A real Pentathlon

Just finished watching the Asian Games and thought about how we could have a real pentathlon - one which checks skills soldiers need rather than fencing and Show Jumping (The original Modern Penthlon was created for similar reasons from the old Greek Pentahlon)

So I propose replacing Horses with Cycles. (The Japanese used Cycles to great effect to invade SE Asia. Originally I thought of having obstacle race course but that would be too expensive for organizing committees and too different from existing Olympic sports)

And I thought we should bring back the shotput from the original pentathlon but with a twist. Now it will represent Grenade tossing.

So here are my 5 events

1) Grenade Toss
2) Obstacle Running
3) Swimming
4) Cycling
5) Shooting


Now for putting them together

First the grenades will be dummy grenades with radio transmitters and the rifles will be laser rifles.

Further each competitor will also have to carry a 20 Kilo backpack throughout the game to represent what a modern soldier goes through. This 20 Kilo will include their water, change of clothes as well as grenades and laser rifle.

So first the competitors start off with their backpacks and their cycles.  Cycle 5 km on a Stadium track.
On finish they immediately go to the Shooting competition where they have to shoot 25 targets - each target will take at least a 9 or at least 2 5s to go down. As soon as their target is down they will then run 3000 m on the track with backpacks(They can leave their rifles but must carry their swimming gear and grenades). The track shall have hurdles like in Steeplechase and  shall also have penalty areas (minefields) marked. 10 such areas of 3 m length will be marked on the track. Competitors will have to jump across these areas. Each foot down in an area will count as a penalty (I will get to those later). As soon as they complete the running they will go to the grenade toss area where they will then proceed to throw dummy grenades and try to knock down 25 targets. The competitors have as many grenades as they carried with them in their pack.
When all 25 targets are down the competitor marks his ending time. Drops the backpack and either goes directly to swimming (for stadiums where this is possible) or waits.
For competitors who cannot knock down all targets before they run  out of grenades there is one penalty for each target left standing.  (Targets shall be at 15,20,25,30,35 m each target to be brought down 5 times)
To knock down a target a grenade must land within 1 m of the target. Targets will be automatic with radio transmitters and fold down as soon as the grenade lands next to it within 1 m.

At the end of the 4 events all competitors will head to the swimming pool for an 400 m swim.  The competitors will start in the order in which they finished the previous 4 legs with a 10 s penalty time added for each landmine(penalty) they landed on during the running phase and 1 penalty for each target they left standing during the grenade phase.

Comments Please

Herding Cats Pishtosh - try herding mobile developers

With the advent of the AppStore model of development something changed in how software was built. Apple would earn 30% from any app built so Apple spent considerable investments into making it very easy to develop apps (The coding is still the same but the ecosystem overheads were taken care of by the Appstore model, Xcode, the UI and other frameworks). To the extent that it was actually possible for 1 designer and 1 developer to build a real app. This is very different from most app development in the real world where the work needs to be split across a larger team and hence you have to have specialized roles like Developer, Project Manager, Business Analyst, Architect, BPR, QA, Devops etc.
Now with the popularity of Mobile Consumer Apps , Enterprises have taken to creating Mobile Enterprise Apps in a large way but here we run into a few differences from the consumer world
1) Enterprise Apps need to have approved budgets so have to go through an approval process
2) Enterprises are risk averse hence they will not just throw away their existing systems. Rather the mobile app has to work with existing backends even if the backends are not developed for Mobile. (Related problems a generation of IT managers who have come into the field after the advent of Web Based apps have no idea what is Client Server Programming. They tend to think of Mobile as just another UI fronted instead of a full fledged computer. They still want to do all their business logic in Backend Java code)
3) Enterprises have hierarchy and politics. You have to build consensus and have people go along not just because you have the best technical solution but also by showing what you are doing is going to help their own mandates (and sometimes they won't and you will face resistance)

Into this environment imagine hiring a team of iOS developers who have been used to working alone and working at light speed and try to execute an Enterprise Mobility project.


Testing? Automation? Automated Builds? Automatic Code Analysis?

It all exists but is not as mature as in the Java or .Net world.

Herding cats would be far easier.

Is the California Weather Tax worth it?

Have moved back to the US and this time its California not Texas. Yes California the land of the Rocky mountains, the pacific ocean, the sky high taxes ....

Well the news this week has been all about the cold snap in the central and eastern US but out here in Cupertino when I drove to the store on the weekend I was actually using the AC.

Made me wonder if the high taxes in California (as I call it the weather tax) might actually be worth it.

Then again I make 3 times what I was making in India, have cost 4 times higher than in India and save half of what I was saving in India so I am paying the US and California govts for the privilege of making myself poorer.

Sometimes I wonder if the weather is worth it?