Coming back from coffee with a friend, I bumped into Erin from the US Census Bureau:
She asked if I knew how many people lived in the house she was polling. I told her I knew Richard and that at least 3 people lived there. I asked about the devices they were using to track their information since I was aware of the $600 million dollar (or multi-billion dollar) mistake regarding project management of rolling out PDA’s to collect Census data. Without getting too nosey, the device appeared to be running a custom operating system with a black/white screen and was approx 6 inches wide and 8 inches high.
Erin and I chatted about how the Census is starting in 2009 to verify buildings, number of units and occpants. We talked about small dogs and cats.
From 2010.census.gov
What is the Census?
The census is a count of everyone living in the United States every 10 years. The census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. The next census is in 2010. Your participation in the census is required by law. It takes less than 10 minutes to complete. Federal law protects the personal information you share during the census. Census data are used to distribute Congressional seats to states, to make decisions about what community services to provide, and to distribute $300 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year.
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