Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Some people work on big data. The rest of us find value by working on data that is bigger than we can understand without some hand-crafted tools. For about two years I worked on a BIG DATA project. Well, that is how it was touted. BIG DATA was a cool name that […]

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by Dwayne Phillips What type of person are you trying to hire? The questions you ask answer this question. Please listen to yourself. Do you want a scientist or a technician or a clerk? Technicians and clerks are easy to find. Ask what tools they’ve used. Finding a scientist or analyst or other thinker … […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Good tests and experiments provide useful information. Sometimes the information isn’t what we want to hear, but we need to keep the two separate. In France recently, tests were performed to learn if roadways could generate electrical energy from the sun. They learned that roadways were not a good place for solar […]

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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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by Dwayne Phillips It is just a “figure of speech,” but perhaps we would understand better if we used the correct words in the field of artificial intelligence. Here is yet another article about “building” a neural network. It is a good article that explain neural networks well. It shows some sample source code to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The frustrating circle of measuring measuring. The most difficult photograph to take is of my camera. I need another camera to take a photograph of my camera. I don’t want a poor-quality photograph of my camera, so I need a second camera that is just as good or better than my camera. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Once again, we observe that physics—notably gravity—wins. Sometimes I venture outside the suburbs of Federal Virginia go into “downtown” Washington D.C. I see them, those funny-colored little skateboards with handles. These are the eScooters or whatever we choose to call them this week. They have little electric motors and speed pedestrians (I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Computing is amazing. It does not, however, overcome basic physics. The kids and their coach in Thailand were rescued from that cave. One rescuer died in the attempt. Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat? They don’t overcome physics, gravity, water, oxygen, and those other pesky things. Note how we quickly lose control when we venture […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Take great care when everyone agrees about something. Once the world was plagued with the longitude problem. Long-distance sea travel was dangerous and fraught with the great unknown, “where are we?!?!?!?” Everyone agreed on the solution to the longitude problem. Everyone, that is, except the carpenter who solved the problem. For background, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Recent experience with Pluto shows us once again that all the expert ideas about remote things are usually wrong. Sensing something from a distance, a.k.a., remote sensing is difficult. I’ve written about this before. Everyone seems to know this, but that doesn’t stop people from acting as if they are exceptional. I […]

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