Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Binary decisions – choose either A or B, nothing else – can be difficult. Tossing a coin, but not looking at it, is a useful technique. I learned this technique a few years ago at a conference. You are confronted with a decision with two choices: A or B. You are uncertain […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I receive a Fiskars tool for cutting open those annoying plastic packages. I often find that the best Christmas gifts of my life are (1) unexpected and (2) inexpensive. Such happened this year. The photo here shows such a gift from this year. It is a cutting tools from Fiskars. It cuts […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Looking for design ideas? Visit a Starbucks once a week. I love to look a new designs. Designs are plans for solutions or solutions themselves. One of the reasons I loved walking a thousand miles down a road was that I saw how people solved problems with buildings, pastures, fences, vehicles, and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips One of the differences between hardware and software is that hardware requires some design before building begins. Software, however, can begin at any moment without design. I was a bit surprised the other day at work, but people were debating the differences between building hardware and “building” software. (I guess that is […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I reminisce about tracing paper. When I was a kid, I would trace things. Now that I think about it, I recall tracing some things when I was in graduate school working on a PhD. Whoa. Anyways, I would trace things. These things were for school projects most of the time, but […]

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by Dwayne Phillips How specific should a system specification be? How many resources should the spec consume? I propose a measure to help answer these questions – the Return on Specification Investment. A few years ago, I was reviewing a specification for a system that someone in the office had written. I came to one […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes I am stuck for a word while writing. Experience has taught me to put “thing” in the blank and move on. The right word will come later. There we were, writing a proposal. Three of us were gathered around the keyboard, one typing the words, the other two contributing the words. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We don’t accept every new gadget that comes from the mind of an engineer. New uses need to be demonstrated for new technologies to take hold. Either that or new generations come along with different values. New technology comes every day. We immediately accept it into our lives without a thought of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Frenzied paralysis – so many things in my mind that I cannot do any of them. I make a list to clear my mind and move from paralysis to action. I can’t think. Well, that’s not true. I guess the problem is that I am thinking too much. Well, that is not […]

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by Dwayne Phillips People should use the systems they build. If they don’t who will? A new concept in the military – Optionally Piloted Vehicles – once again raises the issue of using your own systems. “Eat your own dog food.” This is an old saying in computer terms – are computers old enough to […]

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