
At 83, I Decided to Develop an App - dangoldin
https://medium.com/@DonRumsfeld/at-83-i-decided-to-develop-an-app-dadd4e53d342#.wt93bm5qs
======
to3m
WSJ article: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/former-defense-secretary-
marches...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/former-defense-secretary-marches-into-
new-territory-videogames-1453483137)

    
    
        Mr. Rumsfeld can’t code. He doesn’t much even use a
        computer. But he guided his young digitally minded 
        associates who assembled the videogame with the same 
        method he used to rule the Pentagon—a flurry of memos
        called snowflakes.
    
        As a result, “Churchill Solitaire” is likely the only 
        videogame developed by an 83-year-old man using a 
        Dictaphone to record memos for the programmers. 
    
        [...]
    
        “We need to do a better job on these later versions. 
        They just get new glitches,” reads one note from Mr. 
        Rumsfeld. “[W]e ought to find some way we can achieve 
        steady improvement instead of simply making new 
        glitches.”
    

Related reading? - [http://research.swtch.com/discover-
debug](http://research.swtch.com/discover-debug)

~~~
sopooneo
To me, this seems like the sort of project that would benefit greatly by
putting an experienced project manager between the client (ie Rumsfeld) and
the dev team. Other than planning meetings, I really think non-technical stake
holders should never communicate directly with developers. I say that as a
developer.

~~~
briandear
So, we add another salary to the team for something that amounts to a small
project? If devs don't have the acumen to deal with "clients" directly, then
they ought not take on projects that would require working with clients.

I see this all the time, especially with offshore development. I was the lead
for a US project with an additional India team. We had a US-based PM for the
Indian contractor. Then we had an India based PM, then we had 3 developers.
Any time I needed to discuss something, I had to consult with the US PM, the
US PM consulted with the India-based PM and the India based PM would then ask
the devs. Then the answer would go through that path in reverse. A simple
question like, "Where is the setup script file in the repo?" That took
literally 6 emails, with delays of several hours between responses.

Needless to say, that arrangement didn't last long before I fired the company.

My point is that you don't always need an experienced project manager
depending on the scope of the project and the number of developers. 10 devs --
yes absolutely. But 2 or 3 devs? Not necessarily.

~~~
sopooneo
I agree with you completely. I think there is definitely a minimum project
scope before a PM becomes a good investment. But I also think there should be
a multiplier for how scattered/non-technical/crazy the client is.

------
at5
Guess someone should have pointed it out to him, that his childhood hero was
an avowed racist ("I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly
religion". Also see the Bengal famine; right up there with Holomdor.)

Why not call it Stalin solitaire then?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943)

~~~
briandear
Really? Let's find the perfect among anyone in history. You'll be looking for
a very long time.

~~~
at5
Big difference between perfection and a monster no? I mean he's known for the
same thing Stalin is. Interesting that my comment sits in the negative. Says a
lot about the crowd around here.

~~~
poof131
Thanks for posting your comment and showing another side of Churchill that I
was unaware of. [1] But I think you are being down voted because the
comparison with Stalin is ill chosen. Churchill seems to have been a bigger
racist than was common for his time, and although he played a roll in the
tragedy you link to, it was in the middle of WW2 and placing all the blame on
him for 3m lives seems unfair. And to then compare him to Stalin, who
inflicted tyranny upon large parts of the word and who killed between 20-60m
people with possibly the worst “machinery of killing” ever created does an
injustice to the point you where trying to make.[2]

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-
finest...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-
the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html) [2]
[http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-
kil...](http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789)

~~~
hartpuff
His comparison with Stalin may be hyperbolic, but the article you cited gives
Churchill's response to the famine you think is unfair to blame on him:

    
    
       Up to 3 million people starved to death while
       British officials begged Churchill to direct food
       supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He
       raged that it was their own fault for "breeding
       like rabbits". At other times, he said the plague
       was "merrily" culling the population.
    

>[Stalin] killed between 20-60m people with possibly the worst “machinery of
killing” ever created does an injustice to the point you where trying to make

And quoting or arguing that kind of unsubstantiated claptrap does a disservice
to the point you are making.

I don't believe you are a neo-Nazi, I think you just pulled the first result
from Google on "how many people did Stalin kill", but in my experience it's
usually people with right or extreme right agendas who try to paint Stalin as
worse than Hitler by quoting such nonsensically high figures.

~~~
poof131
My issue isn’t with placing some of the blame on Churchill but all of it. The
world was in a war where untold millions were killed and the outcome was
anything but certain. My guess is that Churchill had to juggle multiple
aspects of the decision, but the outcome and his words were used to paint the
most unflattering picture in the linked article, perhaps justified, perhaps
not, likely somewhere in-between. And I truly do appreciate counter viewpoints
that expand my understanding of the world. The tragedy and his racist
viewpoints clearly deserve more prominence in the histories of him.

You attempt to discredit my take on Stalin with rhetorical flourish, so
generously implying that “you don’t think I’m a neo-nazi”, yet you provide no
evidence that he wasn’t a butcher. While I don’t think you are an “uneducated
fascist”, most attempts to propagandize pro-Stalin viewpoints come from… Not a
good way to change someone’s opinion if that is your goal. You did make a good
catch on the first google link, but hardly surprising when providing
supporting references in HN comments. Wikipedia has the number at 3-60
million, with 3 being the “officially” recorded number. [1] Perhaps you are
right that Stalin was better than my interpretation, but you haven’t convinced
me.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin)

~~~
hartpuff
>You attempt to discredit my take on Stalin with rhetorical flourish, so
generously implying that “you don’t think I’m a neo-nazi”, yet you provide no
evidence that he wasn’t a butcher.

I didn't say he wasn't a "butcher", so why should I have to provide evidence
to that effect?

As for my "rhetorical flourish", most of the people online I see making the
ludicrous claim that Stalin killed 50+ million people turn out to be
Hitlerites.

>Wikipedia has the number at 3-60 million, with 3 being the “officially”
recorded number. [1] Perhaps you are right that Stalin was better than my
interpretation, but you haven’t convinced me.

Apparently neither has Wikipedia and every historian who places the figure at
less than 20 million, such as William Rubinstein and Yale University's Timothy
Snyder.

As that Wikipedia article states, the 3-60 million wild guesses were before
records became available after the demise of the Soviet Union. When
researchers were able to study and analyse the records the ridiculously high
estimates were revised drastically down.

------
dopamean
Maybe I'm wrong for thinking this but I can't this man seriously anymore. I
look at him in the same light as a common criminal. He should be in prison.

~~~
briandear
He and Hillary Clinton care share a cell.

------
erikpukinskis
I love the message that you can understand and do work in this space late in
life. Props for that.

But I find his valorization of war really disturbing given his role deceiving
the public into increased warfare. The way he writes about this game makes it
seem like he has a fetish for callous, take-no-prisoners violence. I think
it's an outdated mindset and it disturbs me to think about the human bodies
that were burnt to a crisp under Rumsfeld's direction. So many people lost
their lives and will lose their lives because of his war perversion.

------
applecore
The aphorism "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" is actually a
quote by Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist theoretician, citing Romain Rolland.

------
colinbartlett
App Store link:

[https://appsto.re/us/UvnC9.i](https://appsto.re/us/UvnC9.i)

------
melling
Rumsfeld has used a standing desk for decades, standing all day:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A946-2004Jun23...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A946-2004Jun23.html)

------
zanewill9
Inspiring.

------
flashman
Then there's Rumsfeld Solitaire, in which upturned cards are known knowns,
downturned cards are known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, which are cards
slipped into or removed from the deck.

~~~
_yosefk
Unlike the other political comments, this one is on topic and, in my humble
opinion, very funny!

