Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Thoughts on writing and publishing a non-fiction book. This book strongly recommends having a plan for the business and a plan for the book’s content. I recently finished “Hungry Authors” by Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry, Rowan and Littlefield, 2024. I like the book. It focuses on knowing why you are writing […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Maybe one day I will know what “any good at it” means when applied to writing. I heard the title used as a line in a movie recently. Yet another young, earnest person was confessing to an acquaintance about how they spent their idle time. They wrote. They were trying to write […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We can have too many people in the room to discuss something. We can also become locked in an inner circle where no one else understands what we are doing. There should be a balance. There are too many people in the room: Twenty people (pick a number) is too many. There […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It is easy to use vocabulary that is popular at this moment. It is a bit more difficult to explain the situation in plain English. That exercise, however, is often well worth the effort. Here is some popular vocabulary in the endeavor of software development: It’s nice to toss out one or […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have a concept, an idea, just the right thing. Now “all I have to do” is put it into words. I have a great idea. Here, you write it up and we’ll share the money.—Many a person who thinks they are a great thinker. A famous author (I can’t think of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Many people struggle to find that elusive “time to write.” Others struggle to find to do anything else but write. Some people try in vain to find that elusive “time to write.” Something else is always in the way. This happens; that happens, and the time to write is not there. Fatigue […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We want AI systems to act like us. Or do we? Perhaps we want AI systems to act like some of us. But who is “us” and who is “not us?” Testing shows that the latest and greatest large language models will generate bad information about political campaigns. That is wrong; those […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Large Language Models appear to have all sorts of problems. I wonder why companies that build such don’t hire adults to help build them. I recently learned that large language models (LLMs) have “sleeper agents” in them. Given some inputs, the LLM starts doing crazy things that it shouldn’t do. Gosh. LLMs […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We have yet another problem with machine learning. This one, however, has an easy solution. Several years ago I wrote of a fundamental problem with machine learning. I guess we have yet another problem being called “poisoned” machine learning. With poisoning, someone knows that I am about to “learn the machine” something […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In which I consider what is the ultimate purchase for the home, family, and home business: the table. Consider the humble flat horizontal surface. Narrow the consideration to the kitchen table with four chairs. A quick search shows plenty of choices from $100 on up. Let’s settle for $150. A family eats […]

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