by Dwayne Phillips When confronting something that looks odd, show it to an old person. They may have seen this before and can explain it. Many years ago, a programmer saw an odd way to demodulate amplitude modulation. The method didn’t resemble any of the equations or diagrams regarding amplitude modulation (AM, or that radio […]
Entries Tagged as 'History'
Show This to the Old Person
November 18th, 2024 · No Comments
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Clarity · Consulting · Expertise · General Systems Thinking · History · Knowledge · Leadership · Learning
No More, “Maybe I Didn’t Remember Correctly”
September 12th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Given histories on the Internet, the good news is that I can find the correct date and event. The bad news is, I no longer have the excuse that, “Maybe I didn’t remember correctly.” That is just lazy. I am making notes of my life for my children and grandchildren. The sort […]
Tags: Accountability · Childhood · Error · Event · Excuses · History · Internet · Research · Work
Where I Come From, We…
May 13th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips It is easy to use my past as a reason for my behavior. It’s just an excuse. Put it and all other excuses behind and be here and now and better. “You have to understand” (when we hear those words, run and hide quickly) I could keep this list going for a […]
Tags: Accountability · Choose · Excuses · Expectations · Growth · History · Improvement · Influence · Learning
Big Government Overshadowed by Industry
April 25th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips You think the US government is big and spends lots of money? It is now overshadowed by industry—especially in computing. I was an employee of the US Federal government for 28 years. We did big things in computing that cost big dollars. I once worked in a lab where we had four […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Choose · Government · History · Technology
Philosophy and Reality
March 14th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Philosophy and utopia are great until reality punches everything in the nose—philosophically speaking of course. Philosophical discussions are great. They may stretch the mind to see other points of view or possibilities. They may lead to better ways. Philosophy, however, is philosophy and not reality. We need to keep that in mind. […]
Tags: Culture · Experiment · Fable · Greed · History · Ideas · Reality · Technical Debt
Liars (Mean and Otherwise)
November 9th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Once again, the world swings into yet another crisis. Many persons with good intentions intend to reduce the crisis by limiting what other persons can say and write about it. Nothing new here. We used to have silly liars. The National Enquirer is one great example. Hillary Clinton had an alien baby […]
Tags: Ethics · History · Thinking · Trust · Word · Writing
A Sense of Urgency
October 9th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We have tools that multiply our productivity. Every age seems to have such tools. Will we have the sense of urgency to use these tools this time around? From what I can find, the screwdriver was invented in the late 1400s. It was created to, of course, turn screws. The screws were […]
Tags: History · Improvement · Jobs · Purpose · Technology · Urgent · Work
The Data-Centric Organization (At the Grocery Store)
September 14th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we get a bit carried away with this idea of being a data-centric organization or data centricity or data driven or whatever. It seems that everyone wants a data-centric organization (and I don’t like that term because the computer marks it as a misspelled word). We need to have data centricity […]
Tags: Data Science · Decide · History · Management
Data Visualization (A Calendar)
September 7th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Let’s not get carried away with things like “data visualization.” We’ve been looking at data for a long time. I have heard a lot lately about data visualization. This blog post should indicate that I have heard far too much lately about data visualization. The folly hit me recently as we were […]
Tags: Calendar · Communication · Data Science · History · Journal · Knowledge · Technology · Visibility
Things Are the Way the Are
July 27th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Things are the way they are. But why? An old saying explains much of the reason. There is an old but little known saying, “Things are the way they are because they got that way.” Pause to consider. Yes, of course the saying is correct. We are here because everything and everyone […]
Tags: Accountability · General Systems Thinking · History · Learning · Systems