|
[^] published under the CPOPL (CodeProject Open Poetic License) terms and conditions. Copyright © CodeProject
A cave in Morocco: while the climate is still temperate, the nascent ice-age is gathering strength in the north, and cold winds sometimes sweep down, reaching inland from the rim of what is now the Mediterranean.
How to keep warm ? Our intrepid team has a night-time meeting to discuss the opportunity, assess the cost/benefits ...
~ dramatis personae
Head of Marketing (HOM)
CEO
CFO
inventor pitching his technology (ELON)
~
HOM: the last quarter's results for shell-beads and ochre for body decoration are ... flat.
CEO: we're never going to grow ... like this !
CFO: well, i've got a guy here with an idea I think we should evaluate
CEO: bring him in ...
[Elon enters the chamber: sounds of gasping for breath]
HOM: what the saber-toothed-tiger is that covering his man-parts ?
[the CEO lights another torch]
CEO: is this a joke ? you bring in someone who's not the way the gods made him ?
ELON: this ... thing ... covering me ... is the skin of what you call a bear.
HOM: wow ! that's a big relief ! [laughter]
ELON: i see a room of cold people: look at yourselves; you're all shivering ! i, on the other hand, am not shivering ... his [points to HOM] teeth are chattering.
CFO: he's got a point ... and ... this surprises me ... his bear thing doesn't ... stink !
HOM: can we trust a man whose man-parts we can't smell ? ...
CFO: that's an old-wives' tale ...
CEO: we don't have a lot of bears ... scaling production up ... how'd that work ?
HOM: how long did it take to make that ... thing ?
ELON: 5 days to remove the skin; a lunar cycle to process it, cut it to shape ...
HOM: ... and he's not going to tell us how he processed it !
ELON: ... right ... but, what if i told you a group of ten people using my methods could make a hundred of these per lunar cycle ?
CEO: where do the bears come from ? those are rare, here !
ELON: you got a lot of jackals, and panthers, rabbits, and other animals, you could use; and, using my methods ... you can make bigger pieces out of small pieces ...
CEO: ... this guy really does think outside the box !
HOM ... intriguing ... go on ...
ELON: you take ten of your best hunters: they bring back the animals to the cave; the processing team does nothing but make the things-go-on-the-body ...
HOM: that could be a big start-up cost !
ELON: ... wait ... here's the thing ... once production gets going, and demand increases, you have the general population paying for the finished goods with furry animals they killed. so ... you can lay-off the hunters. ... maybe start a school-program to teach the younger generation how to be better hunters ...
CEO: the hunter's guild is not going to like that ! ... and, those guys are dangerous !
ELON: so, you make them the professors at the schools, and give them extra wives, and first-pick-of-communal-hunting kills ...
HOM: not bad ! but, we are dancing around the issue of "demand" ... what about not being cold makes somebody want to give up something valuable to get it ?
CEO: doesn't our experience with promoting shell-beads give us some ideas ?
HOM: yeah ... the magic protection angle ... you gotta have one because your neighbor is safer than you are ... the Great Mother will give his wife more babies ...
CFO: we can hire shamans to promote that ... just like we did with ochre face-paint ...
CEO: well, all this is intoxicating, but, we still have nothing but one non-stinky bear-skin over one stranger's man-parts, and a good sales pitch to go on ...
ELON: [takes off a bag hanging across his shoulder, opens it, starts handing out some objects] i'm passing around some of the things i've made that will enable the productivity i mentioned; please be careful not to cut yourself handling them ...
HOM: look at the edge on this ! how did you get it that sharp ?
ELON: with these tools, i guarantee a hundred big cover-things each lunar cycle, given animal supply, and 10 people who are capable of sun-up-to-sun-down work.
CEO: and we get these tools ... ? how ?
ELON: ... from me, and i retain exclusive rights to make these tools, under the NDA's we'll sign in blood. payment per tool, or for refurbishing tools, with the usual ... wives, slaves, rocks that glitter, food, etc.
CEO: another elephant in the cave here is the fact that people think ... as the old saying goes: "nakedness is next to godliness," and ... huddling together at night with your whole family to keep warm ... is ... well, part of what being family ... is.
HOM: we could work on that: "the family with cover-things sleeps better;" or, even: "nakedness is passé."
ELON: the shamans in the north, beyond the sea, i have been in contact with all say: "winter is coming."
CFO: what about ... a pilot program ? you get five workers, and enough animals to make say 50 cover-things every lunar cycle ?
ELON: look ... i understand your motivation for wanting to start small ... but ... my methods require ten specialized operations using various combinations of my tools: the way to make that work is for each worker to be so trained on one skill they do it fast as a rabbit running from an eagle's shadow ...
HOM: what if we send this year's crop of beauty pageant finalists to make their annual tour wearing these ... things ... every woman is going to demand their spouse prove their manhood by buying them one of these ... and, think of the product niches ... at the uber high-end you get bear; high mid-range leopard ... and so forth !
CFO: well ... that's marketing !
CEO: that's a good place to stop. ELON, thank you for an excellent presentation, which we'll discuss after we sacrifice a slave to the gods, and have the shaman read the entrails. meanwhile, i'll ask HOM to extend his famous hospitality to you for the next few days, including your choice of his wives, and our famous vision-inducing tea.
ELON: i appreciate your hearing me out, and may the Great Mother protect us all.
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
modified 18-Sep-21 10:37am.
|
|
|
|
|
I too came up wit a cool story recently.. pasted from my RPG forum.. 
An idea of scenario hit me yesterday... and I thought to share it 🙂
I call it the "End of Days" an extreme scifi mega dungeon.
So the players are on Habitat 47. A basic rotating cylinder of concrete and steel space habitat. There is no longer any star or planet or anything. Only empty unlimited cold darkness. The habitat is one of the first and one of the last, thanks to its simple energy efficient design. Where it comes from has long be forgotten though. Despite that even the space habitat itself is slowly undertaking decay. In some section the auto repair bot run dormant or out of energy. In some other they have grown hostile. But mostly inactive unless someone walks by.
Character would be end of time life form. Perhaps humanoid... But they have a huge internal source of energy (like... 200?) but only replenish if they find food. They can use it to use "power" or regenerate HP. They can cannibalize weapon or power supply to eat.. but then there is that much less resources... Player would be ascended obviously (i.e. they have access to psionic and super power), and they can find scifi weapon and armor, but all them will run out of energy.
Some people have given up physical body and live the matrix entirely. You cant die in the matrix, and its very lively. But it has little impact on the real world Though some part of spaceship (like critical locks) are controlled through it and guarded by powerful AI, the AI doesnt kill, of course, but when you die you either respawn very far, or perhaps get imprisoned, or perhaps got disconnected and access point disabled for you. And most access point to the Matrix are broken, of course.
The plot is that some nihilist group, despaired of the slow decay is committing suicide by diving the habitat towards a black hole (according to ancient map, hard to know whether its true in this empty darkness). And part 1 would be trying to reach control center and going away from the black hole. On the way they will learn of some research for a multiverse drive extension, that would enable the cylinder to go to a whole new universe, full of energy. Which would lead to a part 2 finding the design.. ultimately it is in the matrix. Modifying the drive would require resource and fight crazy auto repair bot. and cut the habitat in 2, and sacrificing many (the multiverse drive cant carry all) or maybe make an escape vessel....
The ending could be dying in a fiery ball of intense energy after crossing the veil between universe...... Or, if extra preparation has been taken, wait in the matrix, for a new universe to cool down enough for life... Or maybe die in a black hole if the nihilist won....
|
|
|
|
|
I think Hollywood will call you soon ! 
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
|
|
|
|
|
Haha.. I think it's a good story too, thanks!
I just renamed it to "The End of Eternity" though 
|
|
|
|
|
Super Lloyd wrote: I just renamed it to "The End of Eternity"
I would beware of Isaac Asimov's estate's lawyers...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
Bah, I wouldn't.. this will, likely, never go further that some Sunday afternoon play with my friends...
I am neither a writer nor, err.. any creative type job or new creative career from home.
Software Developer work is shining on me well enough! 
|
|
|
|
|
|
"I have no idea" seems to sum up about everyone I've ever worked with 
One time, I had to fix this production issue.
People were standing still and the company was losing money.
I wrote a quick fix from home, asked someone to accept the pull request ASAP and drove to the office (a good one-hour drive).
It was literally some literal string that needed to be changed, a one-word fix, so I was sure it was correct, the pull request would be accepted and everything would deploy to production automatically.
When I arrived at the office, the reviewer was waiting for me.
I had to make the literal string into a constant or he couldn't accept it 
And while I was on it, I had to do this for every literal string in this class
The code made an API call and we simply had to pass some constant codes to the API, but instead of "SomeCode" this developer wanted to see SomeCode.
I asked him if he was out of his ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) ing mind and that people were standing still over this.
He wouldn't budge and ultimately I changed one or two string literals into consts just to move it along
|
|
|
|
|
Not to defend the guy, but I suspect it all boils down to technical debt. He just didn't want to have to revisit this. He's probably got some horror stories to tell.
|
|
|
|
|
I think it was ego.
It boiled down to:
someValue = "some code"
vs.
const string SomeCode = "some code";
someValue = SomeCode You literally can't have horror stories with this.
|
|
|
|
|
May I please request if I understand correctly Is the requested change equivalent from the one below to the second below Thank You Kindly - Cheerio
struct cfoobar
{
basic_string<char> foobar() { return "some string"; }
};
struct cfoobar
{
static const basic_string<char> someString;
basic_string<char> foobar() { return someString; }
};
const basic_string<char> cfoobar::someString = "some string";
|
|
|
|
|
It wasn't C(++?), but I think it comes to that, yes.
Literally this in C#: my post above[^]
|
|
|
|
|
The "senior" developer doesn't seem to be much older than the "junior" one. Not surprised they have the same reaction.
Agism. It works both ways.
|
|
|
|
|
In better workplaces, the terms senior and junior reflect domain experience, not chronological age nor the amount of time since you got your education.
Software Zen: delete this;
|
|
|
|
|
Only better workplaces? If it wasn't like this, I would consider it a huge red flag.
|
|
|
|
|
There are worse workplaces, of course  ...
Software Zen: delete this;
|
|
|
|
|
LGTM
|
|
|
|
|
...and found this official library[^].
Works with WinForms, WPF, UWP, Console and native, as well as ASP.NET Core.
Still need to try it out. VS has decided to wonk out for some reason, and I CBA to restart my system right now to fix it.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
|
|
|
|
|
Hi,
What does CBA mean here ? No relevant hits on Google.
Why post about it if you have not been able to use it ?
Did you take the time to look at any of the 255 open issues on the github page to see if any were relevant to your issues ?
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
|
|
|
|
|
Can't Be Arsed?
That was my first guess...and it fits the context...
|
|
|
|
|
what is Toast notification?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Never mind.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
modified 17-Sep-21 17:37pm.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm a backend developer who comes from a non-agile background.
Last year, when I accepted my latest position, I was told that the team uses agile.
I was eager to begin learning this new, magic method for creating software, based upon everything I had heard about agile.
But I've been in the position for a year now, and the only difference from my previous jobs to this one is that now we have morning meetings and we delineate our work into two week intervals. That's it. Is this the highly touted Agile method?
It's turned out to be a big disappointment. Is my experience typical?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
