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Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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Entries Tagged as 'Language'

Geo-this and Geo-that

February 5th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I express a bit of angst over the use of “geo.” This post may mean nothing to everyone else in the world, but I have to get it out of my system. I have been overwhelmed with the use of the term geo the past ten years. Just my personal problem, but […]

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Tags: Communication · Language · Vocabulary · Word

Be Curt … It’s Okay

January 12th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The one great advantage to working with a chatbot. curt: adjective, using or expressed in few words, in a way perceived as rude. Ah, that’s it. That’s what I like about working with a chattering bot: I can be curt and I won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. I was attempting to create a […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Computing · Language · Word

The Death of AI $$$

December 29th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips All this $$$ is killing AI. I used to work in AI. That means that I researched things that might allow us to do things that we couldn’t do. I attempted to instruct a computer or, as we used to say, I attempted to write a computer program to do something that […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Language · Money · Technology · Word

Cleverly Deceptive

December 15th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips AI has eaten the world. It is the latest and greatest thing…or is it? I hang around America’s Federal government. There are many new programs in our Federal government to push and pull and take advantage of AI. AI will do wonders. Isn’t it wonderfully wonderful? Sigh. Perhaps I am just too […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Engineering · Language · Mathematics · Systems

Surveillance (or is it testing?)

December 8th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I don’t like surveillance. Why is someone surveilling me? It is sort of like testing a system I built. But are the testers out to get me or help me? I don’t like surveillance. I don’t like the police state. Why is someone surveilling me? I haven’t done anything. What about the […]

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Tags: Alternatives · America · Culture · Drones · Government · Language · Respect · Technology

“Rising Junior:” Yet Another Headache

August 11th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Common usage is incorrect, but, hey, what’s the problem? Yet another headache. My grandson is a “rising junior.” That means, and everyone in America understands this but me, that he is between his sophomore and junior years of high school. (And he’s 6’3″ tall which puts him far above me, but I […]

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Tags: Culture · Education · Knowledge · Language · Meaning · Reading · Writing

An Educated Guess

November 27th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes it is worth the effort to identify the noun and the adjective. This is an educated guess. The word “guess” is a noun. The word “educated” is an adjective. Nouns are usually facts (a tree is a tree). Adjectives are usually chosen by a person and are subjective (what is a […]

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Tags: Clarity · Language · Logic · Reframe · Talk · Thinking · Vocabulary

Engineers and Philosophers

October 5th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is often best to leave the conversations of another profession to those other professionals. I am an engineer. There, got that out of the way. And I have a Doctor of Philosophy or PhD in engineering. I have not idea why they call the degree by that name. Oh well, got […]

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Tags: Communication · Engineering · Expertise · Humility · Language

Nouns and Verbs

September 18th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Back to a basic: write with nouns and verbs. It brings us closer to brevity and clarity. Those are pretty good places to be. I was reminded of this short and powerful writing tip this past week. And yes, it was from Strunk and White. They used the title of the post […]

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Tags: Communication · Information · Language · Review · Word · Writing

BYOD

August 24th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips BYOD or Bring Your Own Data is a big deal. It has been in computing since the start of computing. Nothing new here folks, but it is still important. Everyone is a data scientist (sort of). Everyone works for a data-centric organization (sort of). Data is the new oil (sort of). Data […]

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Tags: Communication · Computing · Data Science · Information · Language · Software · Technology · Word