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Entries Tagged as 'Computing'

Our New Scapegoat

March 5th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Every now and then we need a new scapegoat, i.e., something that receives the blame for all the faults and mistakes of society. We have one. Ah, the datacenter. It is big, noisy, ugly, and raises my electric and water bills. I hate it. It is the cause of all ills in […]

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Tags: Accountability · Chaos · Computing · Datacenter · Information · Jobs · Technology · Wealth

The Middle Manager and the Entry-Level Employee

March 2nd, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The middle manager has been replaced by the entry-level employee. What? Ah, the bane of 20th century civilization—the middleman. The middleman was the person in the middle who did nothing but pass a product along from the producer to the consumer. The middleman did nothing of value, but took a good 10% […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Jobs · Management

Be Curt … It’s Okay

January 12th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The one great advantage to working with a chatbot. curt: adjective, using or expressed in few words, in a way perceived as rude. Ah, that’s it. That’s what I like about working with a chattering bot: I can be curt and I won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. I was attempting to create a […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Computing · Language · Word

AI Coding of Sorts

January 8th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Software that writes software is quite helpful. Well, maybe sort of not. MIT jumps into the fray and asks a few dozen programmers if AI that writes software is helpful to people who write software. First, the folks at MIT are smart enough to not base a survey piece on a survey […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · People · Programming · Tools

Expert Systems Circa 2025 (or was it 1985?)

November 24th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Expert systems live on after 40 years. Well, sort of. I worked in artificial intelligence research in the mid-1980s. We had an AI boom in that decade. Then a winter and a boom or two since then. Back in 1985, we had “expert systems.” (I am old enough to remember this. I […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Expertise · History · Technology

Let’s Build a Datacenter (With a Little Sense)

October 30th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Everyone is building a big(ger) datacenter. Fine. Let’s use some sense while we are at it. Everyone is building a big(ger) datacenter. If you are going to build one, you must build it bigger than the one across the fence. Louisiana building a $10 Billion datacenter? Mississippi must build a $15 Billion […]

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Tags: Computing · Datacenter · Expertise · Money · Resources · Systems · Technology

The Data Is Stored

September 22nd, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If a computer is used in a system, the data is stored and can be retrieved. This story is making the rounds on the Internet…Tesla was involved in a crash lawsuit. Tesla said, “We don’t have any data.” A hacker found the data in the car. Put this down next to the […]

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Tags: Computing · Data Science · History · Remember · Technology

The AI Crisis

September 11th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Borrowing from The Software Crisis of the 1990s, I declare The AI Crisis. A recent report from MIT claims that 95% of AI projects attempted by well-meaning folks fail. Gosh. That is a pretty high percentage. I remember the software crisis of the late 1980s and all through the 1990s. Reports like […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Design · History · Requirements · Software · Systems · Technology

The Woz Is Now 75

September 1st, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The makers of the first generation of the home computer are passing. I saw recently that Steve Wozniak is now 75 years old. I clearly recall the first time I saw an Apple computer. It was early in 1980. I was still a senior engineering student at LSU. I was in one […]

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Tags: Apple · Computing · History · Technology

The Ukraine/Israel Drone Attacks

August 7th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Short-range drone attacks using low-cost hardware and software. Could we use this stuff for other things? During 2025, most of the world was amazed by a couple of military actions that involved drones. Urkaine destroyed Russian military facilities deep inside Russia. Israel destroyed Iranian facilities deep inside Iran. Both of these operations […]

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Tags: Computing · Drones · Medical · Science · Technology