So very much this, for tech projects as well... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 06:16:45 am
content: https://xkcd.com/2530

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 11:18:04 am
content: Yep... EXCEPT where such a result needs very rapid decisions!!!If you are in the passenger seat of a car, and the 'driver' is heading for a head-on collision in 2 secs, it 'may' be wise tograb the steering-wheel, before discussing the 'Pros & Cons', so that lives may be saved immediately!!

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 03:36:36 pm
content: Uh-nuh! It's supposed to beCome up with new ideaCheck whether it worksConvince people it's goodNew idea is adoptedI could rant about the need of checking that it works before promoting it for hours.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 03:54:16 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 03:36:36 pmseems plenty of people has made obscene amounts of money skipping 2 an d 4

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 04:01:20 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 03:36:36 pmStartups prove you to be wrong.Come up with new ideaConvince people it's goodGet the investor moneyCheck whether it worksFAIL

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 05:02:24 pm
content: Quote from: GlennSprigg on October 19, 2021, 11:18:04 amCollision avoidance isn't anew idea, which is what the comic is about.

author: dave j
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 05:26:59 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 03:36:36 pmClinical trials cost so much you'd have to convince the people with money that it's good before you'd be able the check whether it works. Clinical trials should have a 'check whether it does more good than harm' stage too.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 05:36:51 pm
content: Quote from: dave j on October 19, 2021, 05:26:59 pmThey do.Phase I trials test for safetyonly, in a very small group.If it passes, Phase II trials test for effectiveness and safety in a small group.If it passes, Phase III trials test for effectiveness and safety in a large group.Phase I is basically the toxicity test. Safety is of course monitored at every phase, but it's really only the very rare side effects that manifest in the larger sample sizes.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 07:35:30 pm
content: I'm only saying that the world is full of ideas that were promoted, then later discovered that they weren't good. Many were wholly evil, in fact. Haven't you heard the old saying, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"? In order to not be an unwitting Kharon, one has to check every single one of ones ideas before promoting them.Even in medicine, examples abound. Like thalidomide.As to money-making –– start-ups and such ––, money-making has nothing to do with logic or sane processes, and everything to do with humans and leveraging their weaknesses. Heck, money itself only has as much value as humans believe it has, and no more.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 08:11:23 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 07:35:30 pmWell, it’s impossible to predict every unintended consequence. The important thing, the duty abrogated by so many people, organizations, etc, is to recognize when something is no longer good, and to change it.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 07:35:30 pmA very interesting example, because it is a perfect example of investigation working as it should, and of the need for more, rigorous investigation, depending entirely on which country you look at. Most of the world trusted Chemie Grünenthal and ended up with the disastrous effects. USA never approved it, thanks to the efforts of an FDA analyst who wasn’t convinced they’d done enough testing. That was Frances Oldham Kelsey,who died just a few years ago, having prevented untold tragedy.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 08:48:36 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 19, 2021, 08:11:23 pmTrue. My point is, do "sufficient" checking on the idea before promoting it. What "sufficient" is, depends on the situation, and is not the point. I'm not asking for perfect, because perfect is impossible.I'm only asking that the checking that is done is done before the idea is being promoted, and not after. Step 2, not step 3.Quote from: tooki on October 19, 2021, 08:11:23 pmOh, they actually did, in 1998, to combat multiple myeloma (in combination with dexamethasone), by inhibiting angiogenesis –– suppressing new blood vessel growth so the tumours cannot grow. This effect of thalidomide wasn't discovered until 1994, though. (The thalidomide tragedy occurred in 1957-1961, causing miscarriages and birth defects.)In the case of thalidomide, those that promoted first assuming the checking was either done by others or would be done as things progressed, caused a lot of dead and deformed babies. Those that checked first, were unharmed.I was tempted to use tobacco products as an example, but there the companies actually checked, and decided to hide the results for decades instead of acting on them, because their massive profits were threatened. I believe it would be wise to recognize that drug companies have the exact same incentives, but that strays a bit from the topic.My own experience and main reason for personally objecting to promoting first and then checking/testing, is that it is ubiquitous in software, including in commercial software. Any real testing nowadays is done by the end users, with the vendor indemnity capped at the price of the product. Checking done by paying customers who get no recourse –– except, at best, in rare occasions, their money back.

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 08:54:26 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 03:36:36 pmThere is the harsh reality that without money there is nobody there to check whether something works, and without convincing there's nobody who's going to pay you to find out.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 11:01:36 pm
content: I was particularly thinking about the "clever" "designs" that overlook numerous practical realities. Solar Roadways. Batterizer. Transparent solar cells. Hyperloop. Etc, etc. I can't decide whether "product design" classes where the "designer" artists seem to have no tech credentials at all are better or worse than the scammers...

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 01:19:13 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 03:36:36 pmI think the point is the original #2 is meant to be read either way, for better or for worse.Tim

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 01:24:11 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on October 20, 2021, 01:19:13 amThe issue is usually that you cannot get any time/money allocated for checking if the idea is good until you convince enough people.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 02:10:42 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 08:48:36 pmIn other words, perform due diligence.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 08:48:36 pmWell I was referring to approval as the sedative and antiemetic wonder drug that it was initially marketed as. (But yeah, as worded, it is technically incorrect.)But you are correct that it was later approved, underextraordinarilystrict restrictions, for various cancers and a few other things. It never got "normal" approval.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 08:48:36 pmI'm well aware, obviously.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 08:48:36 pmThough I am thoroughly disgusted by the insufficient testing most software undergoes before release, that's really unrelated to the original post.The problems in software are generally bugs — that is, errors, that is, faulty implementation. That saysnothingabout whether theidea(i.e. the overall approach to the software design and architecture) is sound.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 05:01:35 am
content: Quote from: tooki on October 20, 2021, 02:10:42 amI absolutely disagree. Most software seems to be aggregated together rather than designed. As if the developers had an idea, stuck something together, and started promoting it. "It is up to users to decide if they find it useful."Perhaps more fitting to the original comic is on the user side. A PHB (usually CTO) reads a business article, and has a great idea: we need to get into the cloud to save/make (more) money! And so tells his underlings to do it. They point out it is a solution in search of a problem, and are labeled as "notgo-getters". So usually they just do as they're told, documenting their quiet objections, so that when it fails, they hopefully won't be picked as the scapegoat. In the end, it's the customers who wonder why they now need an internet connection to use the tool that used to work just fine standalone, without any benefits. This would have been avoided if the PHB had checked the idea before promoting it. See?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 12:49:02 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 20, 2021, 05:01:35 amI think it’s more that the MBAs decided that they “need” a function, and then throw it to the developers to do in 6 months when it actually needs a year or two. Then the sales department starts selling it, pushing it to customers as a magic bullet, and oh, they promised it to the customers at month 4 — surely you can just pull a few weekends to get it done in 4 months instead of 6! Of course, neither the MBAs nor sales folks actually consulted the developers, and even if they did, they’d ignore what the devs said!My point, though, worded poorly in the middle of the night, was that even software with a fundamentally sound design and architecture can be awful to use because of bugs and missing (or hastily implemented) features that are actually essential, but weren’t ready in time.And yeah, lots of poorlydesignedsoftware is out there too, stable or not.*cough*so many Linux GUI apps*cough*.Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 20, 2021, 05:01:35 amAbsolutely. Juicero comes to mind…And remember how in the mid 90s, VR was supposed to become the next big thing, so everyone started working on “interactive” virtual rooms and crap, giving us “Where’s Waldo?”-like interfaces on CD-ROMs that used an insufferably long animation to “walk” you from the lobby to the Products room when you clicked on that door. Your CD-ROM drive would frantically seek for a few seconds before letting you inside, where you could click illegibly tiny thumbnails of their product boxes, which would fly off the shelf in another insufferably long animation to show you the front box art in dithered 256-color, 640x480 pixel glory. Then you could flip it over and read the back…Oh wait, no, after you just force-quit the Macromind Director player in frustration, you just grabbed the catalog the damned CD-ROM came with to begin with…

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 02:13:04 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 20, 2021, 12:49:02 pmI am in full agreement!To me, checking if an idea is any good –– say, a GUI layout ––, involves at least a quick-and-dirty check. Back of the envelope stuff; maybe a quick form-y test in Glade or QDesigner, or even a quick HTML form page; then an unit-test-like back-end test program to see if the UI provides sufficient data in usable form to do the job, while still being intuitive and easy for users.When I implemented web pages a couple of decades ago, a common problem was that people had ideas on what they'd like to see on the web, but were very reluctant to provide the content itself, especially in universities (at least in Finland). They had an idea they felt was good, and pushed really hard for their implementation, before even making sure the content needed is available. But, it turns out the (preliminary/un-proofread) content itself is the test if the idea is good, and the visual layout (that most people would instead dabble with) is just a final touch. When the design idea is "sold" before the content even exists, you get web sites with poor content and unintuitive navigation and structure... but when the idea of the site is based on existing content, and about that content, you can get damn good designandimplementation surprisingly quick. In my experience, the text content is the hardest to obtain on any website project.Quote from: tooki on October 20, 2021, 12:49:02 pmHa! I managed to avoid the VR craze myself! (I did a few Macromedia Director multimedia projects 1996-2005 or so (last version I used was 7.0); mostly for Macs, but also online for use with the Shockwave plug-in.)We did use "room" and "wall" analogs in a couple of projects, but limited to 2D, because the environment just couldn't do 3D properly. (Well, I did do a couple of small (very limited pixel size) 3D examples for web use and such, even a couple of online games, so you could do 3D, just not VR or anything like that near full-screen in Director. Even "sprite" size had to be carefully restricted, to make animations 'smooth' (not horribly steppy).)When somebody had a design idea, I did tiny "unit tests"/"demos" on a not-top-of-the-line PowerMac with placeholder visuals, to see if the idea works in practice or not, before allowing it to be accepted into the overall design: checking the idea is feasible in practice before letting anyone get excited about it. Worked really well, too: it's easy to avoid intra-team friction when everybody (including the artists!) can see and experience the issues in real life. It did mean I had to spend quite a lot of extra effort, but I was young and excited... Besides, those quick and dirty tests sometimes caused even better ideas to come up (when everyone got a better intuitive grip on the real-world capabilities of the environment), so I still consider it was definitely worthwhile.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 09:25:09 pm
content: Went thru the TECH side, not as much the MARKET grasp (important!).My ideas, generally, produce un-recognizable 'Tech Lookin' wierdos, but...(Apple Comp.s we're 'weird', in the day).That one, involving mechanical elements, in computing. FIRST SERIES OF THOUGHT:#1. come up with new idea (mechanical logic demo)#2. WHAT THE HELL: would THAT look like ?#3. Try build the new-lookin thing.#4. Explain that contraption, as novel, to Patent Attorney.And, #5. (TRY) Spend, the estimated money profit windfall, BEFORE proceeding w any testing...(#6.) (never got to 'test' phase).

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2021, 09:28:59 pm
content: My Patent Attorney has his own project sequence:#1. client came up with idea#2. client hired Patent Attorney (myself)#3. Stated that EVERYTHING you touch, is patent-able.#4. Pay Attorney.#5. Abandon idea, as impractical.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2021, 12:25:10 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 19, 2021, 08:48:36 pmThis has also been the case with a lot of "hardware" for many years.Almost any older technical person you speak to will have anecdotes of badly engineered designs which had to be corrected at the Technician/Tech Officer level (or, just sometimes, EE).In most of these cases, it wasn't "rocket science", simply a failure to consider likely failure modes.To add insult to injury, following being advised details of the fix, some manufacturers have included it in their next lot of devices, with no acknowledgement of the original problem.Nice, cheap, testing!Quote

author: Duygu
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 21, 2021, 01:24:57 pm
content: yeah, it's bad but probably true

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2021, 01:42:37 pm
content: WOW!!!... I only answered the way I did about 10 responses back or somethin', because I 'thought' the original Postwas a round-about way of knocking certain recent Vaccination methods! Maybe it was or wasn't. Result the same!

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2021, 02:12:56 pm
content: Quote from: GlennSprigg on October 22, 2021, 01:42:37 pmI get pressured and mocked by both sides, because I recommend the new mRNA vax for certain people, and not getting them for others, depending on their exact personal biological features (especially age, cardiovascular state, and past immunological responses), based on whatever statistics and published preliminary reports I've seen. I thought that was the rational thing to do, but apparently I'm just stupid/evil/selfish/fascist, depending on who you ask.It very much looks like because everyone is so deeply invested (emotionally and politically) in the matter, it is no longer possible to discuss it objectively at the factual level. Even the statistics gathered are very, very suspect; many governments/institutions have already admitted to "massaging" the statistics, even changing the definition of "vaccine", to enforce their own view/belief/understanding. Even discussion of the quality of the vaccines, as in findings of contamination as happened in Japan, is wraught with emotionality, crazy shouting, and government-level politics.In that sense, the comic is spot on: mRNA vaccines were not subjected to standard clinical trials, and it looks like it is no longer possible (due to emotional and political reasons, not technical reasons) to do those objectively. No matter what we do at this point, we will have failed (causedunnecessaryrisk, injury, and pain to) some people; we could do better. Weshoulddo better.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2021, 11:33:57 am
content: To 'Nominal Animal' especially...Don't worry mate! Everything you have said, including the 'interpretation' of the Cartoon, is all fine, and valid.The problem 'here' is that we seem to be no longer allowed to 'discuss' it, but ALL your points are well taken!!