Many of Gerry Anderson's TV shows were about the ascendency of the well prepared geek over the muscle bound jock. Joe 90, Captain Scarlett, Thunderbirds, Stingray and Fireball XL5 were hard favorites through most of my childhood. (Doctor Who of course being the other show that celebrated the thinking hero). While geek culture has become much more mainstream, I think that the Gerry Anderson brand of action never found a serious parallel after his shows went off the air. Ryker's (sic) version of Thunderbirds was sad - it was great to see the ships come to life with CGI; but none of the old "feel" of the shows carried over.
Clarification for anyone who may be interested... In Hindu scripture the supreme god is an embodiment of energy; not a human. Very interestingly, Vishnu (the preserver of the universe) is supposed to take different forms or Avatars to help keep the universe running (and that's the origin of the term Avatar). The first form was a fish, the second a turtle, the third a lion (more specifically half line / half man). Amazing how that parallels evolution... The rest were humans, but with increasingly subtle differentiations of what is right and what is wrong. Krishna (the Krishna in Hare Krishna) is the 7th or 8th avatar based on who is counting, and is a God for our times if you will. Just like nearly every other religion, hinduism has "populist" stuff, which the more politically minded (who get to run temples and run their own sects or cults) use to control the population. Thats how most folks in India see the Hare Krishna movement. In India, as education has spread, the hold of these folks has got weaker, and you can see that in the changing norms and standards in India. 10 years ago you could be spat on for wearing a bikini. Today Bollywood heroines can't make it big without at least one swim suite scene in their movies. Hinduism is about 5,000 to 7,000 years old depending on whose reckoning you follow. If you want to see the future of Christianity and Islam, and to understand how the Church and State use religion to control folks - go study Indian history. You will see parallels everywhere. Institutionalized ignorance to control the populace. The aggregation of wealth into the hands of the a few claiming to control the gates to the Gods and heaven. Extreme factions united by a single extreme belief pushing their agenda over that of the majority. The use of religious fanatism to win wars. Been there; done that.
I've been in a couple of situations where things went bad very quickly, and a leader had to emerge to get us out of trouble. The leaders were NEVER the smartest people in the room - it was the person we intuitively understood as being able to get us out of a bad situation and make our condition better. Movies show this all the time. In everything from the Braveheart to every single disaster movie ever made, to the Avengers to Sky Captain - we see the same pattern - the leader is the one who takes charge and listens to the smart people, but takes the tough decisions. And I am sure this is not a human thing. You see it every pack out there. Natural selection of leaders goes all the way back to the cretaceous from the study of foot prints of pack hunting behavior of carnivores (e.g. Raptors in Jurassic Park). What politicians seem to be doing consistently is make us panic and subvert our lizard brain processes for identifying a leader. I can't remember the last democratic election where we were not seeing this in action. Each time I read or watch V for Vendetta the message gets reinforced. I have lived in Dubai and Singapore for short stints - and seeing "benevolent dictatorships" at work. I have watched up close the slow motion train wreck that is the European parlement. I cringe as I watch the legal corruption based system in the US. Sometimes democracy does not see to be the cut and dried choice I was taught it was all my life.
UML is the language, not the essay. If you don't know what you want to say, any language will do - but if you do know what you want to say, at least in Software Design - UML gives you a way of describing it precisely.
In my current organisation, we took a couple of "difficult" projects, where the customer's needs weren't clear, and converted them over to UML. The results were amazing. In one case, we were able to make the customer gain a new appreciation of the complexity, and could re-negotiate the contract. In another scenario, we saved a huge amount of time in "usability" design, where software features were grouped around business workflows.
Where it failed - and consistently failed - was in teams where everyone did not switch over to UML (or converted under duress). We had cases where developers would rewrite the explicit instructions of UML into plain English, and loose the level of detail in the design.
If you want a real example of the power of UML, have a look at Argo UML. The tool really takes UML one step further, allowing you to see the Java code generated, and do full roundtrip in a single editor.
English is an imprecise language, and is very unsuited for expressing program functionality. It's even worse for documenting requirements. Thats where UML fits in, and in MHO, it does work.
What, you're not on Linux and a rehashed 486? How on Earth did you get on/. ?
Once you've done that, set up freenet and phreak your phone, and you are in totally expense free paradise.
Of course when your local Baby Bell goes belly up from lack of funds, and the last content provider has starved to death in his garret, at least we'll know it was for a good cause... free information.
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Many of Gerry Anderson's TV shows were about the ascendency of the well prepared geek over the muscle bound jock. Joe 90, Captain Scarlett, Thunderbirds, Stingray and Fireball XL5 were hard favorites through most of my childhood. (Doctor Who of course being the other show that celebrated the thinking hero). While geek culture has become much more mainstream, I think that the Gerry Anderson brand of action never found a serious parallel after his shows went off the air. Ryker's (sic) version of Thunderbirds was sad - it was great to see the ships come to life with CGI; but none of the old "feel" of the shows carried over.
Clarification for anyone who may be interested ... ...
In Hindu scripture the supreme god is an embodiment of energy; not a human.
Very interestingly, Vishnu (the preserver of the universe) is supposed to take different forms or Avatars to help keep the universe running (and that's the origin of the term Avatar). The first form was a fish, the second a turtle, the third a lion (more specifically half line / half man). Amazing how that parallels evolution
The rest were humans, but with increasingly subtle differentiations of what is right and what is wrong. Krishna (the Krishna in Hare Krishna) is the 7th or 8th avatar based on who is counting, and is a God for our times if you will.
Just like nearly every other religion, hinduism has "populist" stuff, which the more politically minded (who get to run temples and run their own sects or cults) use to control the population. Thats how most folks in India see the Hare Krishna movement. In India, as education has spread, the hold of these folks has got weaker, and you can see that in the changing norms and standards in India. 10 years ago you could be spat on for wearing a bikini. Today Bollywood heroines can't make it big without at least one swim suite scene in their movies.
Hinduism is about 5,000 to 7,000 years old depending on whose reckoning you follow. If you want to see the future of Christianity and Islam, and to understand how the Church and State use religion to control folks - go study Indian history. You will see parallels everywhere. Institutionalized ignorance to control the populace. The aggregation of wealth into the hands of the a few claiming to control the gates to the Gods and heaven. Extreme factions united by a single extreme belief pushing their agenda over that of the majority. The use of religious fanatism to win wars.
Been there; done that.
I've been in a couple of situations where things went bad very quickly, and a leader had to emerge to get us out of trouble. The leaders were NEVER the smartest people in the room - it was the person we intuitively understood as being able to get us out of a bad situation and make our condition better.
Movies show this all the time. In everything from the Braveheart to every single disaster movie ever made, to the Avengers to Sky Captain - we see the same pattern - the leader is the one who takes charge and listens to the smart people, but takes the tough decisions. And I am sure this is not a human thing. You see it every pack out there. Natural selection of leaders goes all the way back to the cretaceous from the study of foot prints of pack hunting behavior of carnivores (e.g. Raptors in Jurassic Park).
What politicians seem to be doing consistently is make us panic and subvert our lizard brain processes for identifying a leader. I can't remember the last democratic election where we were not seeing this in action. Each time I read or watch V for Vendetta the message gets reinforced.
I have lived in Dubai and Singapore for short stints - and seeing "benevolent dictatorships" at work. I have watched up close the slow motion train wreck that is the European parlement. I cringe as I watch the legal corruption based system in the US. Sometimes democracy does not see to be the cut and dried choice I was taught it was all my life.
UML is the language, not the essay. If you don't know what you want to say, any language will do - but if you do know what you want to say, at least in Software Design - UML gives you a way of describing it precisely.
In my current organisation, we took a couple of "difficult" projects, where the customer's needs weren't clear, and converted them over to UML. The results were amazing. In one case, we were able to make the customer gain a new appreciation of the complexity, and could re-negotiate the contract. In another scenario, we saved a huge amount of time in "usability" design, where software features were grouped around business workflows.
Where it failed - and consistently failed - was in teams where everyone did not switch over to UML (or converted under duress). We had cases where developers would rewrite the explicit instructions of UML into plain English, and loose the level of detail in the design.
If you want a real example of the power of UML, have a look at Argo UML. The tool really takes UML one step further, allowing you to see the Java code generated, and do full roundtrip in a single editor.
English is an imprecise language, and is very unsuited for expressing program functionality. It's even worse for documenting requirements. Thats where UML fits in, and in MHO, it does work.
What, you're not on Linux and a rehashed 486? How on Earth did you get on /. ?
Once you've done that, set up freenet and phreak your phone, and you are in totally expense free paradise.
Of course when your local Baby Bell goes belly up from lack of funds, and the last content provider has starved to death in his garret, at least we'll know it was for a good cause ... free information.