Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips We sometimes are surprised at what some persons will do. We shouldn’t be. A recent story reminds us of an oft-repeated story: people will do that. Yes, even that. The recent story is about how some persons working at Facebook used their inside administrative privileges to “spy” on other persons. There were […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Sorry folks, “the algorithm found the answer that I used” is just another excuse. We choose what to do one way or another. “The computer made me do it!” Well, actually it was the algorithm underlying the software that runs on the computer. Hmmm. Who built the computer? Who created the algorithm? […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips When something does not hold up to rational analysis, any excuse or any reason is as good as another. And when no excuse or reason comes to mind now, we will think of something later. A recent xkcd cartoon had a wonderful punchline, “No, for another reason I’ll think of later.” The […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Writing is tough on any day. Things now are tough for some of us in some ways on some days. Writing is still tough and still possible. Let’s stop kidding ourselves. I have read a dozen blog posts about “writing in tough times.” These are tough times, right? Well, in some ways […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Everything happens for a reason (or two) or perhaps things happen and we create reasons to explain them. Funny how we often work backwards. Something happens and we proclaim, “I knew it would happen. We had this and that and they are reasons for what happened.” Few say these reasons before the […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Technology enables us to fake photos and videos. We can make anyone appear to say and do anything. Preventing such is quite simple. A few months back, I wrote about preventing harm from deep fake videos. That advice was to live in such a way that I could say, “You know me. […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips It is such a good favor when someone shows me one of my mistakes. I recently taught a class where the group walked through a series of instructions I had written. A stroke of brilliance—I rarely claim that, but in this case I do—came to me. I had a half dozen one-dollar […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Customers don’t want long—or any—explanations. Simply tell the customer how we will make the situation right. Another month, another bad experience with customer service. The details are not important. I paid for a service, the provider made a mess of things, I heard dozens of reasons why the situation went wrong. I […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Old adage, but still true. Something about pointing a finger at someone else means you have three fingers pointing at myself. The News Channel (fill in with your favorite news channel that you dislike) reports that corporations are greedy and only want more money. Of course, The News Channel is itself a […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips For some reason (and we have a lot of these reasons), we just let things go when we know better. Yes, that thing doesn’t work right, but you know, we just don’t fix it because… I don’t like fixing things It is someone else’s problem, they broke it or they installed it […]

[Read more →]