Comments by "N Velsen" (@nvelsen1975) on "Why is Japan So Weak in Software?" video.

  1.  @brooklynknite  Mate, when I was recruited in 2005 and got my hands on some military software, I saw way way dirtier than that. Actually me being there was the dirty part: Straight out of university with basic skills in then-primitive ARCgis and a bit of Java and congrats, you are now one of the leading minds of the entire military (since the two other guys nearing their 50's aren't having it). Of course I was only authorised to work on one related component, and had a dozen duties besides and no budget, but of course that had to be done yesterday and work seamlessly with the entire system to we could beat the Americans and their 1998 promise of Nett Warrior in a fine display of answering "What are the requirements?" with yes. I know of early drones crashing because the operator slotted in the software, except the asset paths weren't dynamic, they were static, so when the USB station designation changed from, say D: to E:, the drone controls blanked out and that cost the taxpayer over a million. It made an Afghanistan hillside rather decorated in pretty hightech confetti though. I may or may not have exagerated when I wrote a report as I concluded I wouldn't work the software side any longer and they should pull my colleagues too, that the only way to get the off-the-shelf components to talk to eachother and actually power our component of the BMS picture, was to take the software companies' execs hostage, lock them in a room and tell them fatal nerve gas was being released in 60 minutes unless they agreed to a common standard before that time. So blindly copying instead of looping? I believe it. To my knowledge an integrated battle management still doesn't exist today nearly two decades later. It's still a few different branch attempts hashed together that communicate through awkward bridges, and most countries have none. Ukraine is close with a GIS system that runs an integrated spotting-command-artillery module that runs on a tablet, but only due to a hobby project by a bunch of Ukrainian whizkids with very little regard for intellectual property and a LOT of digital ducttape to strap things together. I imagine ESRI among others will have a few opinions on that subject after the war is over.
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  2. Personally I love companies who still use faxes. But only because if they send me advertising, I can fire up my dad's fax and send them 5000+ black pages during the night for guaranteed inkstains, broken machines and educationally-high costs. ....The fax machine sits in my attic and has for a while though. Been there for a couple years now because outside of the courts, nobody uses faxes.
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