Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

If “big” is in the description, it is in all the descriptions. That hurts.

Here is a process for writing a big document:

• The BIG draft
• The BIG review
• The BIG rewrite

Uh, this usually means a BIG waste of resources. The BIG draft means the writer works and works and works. Finally, finished. The BIG review means half-a-dozen people read and comment on the draft. The BIG rewrite is the writer trying to understand that BIG list of comments made during the BIG review.

Another BIG thing is the BIG collapse in the energy and excitement of the writer. That BIG draft took energy and heart and all those good things that good people pour into work. Someone called this “the tyranny of the first draft.” (I wish I could recall who coined that phrase.) All those comments from the BIG review crush the writer.

How about this process:

• small write
• small review
• small lessons
• repeat

Someone once called this “in-process review” or something like that.

The writer says, “Here is what I’m thinking. What do you think?”

The reviewers say, “I see the point. How about adjusting it this way?”

Work a little. Learn a little. Repeat. I think that is what agile development, DevOps, etc. attempt. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

One way of accomplishing work is to employ fewer better people. Of course this works. That depends on the definition of “better people.”

One way of accomplishing work is to employ fewer better people. It works. Of course it works. Let’s use this definition:

Better people are those who can use the tools to accomplish the task.

Consider farming. When a better plow arrived, fewer hands were needed on the farm. A better farmer learned how to use the newer and better tool. This better farmer could farm more land in the same time and produce more food. Same production; fewer people.

Consider the American office. Less-expensive computing arrived in the 1980s in the form of personal computers. A better person learned how to use the newer and better tool. Word processing, just one application, meant fewer and eventually zero typists in the office. This better person could produce more text in the same time. Same production; less time and fewer people.

The current slate of AI tools arrives. Same story. New tool. Better people learn how to use the new tool wisely and produce more in the same time. Nothing new.

Fewer people bring other concepts. There is less overhead (don’t have to rent a big office building, one office area will do or everyone works from home). Less overhead means less expense. Fewer people bring fewer lines of communication. Decisions can be quicker. And on it goes.

Of course fewer better people works to accomplish work. That is part of the definition.

by Dwayne Phillips

I find, or re-find, a basic concept of writing non-fiction.

I recently worked through a piece of rewriting and revision. I used several AI systems combined with the best writing advice I accumulated through the years. When it was over, I attempted a summary. Surely there was something to pin on the wall and use. One thing surfaced:

Begin with the shortest true sentence, then build outward.

Hmm. Here we come back to brevity and clarity. I can’t seem to escape those. And going around and around in painful circles brings me back. State one idea. Add corollaries. Keep it meaningful. Use single words that express the meaning of phrases. Stop looking for magical magic things.

And tomorrow brings another challenge.

by Dwayne Phillips

We want new ideas. We want innovation. Do we? How would we know?

We are tired of the same old stuff. We need new people in the room with new ideas. We need some innovation here!—said a frustrated person who doesn’t see a solution to the current problem

Innovation. New ideas. Frustration talking. There must be someone out there who has never worked here. They can walk in the room, look around, and proclaim, “I know what to do!”

Would anyone listen to them? They haven’t been here before. They don’t understand what goes on here. They don’t know how difficult this is. They don’t understand that we are smart and hard working and all that and if we can’t solve this, no one can!

At the same time, we believe there is someone with some insight and …

Yes, our problems are difficult. There are many details that an outsider doesn’t understand. There are people who can, in the blink of an eye, see the solution. If they can see the solution, why couldn’t we? It would be awfully embarrassing to realize that the solution was sitting there right in front of us all along. We could all be replaced by this new person with this new idea.

There is a brief time when a person enters a new job that they can accept the innovator and the innovation. After that brief time, the person becomes the problem. Solutions point to their inadequacy. Such is human nature.

We can do better. Let’s try.

by Dwayne Phillips

I guess we live in an age where we have to state this, even though many disbelieve.

If the grammar is too good, AI must have written it. If the style has changed, AI must have written it. If fill-in-the-blank, AI must have written it.

It is possible to write with good grammar and punctuation. It is possible to completely change one’s style and voice in writing. I don’t recall anyone complaining when spell checkers arrived and documents lacked mispeled words. Why all the fuss about this new tool?

I read recently that if a person is publishing 100,000 words a day, that must be AI writing everything. Perhaps so. I don’t know anyone who can type 100,000 words a day. I don’t know anyone who can dictate 100,000 words a day. I would agree that such productivity is AI, but that’s just me.

What about 10,000 words a day? What about 20,000 words a day? What about 1,000 words a day? I believe those numbers are possible for a person to do. I know people who believe those numbers are impossible for a person to do. Anyone who publishes 1,000 words a day is having AI write them. Huh?

I was once in an on-line writing group. We were to post drafts of essays we wrote. The group would then comment. It was snowing where I lived. Since my regular Saturday-afternoon routine was interrupted, I drafted an essay and posted it. One member of the writing group became quite angry. The rules were to post DRAFTS, not finished products. I, in the reader’s opinion, had posted a polished, finished product. I could not convince the reader otherwise.

Did AI write this thing or that thing? I am not smart enough to judge. If the writer says they wrote it, believe them. If they are lying, they are a liar. Let’s move on and write more. At least that is my advice.

by Dwayne Phillips

At Brown University, a professor shows that students used AI systems to get good scores on a take-home test. The in-class test scores were much lower. Does any of this matter?

For a few days, this story was sort of famous (here is one version of the story). For one reason or another, a college professor made the mid-term exam take home. Great scores on the test. Some nearly perfect papers. Hmm. That was not the norm. Suspecting cheating and the use of AI, the professor moved the final exam back to in the classroom. The scores were half the take-home test scores.

There are many lessons to be learned here. And, isn’t learning the objective of college and other places of education? I digress, but just a bit. Continue reading.

If the objective of the class was to reward quick recall of previously stated statements, the students were failing. They needed a lookup system to score well on the test. Is that a good objective of an expensive college cla$$?

Perhaps the objective of the class was to know enough to think on your feet or at least while your seat was in a chair in a classroom. That is a rough approximation to real life and being on your feet under pressure.

If this latter example was the objective of the class, it should have been clearly stated. The students were expected to prepare accordingly. Given the poor scores on the final, the professor clearly failed. I am one of those who think the professor fails if the student perform poorly on examinations.

I once took a college course in American government. We had an exam in which we were to know the content of every amendment to the U.S. Constitution by number. The 17th amendment is the direct election of U.S. Senators, by the way. The objective was to be able to answer questions while standing around drinking coffee at work or discussing what the current President did while eating hot dogs on the 4th of July. There was a purpose to the exercise. Clearly stated.

I return to the professor and the college. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Are we having examinations that don’t matter? Why waste the resources?

Perhaps that is the learning objective:

• Otherwise smart and experienced people can waste resources.
• Learn to notice such waste and don’t repeat the folly.

We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

All the pieces are here. Let’s have one download, install, and run.

This is what I want: one piece of software that reads the text files on my computer (.docx, etc.), answers questions about them, writes output to a file, and I can do all the copy-and-paste I want.

pandoc seems to understand all the file format. Apple’s Foundation Model seems to do the language processing. The rest is done by other programs.

Well, one might say, you already have all this. Yes, but that runs mostly in the cloud, and there are all sorts of permissions to read the files on the local computer, and, and, and … And use ollama and pick a model and run this and make sure you have something else installed, and, and, and …

One piece of software that I download, install on the local computer, and run on the local computer. As simple as Word or Excel or gcc. Let’s get with it.

by Dwayne Phillips

Writers can write more than we do. Is this lazy? And, by the way, lazy was the worst thing in the world according to my mother, so that comments stings.

Writers in 2026 are for the most part lazy. — Dean Wesley Smith

Mr. Smith’s comment stings. According to my mother, there was nothing worse in this world than being lazy. Don’t be a bump on a log. Have some gumption. Do something. Surprising to me, gumption is recognized as a correctly spelled word. I thought it was just a made-up sound. But I digress.

Back to lazy writers. I am not banging out text on a manual typewriter. I know that works because at one time in my life I would bang on words on a portable manual typewriter. I wish I still had a portable manual typewriter. They are still available, ribbons and all, but I digress again. I am not walking around a library peering through old reference books. I also did that in the past.

When I need a fact, bang, there it is. When I need a date, bang, there it is. Copy, paste, edit, move on.

Let’s go through the numbers. A person can type 40 words per minute. That is not difficult. The word processors correct spelling mistakes and such. At 40 words per minute, we have 2,400 words per hour. Write only four hours a day, we have 9,600 words. In eight days, we have a 70,000-word novel. That comes to at least 40 novels in a year. We are just making up stories.

Of course 40 novels a year is silly. No one could … Yes, someone could. A novel a month is silly, but entirely possible.

Perhaps writers in 2026 are, for the most part, lazy.

Let’s drop from novels to short stories. Let’s go for 3,000 words in a short story. Hmm. A couple of hours in one afternoon a week makes a short story a week. Ray Bradbury is quoted, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” Maybe it is possible, but Mr. Bradbury’s words are inspiring.

All this is to say something about what I could be doing and what I am doing. I am still in a full-time paying job. I don’t have the energy at the end of the day to bang out a thousand words an hour. Retirement looms. Maybe I will stop being lazy.

by Dwayne Phillips

I receive about one phone call a week from an actual person. What happened?

I have a cell phone. I still have a landline phone. Several times a day, the landline rings and a nice computer voice tells me about home improvement. These computer voices are becoming nicer. I guess that is an improvement to these unwanted interruptions.

Sometimes an actual person calls me on one of these two phone numbers. That happens about once a week.

Perhaps my memory is lapsing, but it seems that people used to call me on the phone. Relatives called. Soccer teams called. People called. We talked. We decided. We acted.

I guess text messages replaced conversations. Wait a minute—I don’t receive text messages from actual people, either. Hmm. It must be email? Nope. Nothing there, either.

I don’t know what happened. No one calls me. No one wants to talk to me or engage me or anything. At least the folks at the coffee shops recognize me when I walk in.

by Dwayne Phillips

Technology changes. Practice changes with the technology. Nothing new here, but it requires me to change. Aargh. Sometimes I don’t like that.

There was a time when Xerox machines didn’t work as well as they do now. I guess I should call them copy machines instead of Xerox machines. There was a time when Xerox dominated the market so much that we… I digress. Times change.

Back in that time, editors put editing marks on manuscripts with blue pencils. The copy machines of the day didn’t “see” the faint blue and didn’t reproduce the blue edits on the copies. This failure to reproduce blue extended to blue ink and signatures.

Therefore, we signed documents in black ink only. Black ink was sure to be reproduced by the copy machines.

Along came high-quality, low-price 300 dot-per-inch and 600 dot-per-inch scanners and printers. It was easy to cut out a person’s signature in black ink, tape it onto a piece of paper, scan it, print it, and viola’. We had faked approval of a document.

Therefore, we signed documents in blue ink only. The scanners and printers worked only in black and white. Blue ink prevented fake signatures on documents.

Along came high-quality, low-price color scanners and printers. We could fake signatures on documents in any color.

Therefore, we did some clever digital signature with clever digital technologies with hash codes and such that kept unique things unique.

All these changes in technology and practice occurred in my time working in offices during one generation.

Now we have technology so that the first question anyone asks when they read what I write is, “Did you write that or did AI write that?”

Somehow I have to prove that you can’t blame AI for the gibberish that appears on the screen or page. It is all my fault.

All this to say, I have to change how I do things as technology changes. What am I do to with a box full of blue pencils? What color ink am I supposed to use this week? Do you want to see the drawers full of pens and pencils in my house? Someone help me.

Change. It happens.