The training methods the military uses are brutalization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and role modeling. Let us explain these and then observe how the media does the same thing to our children, but without the safeguards.
Brutalization, or âoevalues inculcation,â is what happens at boot camp. Your head is shaved, you are herded together naked, and dressed alike, losing all vestiges of individuality. You are trained relentlessly in a total immersion environment. In the end you embrace violence and discipline and accept it as a normal and essential survival skill in your brutal new world.
Um, I went through US Army boot camp in '99, and this statement no longer applies (it may have during Vietnam), at least in my experience. Flutter kicks (a common exercise) and long marches were the most brutal thing inflicted upon us. I spent half the time in a classroom, where morality and law were emphasized. Drill sergeants were not permitted to inflict violence upon us. My own actually crossed the line and hit me, and was demoted and removed from the training role.
The Army may have screwed things up during Vietnam, but they've gone a long way towards fixing it.
Sales Tax is a great big clusterfuck. I've been working in the niche-industry of "sales tax calculation software". A few things to keep in mind:
Address-relevancy varies by jurisdiction (tax law). Ship From, Ship To, Placement Location, Approval Location, where ownership transition occurs, type of customer, tax exemptions, etc all play into it.
State, County, City, Local, and "special" tax districts exist in the US, and each can have potentially different rules
Different goods and services can have differing tax laws, even within the same transaction.
Tax isn't always a set percent, some laws include tiered tax, tax on tax, etc
That's just the tip of the issue. A brick and mortar store that sells product type X at location Y and doesn't deliver has a rather easy job of calculating sales tax. But even tracking all the tax rules within a single state can be daunting. This company has a team of 25+ people who do nothing but monitor tax law changes and research current issues with the company's understanding of tax, all to keep Sales and Use tax software capable of following the laws.
The electric company is burning fuel to generate that electricity. The water company is pumping a finite though renewing supply of water to you.
The ISPs aren't mining a finite supply of bits from the great bit mines of the Rockies.
Being a utility has more to do with providing infrastructure than it does with how things are priced.
Does flag footbool provide a watered-down gaming experience? (See NFL)
Do softball or kickball provide a watered-down gaming experience? (See MLB)
Does "horse" provide a watered-down basketball experience? (See NBA)
I guess my optimistic side would have expected the "architect" to know better. You'd think that by the point a person has managed to gain that title, they'd have enough overall experience that they don't just grab random idea A off of random page B and spend two weeks trying it without actually validating the idea. You've described an entire team that was doomed regardless of their knowledge of any one concept. Sounds like a group of people that went in for the money, not because they actually care to learn about what they do.
...a sleepy snail on sandpaper. With Slow cast on it
You hit the real problem right there. The people who do that crap decide that their theoretical clever trick is better than the design on the system they're working within. Even if such "clever" ideas were actually an optimization at some time, they're bad design, and they conflict with future improvements to the underlying platform.
It's really just arrogance. Few of the people who do such things (such as in the parent post or the Wallys) really have the background knowledge to know whether it's a good idea. They just assume they're better than whoever built the platform they're on.
To go back to the original point, knowing data structures is great, but the problem is often the people who "don't know what they don't know" and don't acknowledge the fact.
Projects are late (or they fail) because the people who are supposed to be in charge of delivering them have no fucking clue as to how software is developed. Fix that problem, and you'll ship all the software you want on time and under budget.
I'd say the problem is often simpler than that. It's not so much that they don't know how to develop software, it's that they don't even know they're actually doing it, right or wrong. Many seem to just estimate (translation: guess) based on how they "feel" things are going.
At the least, a programmer who is both good and honest is going to scrape together some hard data and code to generate his "guesses".
To me it seems there is a correlation between human population and technological advancement rate. The more people there are, the more man hours are put into such things, the more frequent the results.
Therefore, wouldn't the point at which advancement becomes infinite be the same point at which the population becomes infinite?
Oversimplified I'm sure.
You say this as though they should have the right to live off of growing corn even if no one will buy it at the price point at which they wish to sell. We're supposed to be living in a free market economy. If the government would stop meddling in the prices of various goods, people like your farmer neighbors could actually choose crops and farming methods based on their actual value.
I come from families that, two generations back, were farming families. Some distant cousins still are. But one side decided to become accountants, and the other are largely in civil service of various kinds (Police, fire, nurse, city manager, etc). Guess the money was better in those fields. Frankly, I'd rather live like a king and buy my food from the poor saps who lives like peasants in Brazil. Maybe if some money drifts their way, they'd decide as a population that they want to live better and stop undercutting farmers here.
The solution isn't to subsidize farming here, it's to improve life for the competition so they charge more.
Given how often I can have a problem at work, go home, sleep, wake up in the morning and know the solution, I don't consider being unconscious a waste of time. A solid 7-8 hours of sleep is very productive time for me, I have all kinds of interesting ideas for perusal by my consciousness when I wake up.
Sounds like you just aren't using your sleep time to its fullest.
You forgot the "circa 2005" on your post.
Interestingly, most of what you said is correct, just terribly out of date. Memory address for both holding data and firing off code have long been discovered, the client is effectively completely mapped out.
The server isn't stupid, sending "false" data back to it is more likely to disconnect you and potentially get you banned. At best, the server just ignores/rejects it.
Warden has been hacked, they even have fun with multiple different flavors of Warden going to different clients. The good hacks detect the version and, if they can't identify it, refuse to run. Hacks have been hiding behind root-kits and similar techniques for a good long time now.
The really fun toys will actually forward tells you get to an IM system or text your cell phone, and even feed responses back into the game. Remote-controlling a bot from work through IMs while chatting with people in the game is fun.
My point is, the arms race has been going on for a good long time now.
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The training methods the military uses are brutalization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and role modeling. Let us explain these and then observe how the media does the same thing to our children, but without the safeguards.
Brutalization, or âoevalues inculcation,â is what happens at boot camp. Your head is shaved, you are herded together naked, and dressed alike, losing all vestiges of individuality. You are trained relentlessly in a total immersion environment. In the end you embrace violence and discipline and accept it as a normal and essential survival skill in your brutal new world.
Um, I went through US Army boot camp in '99, and this statement no longer applies (it may have during Vietnam), at least in my experience. Flutter kicks (a common exercise) and long marches were the most brutal thing inflicted upon us. I spent half the time in a classroom, where morality and law were emphasized. Drill sergeants were not permitted to inflict violence upon us. My own actually crossed the line and hit me, and was demoted and removed from the training role.
The Army may have screwed things up during Vietnam, but they've gone a long way towards fixing it.
Sales Tax is a great big clusterfuck. I've been working in the niche-industry of "sales tax calculation software". A few things to keep in mind:
Address-relevancy varies by jurisdiction (tax law). Ship From, Ship To, Placement Location, Approval Location, where ownership transition occurs, type of customer, tax exemptions, etc all play into it.
State, County, City, Local, and "special" tax districts exist in the US, and each can have potentially different rules
Different goods and services can have differing tax laws, even within the same transaction.
Tax isn't always a set percent, some laws include tiered tax, tax on tax, etc
That's just the tip of the issue. A brick and mortar store that sells product type X at location Y and doesn't deliver has a rather easy job of calculating sales tax. But even tracking all the tax rules within a single state can be daunting. This company has a team of 25+ people who do nothing but monitor tax law changes and research current issues with the company's understanding of tax, all to keep Sales and Use tax software capable of following the laws.
The electric company is burning fuel to generate that electricity. The water company is pumping a finite though renewing supply of water to you.
The ISPs aren't mining a finite supply of bits from the great bit mines of the Rockies.
Being a utility has more to do with providing infrastructure than it does with how things are priced.
Does flag footbool provide a watered-down gaming experience? (See NFL)
Do softball or kickball provide a watered-down gaming experience? (See MLB)
Does "horse" provide a watered-down basketball experience? (See NBA)
That's so depressing, heh.
I guess my optimistic side would have expected the "architect" to know better. You'd think that by the point a person has managed to gain that title, they'd have enough overall experience that they don't just grab random idea A off of random page B and spend two weeks trying it without actually validating the idea. You've described an entire team that was doomed regardless of their knowledge of any one concept. Sounds like a group of people that went in for the money, not because they actually care to learn about what they do.
...a sleepy snail on sandpaper. With Slow cast on it
Mad giggles
... is some clever optimization
You hit the real problem right there. The people who do that crap decide that their theoretical clever trick is better than the design on the system they're working within. Even if such "clever" ideas were actually an optimization at some time, they're bad design, and they conflict with future improvements to the underlying platform.
It's really just arrogance. Few of the people who do such things (such as in the parent post or the Wallys) really have the background knowledge to know whether it's a good idea. They just assume they're better than whoever built the platform they're on.
To go back to the original point, knowing data structures is great, but the problem is often the people who "don't know what they don't know" and don't acknowledge the fact.
I'd say the problem is often simpler than that. It's not so much that they don't know how to develop software, it's that they don't even know they're actually doing it, right or wrong. Many seem to just estimate (translation: guess) based on how they "feel" things are going.
At the least, a programmer who is both good and honest is going to scrape together some hard data and code to generate his "guesses".
To me it seems there is a correlation between human population and technological advancement rate. The more people there are, the more man hours are put into such things, the more frequent the results. Therefore, wouldn't the point at which advancement becomes infinite be the same point at which the population becomes infinite? Oversimplified I'm sure.
You say this as though they should have the right to live off of growing corn even if no one will buy it at the price point at which they wish to sell. We're supposed to be living in a free market economy. If the government would stop meddling in the prices of various goods, people like your farmer neighbors could actually choose crops and farming methods based on their actual value.
I come from families that, two generations back, were farming families. Some distant cousins still are. But one side decided to become accountants, and the other are largely in civil service of various kinds (Police, fire, nurse, city manager, etc). Guess the money was better in those fields. Frankly, I'd rather live like a king and buy my food from the poor saps who lives like peasants in Brazil. Maybe if some money drifts their way, they'd decide as a population that they want to live better and stop undercutting farmers here.
The solution isn't to subsidize farming here, it's to improve life for the competition so they charge more.
Given how often I can have a problem at work, go home, sleep, wake up in the morning and know the solution, I don't consider being unconscious a waste of time. A solid 7-8 hours of sleep is very productive time for me, I have all kinds of interesting ideas for perusal by my consciousness when I wake up.
Sounds like you just aren't using your sleep time to its fullest.
You forgot the "circa 2005" on your post. Interestingly, most of what you said is correct, just terribly out of date. Memory address for both holding data and firing off code have long been discovered, the client is effectively completely mapped out. The server isn't stupid, sending "false" data back to it is more likely to disconnect you and potentially get you banned. At best, the server just ignores/rejects it. Warden has been hacked, they even have fun with multiple different flavors of Warden going to different clients. The good hacks detect the version and, if they can't identify it, refuse to run. Hacks have been hiding behind root-kits and similar techniques for a good long time now. The really fun toys will actually forward tells you get to an IM system or text your cell phone, and even feed responses back into the game. Remote-controlling a bot from work through IMs while chatting with people in the game is fun. My point is, the arms race has been going on for a good long time now.