*related=http://videosift.com/video/Common-Prejudices-About-Time-Management via YT acct, Internet Geeks

This video lacks a lot of salient details.

Yes, the F35 is aiming at the A10 because contractors want jobs (something to do).

However, the strength of the A10 is also its weakness. Low and slow also means that it takes you a long time to get to your troops. Fast jets arrive much sooner (significantly so). A combination of both would be ideal. F35 to get there ASAP, and A10 arriving later to take over.

It's not really worth debating the merit of new fighters. You don't wait for a war to start developing weapons.

Yes, our recent enemies are durkas with small arms, and you don't need an F35 to fight them - but you also don't even need to fight them to begin with - they aren't an existential threat. Terrorist attacks are emotionally charged (well, until they happen so often that you get used to hearing about them, and they stop affecting people), but they are nothing compared to say, a carpet bombing campaign.

The relevance of things like the F35 is to have weapons ready and able to face a large national power, should a nation v nation conflict arise with a significant other nation. In the event that such a conflict ever does, you don't want to be caught with your pants down.

Defense spending costs scale with oversight requirements.

Keep in mind that money pays people. Even materials are simply salaries of the material suppliers. The more people you put on a program, the more that program will cost.

Yes, big contractors make big profits - but the major chunk of their charges is still salaries.

Let me explain what is going on.

Remember the $100 hammers?
In fact, the hammer still cost a few bucks. What cost 100+ bucks was the total charges associated with acquiring a hammer.
Everything someone does in association with acquiring the hammer, gets charged to a charge code that's specific for that task.

Someone has to create a material request - $time.
Someone has to check contracts for whether or not it will be covered - $time.
Someone has to place the order - $time.
Someone has to receiver the package, inspect it, and put it into a received bin - $time.
Someone has to go through the received items and assign them property tags - $time.
Someone has to take the item to the department that needed it, and get someone to sign for it - $time.
Someone has to update the monthly contract report - $time.
Someone has to generate an entry in the process artifacts report, detailing the actions taken in order to acquire the hammer - $time.
Someone on the government side has to review the process artifacts report, and validate that proper process was followed (and if not, punish the company for skipping steps) - $time.

Add up all the minutes here and there that each person charged in association with getting a hammer, and it's $95 on top of a $5 hammer. Which is why little things cost so much.

You could say "Hey, why do all that? Just buy the hammer".
Well, if a company did that, it would be in trouble with govt. oversight folks because they violated the process.
If an employee bought a hammer of his own volition, he would be in trouble with his company for violating the process.
The steps are required, and if you don't follow them, and there is ever any problem/issue, your lack of process will be discovered on investigation, and you could face massive liability - even if it's not even relevant - because it points to careless company culture.

Complex systems like jet fighters necessarily have bugs to work out. When you start using the system, that's when you discover all the bits and pieces that nobody anticipated - and you fix them. That's fine. That's always been the case.



As an airplane example, imagine if there's an issue with a regulator that ultimately causes a system failure - but that issue is just some constant value in a piece of software that determines a duty cycle.

Say for example, that all it takes is changing 1 digit, and recompiling. Ez, right? NOPE!

An engineer can't simply provide a fix.

If something went wrong, even unrelated, but simply in the same general system, he could be personally liable for anything that happens.

On top of that, if there is no contract for work on that system, then an engineer providing a free fix is robbing the company of work, and he could get fired.

A company can't instruct an engineer to provide a fix for the same reasons that the engineer himself can't just do it.

So, the process kicks in.

Someone has to generate a trouble report - $time.
Someone has to identify a possible solution - $time.
Someone has to check contracts to see if work on that fix would be covered under current tasking - $time.
Say it's not covered (it's a previously closed [i.e. delivered] item), so you need a new charge code.
Someone has to write a proposal to fix the defect - $time.
Someone has to go deal with the government to get them to accept the proposal - $time.
(say it's accepted)
Someone has to write new contracts with the government for the new work - $time.
To know what to put into the contract, "requrements engineers" have to talk with the "software engineers" to get a list of action items, and incorporate them into the contract - $time.
(say the contract is accepted)
Finance in conjuration with Requirements engineers has to generate a list of charge codes for each action item - $time.
CM engineers have to update the CM system - $time.
Some manager has to coordinate this mess, and let folks know when to do what - $time.
Software engineer goes to work, changes 1 number, recompiles - $time.
Software engineer checks in new load into CM - $time.
CM engineer updates CM history report - $time.
Software engineer delivers new load to testing manger - $time.
Test manager gets crew of 30 test engineers to run the new load through testing in a SIL (systems integration lab) - $time.
Test engineers write report on results - $time.
If results are fine, Test manager has 30 test engineers run a test on real hardware - $time.
Test engineers write new report - $time.
(assuming all went well)
CM engineer gets resting results and pushes the task to deliverable - $time.
Management has a report written up to hand to the governemnt, covering all work done, and each action taken - documenting that proper process was followed - $time.
Folks writing document know nothing technical, so they get engineers to write sections covering actual work done, and mostly collate what other people send to them - $time.
Engineers write most the report - $time.
Company has new load delivered to government (sending a disk), along with the report/papers/documentation - $time.
Government reviews the report, but because the govt. employees are not technical and don't understand any of the technical data, they simply take the company's word for the results, and simply grade the company on how closely they followed process (the only thing they do understand) - $time.
Company sends engineer to government location to load the new software and help government side testing - $time.
Government runs independent acceptance tests on delivered load - $time.
(Say all goes well)
Government talks with company contracts people, and contract is brought to a close - $time.
CM / Requirements engineers close out the action item - $time.

And this is how a 1 line code change takes 6 months and 5 million dollars.

And this gets repeated for _everything_.

Then imagine if it is a hardware issue, and the only real fix is a change of hardware. For an airplane, just getting permission to plug anything that needs electricity into the airplanes power supply takes months of paper work and lab testing artifacts for approval. Try getting your testing done in that kind of environment.



Basically, the F35 could actually be fixed quickly and cheaply - but the system that is in place right now does not allow for it. And if you tried to circumvent that system, you would be in trouble. The system is required. It's how oversight works - to make sure everything is by the book, documented, reviewed, and approved - so no money gets wasted on any funny business.

Best part, if the government thinks that the program is costing too much, they put more oversight on it to watch for more waste.
Because apparently, when you pay more people to stare at something, the waste just runs away in fear.
Someone at the contractors has to write the reports that these oversight people are supposed to be reviewing - so when you go to a contractor and see a cube farm with 90 paper pushers and 10 'actual' engineers (not a joke), you start to wonder how anything gets done.

Once upon a time, during the cold war, we had an existential threat.
People took things seriously. There was no F'ing around with paperwork - people had to deliver hardware. The typical time elapsed from "idea" to "aircraft first flight" used to be 2 years. USSR went away, cold war ended, new hardware deliveries fell to a trickle - but the spending remained, and the money billed to an inflated process.

-scheherazade

@blankfist

Research that purporting that teaching is a difficult job based on 6 criteria. I suggest the whole document but here's the jest of it.
______________________________________________
---------->Societal Attitude:
The participants in this study believed that the attitude of society toward the teaching profession was unfair and detrimental to their overall functioning. They did not believe that they were valued, despite their advanced levels of education. In a recent nationwide survey of over 11,000 teachers and teacher candidates, Henke, Chen, Geis, and Knepper (2000) found that only 14.6% of the teachers surveyed were satisfied with the esteem in which society held the teaching profession.

--->Denise, a high school English teacher addressed the issue of respect:

"There is a lack of respect for teachers. It's not just the money, but also the attitude I get from administrators and politicians that teachers are trying to get away with something. We have taken these cushy jobs where all we have to do is stand up in front of a bunch of kids and BS for a few hours, and only work ten months of the year, at that teachers have it easy! Every time we ask for something (like, in my county, that the county pay our contribution to the state retirement system, for example), they make us out to look like whiners - give 'em an inch; they'll take a mile. The truth is, though, that teachers care so deeply and work SO much beyond our "contract hours." I can't tell you how many come in for weeks during the summer, as I do, and take on clubs after school (for which we are not compensated), and work during vacations. This lack of respect for teachers gets me down."
______________________________________________
---------->Financial Issues:
On top of the perception that they are not being valued by society, teachers are notoriously underpaid in our country. Four years after their graduation, Henke et al. (2000) surveyed a large sample of college graduates between 1992-1993. They found that the teachers were tied with clerical staff and service workers for the lowest salaries. A recent report from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT, 2000) found the following to be the case for the 2000-2001 school year:

For new teachers, the $28,986 average beginning salary lagged far behind starting salary offers in other fields for new college graduates. For example, accounting graduates were offered an average $37,143; sales/marketing, $40,033; math/statistics, $49,548; computer science, $49,749; and engineering, $50,033.
The $43,250 average teacher salary fell short of average wages of other white-collar occupations, the report found. For example, mid-level accountants earned an average $52,664, computer system analysts, $71,155; engineers, $74,920; and attorneys, $82,712.
The majority of the participants in this study related that they were simply not paid enough to live comfortably. They drove old cars and lived in inexpensive apartments. Others struggled to save enough money to buy a home.

--->Calvin, a high school science teacher, talked about his pay:

"I love teaching, but I don't know if I love it enough to deprive my family and myself of necessities. I have a baby and another on the way. I can't see how I can ever save enough to make a down payment on a house, even with a second job in the summer."
______________________________________________
---------->Time Scarcity:
Many new teachers were physically and emotionally fatigued to the point of exhaustion. They reported that they worked long days at school, and then took home lesson plans to create, papers to grade, and parents to call. They also worked nights and weekends on school-related work.

--->Jessica, a high school math teacher:

"I work 70 hours a week, and after 3 years it's not getting any better. When Friday night rolls around, all I want to do is fall asleep at 8 p.m.! Obviously that doesn't lead to a very exciting social life, or much of a "life" at all, if I can hardly stay awake long enough to go out to dinner with my friends and family. Even at holidays there are always papers to grade."

--->Fred, a high school English teacher also had difficulty with the amount of time required to do his job, pointing to the effect the time constraints had on family relationships:

The time commitment is the worst. During my first two years of teaching I worked 70-80 hour weeks, including time worked during the school day, in the evenings and over the weekend. Time commitment varies with the subject taught and with experience, but this aspect of the job nearly ran me out of teaching on several occasions and I witnessed one great new teacher leave teaching for this very reason. "It's my job or my marriage," she explained. "I never see my husband, and we're living under the same roof."

______________________________________________
---------->Workload:
The data reveal that it is nearly impossible for a conscientious teacher to complete all that is expected of them in one school day. At the high school level, teachers were teaching five or more classes in a traditional school, and three in a block schedule school. For each class this meant that the teacher's task was to design a complete lesson lasting at least one hour. This lesson had to follow the state curriculum, be engaging and interesting to students, and include various components as required by the school district, such as a warm-up, class activities, and homework. The teachers wanted to use outside resources such as the Internet to connect the material to real world applications. Additionally, they reported that there were often several special needs students in the class, and each of them needed some special accommodation. They found that planning was not a trivial task; it took several hours to design one effective instructional plan.

According to the teachers in this study, class sizes were another difficult feature of the teacher's day. In public high schools, most class sizes ranged from 25 to 35 students for a total of 125-175 students in a traditional school, and 75-105 in a four period block school. Henke et al. (2000) reported that the average number of students taught by secondary teachers each day is 115.8.

--->Abby, a high school history teacher explained the effect of large class sizes:

"Imagine any other professional trying to deal with the needs of this many "customers" at one time. If a physician were seeing patients, and grouped this many together, it is readily apparent how ridiculous it would be to expect her or him to address the needs of each person. The same is true for teachers.
Each student is an individual, with needs and issues that must be addressed. In a class period, the teachers expressed frustration because they could not address the needs of 25 or more students. "

--->Gina, a former high school science teacher described the variety in her workload as well as in her students' abilities:

"What I least expected was the amount of paperwork I had to do. Grading papers, progress reports, parent conferences, English-as-a-Second Language, exceptional students, ADD paperwork, and even work for absent students seem to take more time than "teaching."

To compound the issue, teachers also related many learning issues, where students had questions or misunderstandings that could easily have been cleared up with a few minutes of one-on-one time. They also reported discipline issues that got more serious when they were not addressed. Some students were bored. Some lacked basic skills and could not perform without help. In general, the teachers expressed being frustrated because they are educated professionals who could address these issues, if there were time to get to everyone. There was simply not enough time to address the variety of issues that simultaneously too place. Farkas et al. (2000) reported that 86% of new teachers report that the change most likely to improve teaching is reducing class size.

--->Eva, a high school English teacher summed up her frustration with large class sizes.

"This was not a matter of poor time management; it was a matter of too many students with too many needs and one harried teacher trying to be superhuman. There were times that I had a great lesson plan, only to have it totally derailed because of one or two students who needed individual attention and could not get it."

The total number of students that this professional was expected to evaluate, plan, and care for each day was as many as 150.
______________________________________________
---------->Working Conditions:
School administrators varied in their support of young teachers, and many teachers reported that this support was inadequate. The new teachers felt that they were evaluated and judged, but they would have preferred real feedback and suggestions for improvement of their teaching. They felt that they were often not supported in discipline issues or in conflicts with parents.

--->Carol, a former high school math teacher:

"I was very frustrated with the lack of support from my principal/administration in that after three observations I never got any feedback either in written or verbal form. I never really knew how I was doing. I felt I was doing a good job, but did not think the administration cared one way or the other."

--->Fran, a high school mathematics teacher expressed a need for more funds:

"Teachers should be given all the supplies that they need - $25 is not enough! At all other jobs that I have worked at, whatever you need to do your job is provided."
______________________________________________
---------->Relationships with Students and Parents:
A common problem reported by beginning teachers was student apathy. Many of the novice teachers reported that students had no interest in learning. In addition to attendance problems, a number of students often came to class without pencil, paper, and textbook. It was difficult to force or entice them to participate in classwork, and virtually impossible to get them to do homework.

--->Owen, a former high school mathematics teacher, was frustrated by his students' apathy:

"The vast majority of my students had no interest in learning math and I quickly tired of trying to force them (or entice them). They refused to bring paper or pencil to class, refused to do homework or classwork, and frequently came to class late or not at all. Most of them, to my great surprise, were not at all belligerent or confrontational about their refusal to do anything in class; they just had no intention of working at anything."

--->Mattie, a former high school history teacher, could not deal with the frustration:

"I just became very frustrated teaching to a class of 20 students and about 5 were interested or at least concerned with their grades. I decided not to return, because I was so exhausted and depressed at the end of the year. I just couldn't see "wasting" my time in a classroom where the kids don't care about themselves or what you're trying to accomplish."

--->Eugene, a former high school math teacher, also reported problems with apathy:

"I was frustrated with the apathy of the students. Many days I felt as though I was standing up there talking to myself. It was the longest year of my life. I was an emotional wreck because I felt as if the kids/parents didn't care enough to try or participate."

Hey, I understand. Trying to defend the bible is a bit like being a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, I have the high ground so to speak. But there's no need to be uncivil, I had a perfectly reasonable request which led you to tuck your tail between your legs and sound the retreat. I know it seems that logic and rational argument are unfair weapons in debates on theology because you have no ammunition of your own. Come back when you are ready to discuss things rather than pointing to something someone else made that doesn't even support your side.

>> ^Toshley:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Tell me the timecode where he provides the brilliant argument that makes your point then. I don't have time to waste on stupid Christian videos that seem to be only tangentially related to the argument at hand and don't even appear to support your side.
>> ^Toshley:
>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Umm, he says repeatedly in the video that morality is subjective. I got as far as the point where he said he wasn't going to talk about using the bible as on objective standard. The rest just seems to be excusing all the wicked behaviour in the Old Testament on a variety of thin pretexts. I'm not going to waste my time with the whole thing. He certainly seems to be backing my side of this argument.
See this page for moral problems in the New Testament. Obviously even the new/old testament argument doesn't really hold much water. Humans make their own morality, 2,000 year old books are out of date and any idiot who thinks a modern person can safely determine moral issues using no human judgement, only the Bible as a source is utterly hopeless.
>> ^Toshley:
At this point, I am going to go ahead and assume you're a troll.
If you're honestly confused, I suggest you watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PrZeqhsdqE


There's no point in continuing this conversation.
I am looking for intellectual and rational discussion here. You've admitted that you didn't watch the entire video and then expect me to follow some link you provided?
Feel free to continue calling me an idiot, I personally don't care.


You don't have time to waste on a stupid Christian video but yet you had time to watch this one, comment on it, and defend your lack of belief militantly.
Congratulations on time management.
Please stop replying to my messages unless you want to talk in a civil manner. The video was directly related to the discussion at hand, you would have known that if you had watched the entire video.
Of course it "Do not even appear" to support my side because the video touches on multiple subjects.
Troll somewhere else. I am done.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Tell me the timecode where he provides the brilliant argument that makes your point then. I don't have time to waste on stupid Christian videos that seem to be only tangentially related to the argument at hand and don't even appear to support your side.
>> ^Toshley:
>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Umm, he says repeatedly in the video that morality is subjective. I got as far as the point where he said he wasn't going to talk about using the bible as on objective standard. The rest just seems to be excusing all the wicked behaviour in the Old Testament on a variety of thin pretexts. I'm not going to waste my time with the whole thing. He certainly seems to be backing my side of this argument.
See this page for moral problems in the New Testament. Obviously even the new/old testament argument doesn't really hold much water. Humans make their own morality, 2,000 year old books are out of date and any idiot who thinks a modern person can safely determine moral issues using no human judgement, only the Bible as a source is utterly hopeless.
>> ^Toshley:
At this point, I am going to go ahead and assume you're a troll.
If you're honestly confused, I suggest you watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PrZeqhsdqE


There's no point in continuing this conversation.
I am looking for intellectual and rational discussion here. You've admitted that you didn't watch the entire video and then expect me to follow some link you provided?
Feel free to continue calling me an idiot, I personally don't care.



You don't have time to waste on a stupid Christian video but yet you had time to watch this one, comment on it, and defend your lack of belief militantly.

Congratulations on time management.

Please stop replying to my messages unless you want to talk in a civil manner. The video was directly related to the discussion at hand, you would have known that if you had watched the entire video.

Of course it "Do not even appear" to support my side because the video touches on multiple subjects.

Troll somewhere else. I am done.

>> ^dannym3141:

I think i was trying to do a sendup of an armchair critic attacking something she/he didn't really understand properly. I don't REALLY care about how you spell (why should i when you don't?). I think it's a good analogy for this guy's game. You put in as much effort as you're willing to in the time you've got. You sacrifice your spelling in order to get a point across in a short amount of time - just as this guy has to sacrifice certain gameplay elements to complete his vision in 48 hours. It's as much to do with sacrifice/time management as it is to do with "how the game plays".
You know that even a game as cosmetically simple as Braid doesn't get whipped up in 2 days by one person. It boggles my mind to think how he managed to do what he did in such a short spell of time. I dare say the game could have been improved with some 3d elements, correct lighting and shading, JRPG style zero-g hair waving and other such modern miracles, but it'd take a team of 100 people half a year to do something on that scale.
20 of that team would be an art department, another 20 motion capture, another 20 probably texture/modelling designers, and the remaining 40 would be programmers to bring it all together. And they'd all be working more or less at the same time - think of the man hours! If anyone even has the skill set to DO a final fantasy game on their own, it'd probably take them a decade or two.
I would love to see some better games done from the ground up in 24 hour periods. However that wouldn't make what this guy made any less of an achievement. I think people are taking issue with just that - it's not whether you think the game is worth playing in the modern game market, it's whether you think it was an impressive feat or not!
That's about the skinny for you, hope i've cleared it up.
thanks for that , but my piont is 100% valid and you obvously understood what i wrote so evan though the spelling was shit and the punctuatoin bad it still performed its function.
I can do manny things in 48 hours , if im going to publish it on the internet im going to take the good and the bad criticisum.
Is the rule that is has to take 48 hours of work before you allow bad criticism to go unnoticed, or was that just an accident? Feel free to criticise my comprehension of your comments without consequence - it nearly took me 48 hours.


I am a games developer , i know how long and how much time it takes to make games. when saying the art and charactor movment is bad that is within the context of spending 48 hours on a game.

having a nice art asthetic + solid charactor movment are not things that necaccerly would be impacted by a 48 hour development time.

you can work with the time frame you have and do art around that , for example if this guy had gone for realy realy LOfi graphics i think it would have been less work and looked far better.

as for player movment in flash there are plenty of scripts and methadoligies for knocking out Mario typ charactor movment within 30min.

allso i was very clear thst "the mechanic of shooting the tiny dudes is good though" and thats realy the core aspect of the game , my piont was that its a shame that the art and basic charactor movment were a total detrement to something that could have been alllot better with minimal effort and some slight changes.

I think i was trying to do a sendup of an armchair critic attacking something she/he didn't really understand properly. I don't REALLY care about how you spell (why should i when you don't?). I think it's a good analogy for this guy's game. You put in as much effort as you're willing to in the time you've got. You sacrifice your spelling in order to get a point across in a short amount of time - just as this guy has to sacrifice certain gameplay elements to complete his vision in 48 hours. It's as much to do with sacrifice/time management as it is to do with "how the game plays".

You know that even a game as cosmetically simple as Braid doesn't get whipped up in 2 days by one person. It boggles my mind to think how he managed to do what he did in such a short spell of time. I dare say the game could have been improved with some 3d elements, correct lighting and shading, JRPG style zero-g hair waving and other such modern miracles, but it'd take a team of 100 people half a year to do something on that scale.

20 of that team would be an art department, another 20 motion capture, another 20 probably texture/modelling designers, and the remaining 40 would be programmers to bring it all together. And they'd all be working more or less at the same time - think of the man hours! If anyone even has the skill set to DO a final fantasy game on their own, it'd probably take them a decade or two.

I would love to see some better games done from the ground up in 24 hour periods. However that wouldn't make what this guy made any less of an achievement. I think people are taking issue with just that - it's not whether you think the game is worth playing in the modern game market, it's whether you think it was an impressive feat or not!

That's about the skinny for you, hope i've cleared it up.

thanks for that , but my piont is 100% valid and you obvously understood what i wrote so evan though the spelling was shit and the punctuatoin bad it still performed its function.

I can do manny things in 48 hours , if im going to publish it on the internet im going to take the good and the bad criticisum.

Is the rule that is has to take 48 hours of work before you allow bad criticism to go unnoticed, or was that just an accident? Feel free to criticise my comprehension of your comments without consequence - it nearly took me 48 hours.

Congratulations Rasch! Through your fearless dedication to all things siftworthy you really earned it. Now share your secret of time management, as in where do you find it all? Great job!

These two may have time management down to a T in their own lives, but most of what they talk about reeks of pop psychology. When you get to select your sample population you can write your 'big idea' book about almost anything.

Upvote because it's a good reminder that everyone should reassess the time they devote to their career regularly.

Hey e'rybody, stop applauding my comments! Seriously! I'm having a hard time managing all these stars! :-P

this is a surprisingly accurate depiction of what working in a cleanroom is actually like yet somehow at the same time manages to make it look about a billion times cooler than it actually is....