Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

While the PC dies, home computing continues to thrive.

The PC just died in my in-laws home. Not really, it still works, but my in-laws are moving on and participating in the “death of the PC.” Their Windows XP PC still runs along just fine. They, however, don’t want to have it connected to the Internet as they heard the news about anti-malware support going away. They will continue to use the PC for some family documents. (They are both in the late 70s.)

Now, they need a new computer to connect them to the Internet for some email, Facebook photos of adorable great-grandchildren, and other niceties the Internet brings. Because of space limitations in the guest bedroom, they reduced their choices to a laptop computer and a tablet. A family friend demonstrated the joys of tablets with touchscreen virtual keyboards. My father-in-law, a two-finger typist, found the touchscreen adequate, so they are going to buy a tablet (a thousand choices).

The PC is dead in their home.

Nevertheless, home computing lives on and thrives in their home. Two years ago they got a cable modem with WiFi. That enables descendants, age 14 and up, to bring their tablets and laptops to the house and do what people age 14 and up do while sitting around the house drinking coffee—a Louisiana necessity—and visiting. Hence, even though the PC has died in their home, there is 100 or 1000 times more home computing transpiring than before. Computer companies are selling more hardware and software than before.
Is the PC dead? Yes.
Is home computing dead? No. The opposite is true as it is thriving.

by Dwayne Phillips

Accepting something that is false leads us all into all sorts of trouble.

There is a property in logic that states if you accept something that is false, you can prove anything. For example, if you accept that one equals zero, you can prove anything in math (try it). Recently, I stumbled across one way of stating this:

A false proposition implies the universal class.

The universal class includes everything. If you accept something that is false, everything is true. There are many silly examples. Consider:

• Loud music is good for your hearing IMPLIES cigarette smoking is good for your lungs
• Texting while driving is not distracting IMPLIES alcohol improves your reactions

There are not some not so silly examples. Consider:

• The earth is warmer than it ever has been IMPLIES no amount of money is too much to spend to reduce carbon
• All preventive medicine is beneficial IMPLIES no amount of money is too much to spend on health insurance

You see, now we have left the realm of science and have started meddling in our lives. Such is the nature of logic: it quickly leaves science and moves into everyone’s life and politics.

by Dwayne Phillips

Just about anyone can learn to program a computer. Not many people earn degrees in Computer Science.

I first noticed the above statement in 1978 (yes, I am that old). Students were telling me how they loved to write computer programs. We were taught something called PL/I in those days. Then the students lamented the Computer Science degree. You had to pass through Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics for that degree. What did those things have to do with writing computer programs?

The answer then, as it is now, was “nothing.” The angle of refraction has nothing to do with the evils of the GO TO statement and a hash table. Still, to be a professional in the sciences, you needed to understand science and mathematics. Right? Well, I have to say, “yes” to that question.

So, today, we have people attending “app boot camps.” In the 1990s, we had people with degrees in English “programming” web sites. And this goes on and on with example after example. Bill Gates dropped out of college. Mark Zuckerburg dropped out of college (I think). But the guys who started Google were grad students doing computer science research, so that is at least one counter example.

And what do we do now? We still have the same liking for computer programming and disdain for Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics.

Maybe someone else can provided a good answer; I can’t.

by Dwayne Phillips

I’ve heard people in meetings tell me stuff that was just pure bologna. Then I had to ask myself why I created an environment where people told me bologna instead of the truth.

I once managed a project where an engineer stood in a meeting and explained that a hardware part had been “thermal stressed.” He tried to move on from that statement quickly, but I caught it and intervened.

“Don’t you mean that it burned to a crisp?” I asked.

He admitted that is what he meant.

His statement was pure bologna. It was creative and, for a while at least, humorous.

Later, I felt badly. I was in charge. I created the environment. I was responsible for a situation where people felt the need to make up silly terms instead of telling the truth in a candid manner.

Sometimes it isn’t much fun to be in charge and to create the environment. People tend to slap you in the face, and sometimes that happens in a way that you don’t realize that they just slapped you in the face.

by Dwayne Phillips

Somehow, at some recent point in time, someone tried to change the definition of a technology company.

Blame it on old age, but I am fed up with what the media, in particular the technology media, calls a “Tech Company.”

Headlines tell me that our President (Obama) is meeting with CEOs of tech companies to map national technology strategy or to discuss surveillance of citizens or some such. They then list the heads of Facebook, Yahoo, Google, and the rest of the usual suspects.

So, here I go making enemies of everyone.

Facebook is not a technology company. Mr. Zuckerburg wrote software that allowed friends to message one another without using email. Someone found a way to sell advertising space next to the messages and viola—ga-zillion-aires! That is not technology.

Google, with the exception of a few research projects and recent robotics company purchases, is not a technology company. A couple of grad students experimented with search algorithms, also found a way to sell advertising space, and also became ga-zillion-aires.

Apple is no longer a technology company. Apple is an intellectual property company. They design systems and hire other people to build those systems.

Hewlett-Packard still does some technology. (You try to make a printer head that squirts ink at 600 dots per inch.) It is unfortunate, however, that HP sold off much of its actual technology to other companies, see, for example, Agilent.

Technology involves transforming ideas into physical things. Design and build a machine that operates on the human body in ways that were not imagined ten years ago. Design and build a machine that takes people to Mars safely in seven days. Design and build a flying machine that transports hundreds of people around the world on one gallon of gasoline per person (or how about not using fossil fuels at all?). Those are examples of advanced or high technology.

Facebook? Technology? No, that is advertising.

Okay, now everyone can hate me.

by Dwayne Phillips

There is an old diagram that helps explain what a system does. Sometimes, these old diagrams are lost and need to be found again. Apologies to Google and the Chromecast, but it is a good example to mention.

Me, i.e., old engineer: What is that?

Young Engineer: It is a Google Chromecast.

Me: What is that?

Young Engineer: It is a video streamer.

Me: What does it do?

Young Engineer: It streams video.

Me: I think you already told me that. Let’s try again. Perhaps you could draw a diagram of what it does.

Young Engineer: Why should I draw it. You’re holding it in your hand.

Me: I mean a system diagram.

Young Engineer: What is that?

Me: You draw a circle representing the system. In this case, the circle represents the Chromecast.

Young Engineer: But the Chromecast isn’t round.

Me: The circle represents the Chromecast. There is a difference between the thing and the representation of the thing, but let’s not digress. After you draw a circle, you draw lines coming in and out of the circle representing the inputs and outputs.

Young Engineer: blank stare

Me: The system is then able to transform the inputs to outputs and so on. Simple little diagram that explains the system. In this case the Chromecast.

Young Engineer: Where did you find that?

Me: Find what?

Young Engineer: That type of diagram.

Me: It is old. Really old. I think someone found it scribbled on the wall of a cave or something. Engineers used to draw them all the time with pencil on paper.

Young Engineer: What is that?

Me: What is what?

Young Engineer: Pencil and, and, what was the other part?

Me: blank stare

by Dwayne Phillips

I ache for the people who say “herding cats.” I really ache for the people who work with the people who say “heading cats.”

Almost every week, I hear someone say:

Managing fill-in-the-blank is like herding cats.

Deep sigh and groan.

I ache. How can a person refer to their colleagues as cats? Cats are cute but basically simple animals. Do you really consider your colleagues to be simple, misbehaving animals?

I know, “It’s just a figure of speech. You know what I mean. They know what I mean. It’s all in good fun.”

If you are a manager, you shouldn’t use figures of speech or cliches to describe the people who work with you. They deserve better, and you are responsible to provide better. Such cliches come from lack of thought and lack of care. If you don’t think and you don’t care, get another job.

by Dwayne Phillips

I point back to a classic but little-known work on instructing people how to do something.

Way back in time in the mid-1980s (yes, I am that old), I stumbled onto a book written by Edmond H. Weiss titled How to Write a Usable User Manual. I thought it was a basic book that reiterated what everyone knew. I have now concluded that this little-known book is a work of genius that somehow has been lost to the world.

Weiss shows how to instruct people how to do things. Step 1 followed by step 2 followed by step 3. That is too simple to occupy a book, right? That is too simple because everyone knows how to do that, right?

I wish the answers to those questions were, “yes” but they aren’t. It breaks my heart and hurts my head to daily encounter lousy instructions and unusable user manuals.

Buy this book! Use it. Follow it. Please.

by Dwayne Phillips

A good test provides information—no more and no less.

Let’s take a step back to the fundamentals of engineering and building things. Part of building some thing is to perform some tests on the thing.

Why perform a test? The oft-cited answer is, “to show that the thing works.” Deep sigh.

We test a thing to get information.

Sometimes, a successful test tells us that the thing doesn’t do what we wanted it. That is information. Sometimes, a successful test tells us that the thing does some of what we want but not all of what we want. That is information.

Somehow, this little bit of knowledge about testing has escaped us. Sometimes, we need little reminders.

by Dwayne Phillips

It is SEO backwards: words that draw spam comments like a magnet.

I don’t receive many comments on my blog posts. I receive many more spam comments than real comments—about 100 to 1.

One post I wrote in 2009 draws more spam comments than all the other posts combined. It is titled Adapting and Adaptability. There is something magical or cursed about that title that draws the automatic spam comment generators. If anyone knows the reason, please tell me.