You put n monkeys in a cage with a banana (or any food that is of interest to the monkeys) and for some defined period of time discourage the monkeys getting to the fruit by splashing them with cold water till none of them attempt to reach for the fruit. Now, one by one replace the monkeys over a period of time where the monkeys will not be splashed with cold water at all. Now, because of classical conditioning each of the new monkeys that will instinctively reach for the fruit but will be beaten up (or otherwise restrained) by the remaining monkeys by the fear of punishment in the form of a cold water splash. Subsequently, when none of the original n monkeys are in the cage and the ones that are there have never been subjected to the punishment, it will be observed that none of those monkeys try to reach for the fruit in fear of retribution by the other monkeys.
The wet monkey theory seems more of an urban legend than an actual theory. Its actually based on the famous Pavlov's salivating dog experiment on classical conditioning. The little Albert experiment is perhaps the closest human counterpart. But, apart from that there are several examples of this in real life.Especially, in large software development shops where you have every kind of programmers (all of the 26 programmer predilections-link doesn't seem to exist now so, heres a digg posting of the same), all the 3 types of consultants and hordes of PHB's. The reasons why a particular approach/technique was chosen over others is often lost when the pioneers of the system leave or is buried in huge mounds of documentation. Now, documentation is always an icky subject when it comes to software systems the people who are in the best position to do it despise it with a vengeance and the ones that do write it (or are forced to write it) usually cover it up in layers of cruft to make the document appear important than it actually is. Signal to noise ratio in documentation is alarming low, the concept of code as documentation does not stand to reason if you have a half a million lines of code to read!! (notwithstanding the fancy design patterns and xml configurations distributed liberally over the codebase) All this leads to any question on anything is answered by thats 'the way its always been done'.One way to bite down and bear it to turn to the Tao of Programming and rest on the wisdom of the ancients before us.The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like an uncarved block of wood. Opaque, like a black pool in a darkened cave.
Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
The answer exists only in Tao.
The second system effect is described in Fred Brooks 'The Mythical Man Month'. It is simply defined as the tendency of the designers to over-engineer an existing simple elegant solution. The tired architect warns us to think a moment before we take the plunge and develop 'the second system'. For a long time I thought this was mostly rubbish and you can only do things better with experience.That was till I witnessed an actual second(or rather third) system being built. The original system wasn't simple or elegant but, it got the job done (And if you had been mucking around its code for over 6 months you will intuitively know where to fix a certain bug). It opened my eyes to YAGNI but, then the reality of features selling products crashes the party. Hopefully I'm a little wiser from the experience.
I was really excited about this movie mainly because of this awesome trailer and the presence of Jessica Alba. As usual I also headed up to wikipedia for some healthy dose of trivia and info about the Silver Surfer and he seemed a worthy adversary(though I don't fancy the FF4 too much!! I prefer X-Men above all else). But, nevertheless an underdog against a mighty adversary is usually a good watch :D. So, when I headed for the movies and found no tickets for this one I was more than happy to see FF4 - Rise of the Silver Surfer.It certainly wasn't the effects that were jaded, though the trailer captured the best scenes of the movie. I think the movie audiences have evolved beyond mere computer-generated effects. The plot was weak almost implying that the surfer saved earth more because of invisible woman who supposedly reminded him of his sweetheart!! And Galactus the powerful almost god-like entity is defeated (killed ??) in the last few minutes of the movie by a mere herald!! Taking into consideration that the surfer possesses just a fraction of the power-cosmic of which Galactus is the keeper is just ...STUPID :(
How often have you stood on the pavement in a new neighborhood wondering how to reach your particular destination or, someplace where you quite did not manage to figure out what to do. I've always wondered how people pick whom to ask for directions. For myself I follow a simple algorithm, if I'm looking for directions I head to the nearest autorickshaw driver otherwise ask a group of people presuming that one of the many might actually be helpful. In other cases like for example in a bus-stop how does one pick whom to enquire for directions. Here again I tend to gravitate towards respectable elderly looking people.But, often (more often than I would like) I've been on the other end. In some cases people have come to ask me for directions in cities where I'd only just set foot. Take for example when I came to Bangalore a year ago (just days after I had come) and was at the bus-stop trying to figure out whom to ask for directions to my destination 2 people walk up to me and ask me (eek!!) for directions to 2 different locations. I've just resigned myself to accept the fact that I appear to be "Mr. Know it all" to most people. So, if you have a question that needs answering "Don't ask me!"
