The Network Generation in the Military

[ben4prez]

This is probably closer to the mark. We could replicate any aircraft in an AR field and hand Airman Timmy some AR gloves and let him start swapping drive trains, etc. Initial start up costs would be high, but it woudl be pretty darn good training. But, don't hold your breath, considering ours is an organization that has one part still trying to convince the other part that a natural sleep cycle is a good thing, and should be prioritized.

This was actually a project undertaken by the now defunct Chief of Naval Operations Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC). Back in 2013, we were the first enterprise organization to get 2 pair of Google Glass for experimentation. We worked with a young and talented engineer at SPAWAR who built apps in his spare time.

Our experiments were two-fold:

1) Test them out on the bridge of a destroyer to put overlays on what they saw out at sea - think JHMCS light for SWOs.
2) Give them to maintainers to embed instructions as they were performing repair tasks

Both ran into the beast of IT...namely limited Wi-fi aboard ships, and concerns about networks.

On some of our tours with industry, some of the ship-builders were creating AR touchpoints on their future ship designs. Pretty interesting stuff.

But considering the Navy bureaucracy wanted to speend 250k and 9 months to qualify a $15,000 3D printer on a ship (which we got onboard anyway via a NAVSEA experiment), it's no wonder AR never went anywhere.

 

[Pags]

This was actually a project undertaken by the now defunct Chief of Naval Operations Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC). Back in 2013, we were the first enterprise organization to get 2 pair of Google Glass for experimentation. We worked with a young and talented engineer at SPAWAR who built apps in his spare time.

Our experiments were two-fold:

1) Test them out on the bridge of a destroyer to put overlays on what they saw out at sea - think JHMCS light for SWOs.
2) Give them to maintainers to embed instructions as they were performing repair tasks

Both ran into the beast of IT...namely limited Wi-fi aboard ships, and concerns about networks.

On some of our tours with industry, some of the ship-builders were creating AR touchpoints on their future ship designs. Pretty interesting stuff.

But considering the Navy bureaucracy wanted to speend 250k and 9 months to qualify a $15,000 3D printer on a ship (which we got onboard anyway via a NAVSEA experiment), it's no wonder AR never went anywhere.

AR WILL happen in time. The rest of the various enterprises just need to catch up to allow it to happen wrt things like WiFi and enterprises IT. once there’s real $ And requirements in play these things will happen.

 

[jRiot504]

So, the Hawaii fiasco was the fault of a bad UX, and not the worker on watch? Uh . . . . . . no.

It is ultimately the worker on watch but choosing better UX designs can help mitigate this from happening again. Though has someone else stated, people who are actually talented UX/UI designers go work for tech companies (FANG) not the government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...in-hawaii-take-a-look/?utm_term=.f84daa5f8816

 

[Pags]

It is ultimately the worker on watch but choosing better UX designs can help mitigate this from happening again. Though has someone else stated, people who are actually talented UX/UI designers go work for tech companies (FANG) not the government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...in-hawaii-take-a-look/?utm_term=.f84daa5f8816

I’d be willing to bet that the platform that was used to release that message was made by a tech company under contract to the Govt.

 

[picklesuit]

Just need the sweet Tropical-Soviet uniforms to go with the virtual bridge...

 

[jRiot504]

I’d be willing to be that the platform that was used to release that message was made by a tech company under contract to the Govt.

I would agree with that.

The tech world is an odd beast as DOD contractors are well known for not being the best places to work in terms of career advancement. Now don't get me wrong there is certainly interesting work to be done - designing and writing the code for safety critical items e.g., avionics on the F-18. But that is an entirely different skill-set which attracts an entirely different person, who is highly sought after.

I suspect the person who designed the one used in HI took a community college class on UX/UI design in 1998, needed a little extra money and took a contract position knowing there would be little oversight.

 

[nittany03]

I would agree with that.

The tech world is an odd beast as DOD contractors are well known for not being the best places to work in terms of career advancement. Now don't get me wrong there is certainly interesting work to be done - designing and writing the code for safety critical items e.g., avionics on the F-18. But that is an entirely different skill-set which attracts an entirely different person, who is highly sought after.

I suspect the person who designed the one used in HI took a community college class on UX/UI design in 1998, needed a little extra money and took a contract position knowing there would be little oversight.

You can work at a place that pays bank, some of which is in stock and/or options, lets you wear a t-shirt and jeans to work, feeds you catered meals whenever you want, and ships your code at the cyclic rate. Think about how often you have to update your phone . . . that’s the civilian software development life cycle.

Why would a person who could get that work at a place where you have to wear slacks and/or a tie, has none of the above perks, and uses an outdated waterfall SDLC? Sometimes, because they believe in the mission. I’m sure there are some architects and senior devs at Lockheed or Raytheon doing more than OK. But I wouldn’t hang my hat on that reliably competing with Silicon Valley and greater Seattle.

 

[Pags]

You can work at a place that pays bank, some of which is in stock and/or options, lets you wear a t-shirt and jeans to work, feeds you catered meals whenever you want, and ships your code at the cyclic rate. Think about how often you have to update your phone . . . that’s the civilian software development life cycle.

Why would a person who could get that work at a place where you have to wear slacks and/or a tie, has none of the above perks, and uses an outdated waterfall SDLC? Sometimes, because they believe in the mission. I’m sure there are some architects and senior devs at Lockheed or Raytheon doing more than OK. But I wouldn’t hang my hat on that reliably competing with Silicon Valley and greater Seattle.

I think you're views of how the defense industry works are dated; the program I support has been using agile for some time now.

 

[jRiot504]

You can work at a place that pays bank, some of which is in stock and/or options, lets you wear a t-shirt and jeans to work, feeds you catered meals whenever you want, and ships your code at the cyclic rate. Think about how often you have to update your phone . . . that’s the civilian software development life cycle.

Why would a person who could get that work at a place where you have to wear slacks and/or a tie, has none of the above perks, and uses an outdated waterfall SDLC? Sometimes, because they believe in the mission. I’m sure there are some architects and senior devs at Lockheed or Raytheon doing more than OK. But I wouldn’t hang my hat on that reliably competing with Silicon Valley and greater Seattle.

I completely agree. I work in tech on the west coast - not Seattle or SV. I wear jeans and flannel to work, shorts and t-shirt in the summer. No one checks when I come in nor when I leave as long I complete what needs to be done. We never schedule more than 40 hours of work in a week. Most of time lately has been waiting for my machine learning (I know buzz word) tests to complete, then tweak, re-run etc...

I have an offer on the table for more money, but work from home; just waiting on the board results to be released. Sometimes I question why I would give this up to rejoin the military.

 

[RobLyman]

I completely agree. I work in tech on the west coast - not Seattle or SV. I wear jeans and flannel to work, shorts and t-shirt in the summer. No one checks when I come in nor when I leave as long I complete what needs to be done. We never schedule more than 40 hours of work in a week. Most of time lately has been waiting for my machine learning (I know buzz word) tests to complete, then tweak, re-run etc...

I have an offer on the table for more money, but work from home; just waiting on the board results to be released. Sometimes I question why I would give this up to rejoin the military.

Because people in the cube farm will stand around your cube all day listening to military/flying stories. In the military, only a few will sit around and listen to IT/tech stories. And even then, their eyes will usually gloss over after a few minutes.

Agile, waterfall, blah blah blah. I saw it all when I was a coder. None of the methods makes a difference if you don't have a handle on scope creep. That means having a tech director with the power to put a strangle hold on marketing and sales. Otherwise those b#$tards will give away your jockey shorts to make a sale. FWIW, we never put our top coders on city and state government work. Those projects were for the slow and steady guys.

 

[jRiot504]

Because people in the cube farm will stand around your cube all day listening to military/flying stories.

I completely agree which is why I applied - well not to have stories to tell IT workers.

 

[nittany03]

Because people in the cube farm will stand around your cube all day listening to military/flying stories. In the military, only a few will sit around and listen to IT/tech stories. And even then, their eyes will usually gloss over after a few minutes.

This. We all leave the military at some point, and when you do, the cube farm will still be there. And it’ll be a lot more chill, because it’s hard to get spooled up about petty shit after you’ve seen the back of the boat, at night, when your pilot is having the proverbial night in the barrel.

Most folks only get one chance per life to prove they can hack earning gold wings.

 

[squorch2]

Hot take: scope creep should be negative for agile approaches.

 

[nittany03]

Hot take: scope creep should be negative for agile approaches.

The question is whether the company is actually doing Agile, or just cargo cult Agile.

 

[Jim123]

The question is whether the company is actually doing Agile, or just cargo cult Agile.

"Agile" sound exotic... it must be Italian!