My profession is in programming. Initially, my dad tried to teach me Javascript. It was a struggle and couldn’t get it.

A few years later, I took up computer science in college and that’s where it all clicked: I can imagine the end result. It’s a matter of being curious and finding (or I daresay… hacking) my way to that conclusion. Programming languages have a very funny way of allowing you to do just that. In studying computer science, I discovered the art of engineering all kinds of software-based solutions.

Because my way of solving problems is more deductive than inductive, I have to consciously build foundational knowledge and routines. Constant learning and insatiable curiosity is required for me to identify when my hunches are wrong and discard them accordingly.

  • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
    7·
    6 days ago

    LOL I mean I can probably say the same thing and I gotta tell you. It’s amazing the people out there that want to:

    1. Control the narrative of the data
    2. Suppress the data

    I’ll use just a simple example of tracking incidents in your organization. It’s so polarizing like people how do you expect to improve if you can’t acknowledge your faults?

    Extrapolate that to the current political climate.

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
      2·
      6 days ago

      It’s so polarizing like people how do you expect to improve if you can’t acknowledge your faults?

      The scale of this problem is mind-boggling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

      spoiler for those who don't want to skim an article on a US military war game

      Long story short, the US Armed Forces performed a practice war simulation, “costing US$250 million (equivalent to about $423M in 2023), the most expensive war game in US military history”. The two teams were “Blue” (totally-not the US) and the “Red” team (totally-not Iran or Iraq). The retired Lieutenant General of the Red team made the reasonable choice to adopt old-school low-tech tactics to avoid the Blue team’s sophisticated electronic surveillance network, as well as other asymmetric tactics like those used by real armies who have defended against US invasions. Red team won in one day. There were apparently a range of technical problems in the simulation which made it harder for Blue, so they re-tried with conditions to make use of the remaining thirteen days. However:

      After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and during a combined parachute assault by the 82nd Airborne Division and Marines air assaulting on the then new and still controversial CV-22, Van Riper’s forces were ordered not to shoot down any of the approaching aircraft. Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed. The postmortem JFCOM report on MC02 would say “As the exercise progressed, the [Opposing Force] free-play was eventually constrained to the point where the end state was scripted. This scripting ensured a blue team operational victory and established conditions in the exercise for transition operations.” :::