Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips There is much good in the act of sitting down with another person and explaining to them what I think I am doing. It isn’t always easy to explain to another person what I am about to do. It is, however, a good use of time. That act usually shows me what […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The flat, horizontal surface is a natural. Home architects know their value. The designers of automobile interiors, however, seem to be living on another planet. In automobiles, the dash (the area above the displays) is curved and sloped. Flat surfaces don’t exist. So where do I set something that I want to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Are we spending time in gold mines or coal mines? Of course we want to be in gold mines. Untold riches. Right? Consider a few things. Gold Mine resource: Now and then we find a nugget of gold that is valuable almost beyond measure. Most of the time, most of the days, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we skim the surface to gather an overview. Sometimes we dive in deep to discover the details. I like an overview. I like the nitty gritty details. Which do we like? On which day? For me, the overview is easier. I learn the general idea. I tell people that “all I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We disdain the review of fundamentals. We disdain fundamentals. We disdain review. I forget why. Why do we hate it when someone says, “Let’s go back to fundamentals.” Like, “Let’s review some basics of grammar and punctuation.” Why do we struggle to say, “Let’s review…anything.” I forget why. Oh, wait. That’s it. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Please talk concepts, name product names. There used to be comedy routines back in the 1970s (yes, I am that old) that made fun of daytime soap operas. (For you younger folks, don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything as almost everything on television these days is a soap opera.) Anyways, the comedians […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There are persons and things that we don’t notice much, but who keep everything working and everyone smiling. Please notice and appreciate. lip: noun, the edge of a hollow container or an opening. “drawing her finger around the lip of the cup” Behold the wonder of the lip, that protruding edge that […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I don’t like the metaphor of the software “stack,” never have. Here is one explanation why. I wrote some software on a recent Saturday afternoon. I used Google’s Colaboratory, Jupyter Notebooks, Python, String libraries, Regular Expressions, HTML, and a few other things. I think folks call that a “software stack” these days. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Logarithms help represent large and complex items with smaller and simpler concepts. We forget this at our peril. I used a slide rule in years gone past. It functions on logarithms. These take large numbers and represent them with small numbers. It really is a remarkable concept. The logarithm concept has been […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It can be a sobering question, but one that we should address. Person A: Do you want to hire a scientist or a technician? Person B: A scientist, of course. Person A: But the job description lists a lot of tools, software and otherwise. Person B: Yes, of course. The person needs […]

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