gov site, even though it launched bad, actually looks good and has some usability, relative to the insurance/tax/govt sites of the same caliber.
In Chrome you click the shield icon next to the bookmarks star in the address bar. I believe the page will then reload showing the http content which will usually fix the issue.
I say "helpful" un-ironically above because the http content can compromise whatever is on the page.
The OP is of course right that the developer of this page is dangerously incompetent.
We're not used to sites like Amazon being shut down during nighttime hours, but I've come across it before for government sites. For example, when I filed a corporation with the IRS, after I answered a few pages, the site said I should come back during work hours. They probably have a person at the other end who handles the forms...
Yes, it's broken and they should have caught it, but it's so hyperbolic to call it an "utterly dysfunctional site." This isn't a screwup like healthcare.gov, which had major architecture problems.
This is literally just the omission of the "s" in https.
Excuse my tinfoil hattery, but I have to wonder whether the accuracy of payments has something to do with the lack of website usability.
Their problem is the div#forceDOMredraw which appears over everything. Good times. Remove that node and the page works again.
* {
pointer-events: none !important;
}
"I hope by now you’ve seen the irony here. Our government has likely forked over millions of our tax dollars (how much did Obamacare cost?) to private contractors in exchange for a site so utterly dysfunctional that it can’t even serve its purpose of collecting those very tax dollars! That’s how broken our system is."
Our system is so broken that most new corporations are formed in a company with _no_ space available for your business or for you to live, only a person who sits and answers a phone for a few thousand or hundred thousand companies to prove an 'office location' or whatever wording.
Delaware doesn't care because they get some taxes, what you'd really call a payoff for being a tax protector.
There were pretty heinous problems with the situation at hand before OP opened his web browser.
That I can choose at which 'location' I incorporate for something that is immaterial?
Yes, as I write this, people are getting stabbed, shot, raped, killed by cancer, and mangled in car wrecks. And that's way worse than having to hassle with a broken web site.
But there are people reading this board who can actually build functional web sites, and who are appalled that the government managed to mess up so badly. That's the point.
Delaware and Nevada want to attract business so they have better prices. Regulation and law allow it, and this is healthy to have states competing for business.
If this competition did not exist state licenses and taxes would be like paying for broadband from one provider and probably thousands a year to license instead of $300 and taxes would be immense.
Small business especially already pays higher taxes so really any advantage given to small business really helps the economy as a whole even if that means lower taxes by registering in another state. The only way to fight the market is with regulation or competition, the latter always means cheaper prices and will allow more small business.