Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Praising the most successful education project in the history of man: the Raspberry Pi. Nobel Prize? Why not?

Two years ago the Raspberry Pi was launched. 2.5 million units later, it is still going. Two years is a long time in technology—a very long time. (Wikipedia has a good article on the Raspberry Pi.)

The idea was simple:

build a programmable computer that any school could afford to buy.

The schools would be able to teach computer programming. The price: $25.

It worked. It has worked better than any education project I can recall. Hooray for the guys who did this. This is Nobel Prize worthy.

by Dwayne Phillips

I build my own little LibraryBox2.

I stumbled across this project recently and, since I am fascinated by libraries and distributing content, decided to try to build one. I am not good at this sort of thing, but why not try it?

It worked! I have my own LibraryBox2 (see photo).

My LibraryBox2 Placed in a Cut Out Book

LibraryBox is an offshoot of the PirateBox project. Jason Griffey, a librarian, used a Kickstarter project to fund the work of extending PirateBox to LibraryBox2. PirateBox allows people to move files up and down to a local server privately. LibraryBox, like a library, allows people to copy files from the local server to their device (anything that runs a browser). The project is described in detail by Make here.

The hardware for the LibraryBox2 is a TP-LINK MR-3020 portable router. As the photo shows, this is about three inches square by an inch thick. Power comes via a USB cable and storage comes from a USB thumb drive.

I bought my TP-LINK from Amazon here for $30. I followed the instructions from the LibraryBox2 website here. 

Two notes not in the directions:

1. Put the mode switch of the TP-LINK in the WISP position.
2. Take care with the USB thumb drive you use.

Item 2. caused me the most frustration and time. I first bought and tried a SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB thumb drive. That device seems to be sensitive to power on/power off cycles and puts itself into a write-protected you-can’t-reformat-this-thing state. That sensitivity is very bad with LibraryBox2 as you power off the TP-LINK by yanking the power chord.

I then tried an old USB thumb drive I found in the corner of a drawer. It didn’t work either. Then somewhere online I found the advice “don’t use an old thumb drive, use a new one.” So I tried a “new one” from my drawer and it worked. I then went to Best Buy and bought a PNY Micro Metal drive (it is that little bump plugged into the TP-LINK in the photo). These really small physical thumb drives are convenient for this application.

Now I have a working LibraryBox2.

What do you do with one of these?

The primary application is when you are in a place like a seminar or meeting where the Internet connection isn’t good. You put all the pertinent files on the thumb drive, turn on the TP-LINK, and everyone present can access the files via WiFi from any device that has WiFi and a browser (smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc.).

One note about support: When I was having problems, I asked questions on the discussion area of the LibraryBox2 website. Answers came back quickly and professionally. The people, and there are only a few people involved, really care about this project succeeding.

by Dwayne Phillips

If possible, assist instead of advise.

I worked in a government bureaucracy for over 25 years. A favorite practice to this day is the review board. Some unlucky and usually young engineer works really hard for weeks and then brings the work before a group of older engineers. The older engineers pick apart the work and send the hapless and demoralized young engineer back to the drawing board.

That is advising. It is characterized by the admonition

You should do…

I often suggested, and always in vain, a different method. After a day of thought, the young engineer stands before the review board and scribbles thoughts on a white board. The older engineers add thoughts and suggestions. And, this is the critical part that never happened in my experience, every older engineer that suggests something also agrees to work with the young engineer on the suggestion.

That is assisting. It is characterized by the words

Let us do…

Here is some advising:

1. You should rewrite your documents
2. You should have an external group of people, who you have never met, agree to do such-and-such
3. You should consult such-and-such a report to learn of new products

Note the use of the word you.

Here is some assisting:

1. I have some sample documents that we can edit for your project
2. I know people in an external group and I’ll introduce you to them and we can speak with them
3. I have a report that we can peruse together to learn of products

Note the use of the word we.

Yes, assisting requires more time and effort than advising. Yes, assisting is much more likely to yield good results. And yes, assisting will eventually accomplish the work using less time and resources.

No, assisting is not likely to happen in your organization either.

by Dwayne Phillips

Focusing for a long period of time is contradictory, but it is possible.

Graduate school in 1983 (yes, I am that old): I had to study a text on a new concept called object-oriented software. I don’t mean read the text, I mean read it, study it, master it. I faced a ten-hour day.

My process:

1. study the text for 50 minutes at the dining-room table
2. sit in the Lazy Boy recliner under the wall clock and close my eyes
3. the clock chimed at the hour (sometimes waking me)
4. back to step 1

This worked. Periods of intense effort, a.k.a., focus followed by periods of rest.

I still use this process in writing. I set a timer for 25 minutes. I put the timer out of sight and write as fast as I can. When the timer rings, I take five minutes to walk about and stretch my back, neck, arms, hands, etc. Using this process, I can write for hours at a rate of at least 1,400 words an hour. (Some people tell me that is an extremely high rate, but given I use this process it seems normal to me.)

by Dwayne Phillips

A description portrays what is now; a prediction estimate what may come. Sometimes we confuse the two at our peril.

Some words are predictions. We use to them to portray our estimate of the future. Few of us are satisfactory as predictors of the future even though most of us think we are.

Some words are descriptions. We use them to portray something as it is now. We are adept at descriptions.

Consider a couple of examples:

1. A temporary structure or a quick-to-assemble-and-dissemble structure
2. A developing country or a poor country

The first part of each example is a prediction, while the second part is a description. It is easy to confuse the two parts of each example.

When we mistake a prediction for a description, we usually base a decision on what we hope will be instead of what is. I believe that someone has already said something like:

Hopes are not plans.

by Dwayne Phillips

I read a classic management text. It is as true today as it was in 1969.

When in college in the mid-1970s (yes, I am that old), an English professor spoke about the Peter Principle. This was a relatively new concept about how people rise to their level of incompetence. Work was accomplished by the many who had not yet reached that level. We chuckled and moved on. We were young and would never perpetuate the mistakes of our ancestors.

The book by Raymond Peter and Laurence Hull goes into much more depth than the once sentence summary given above. It is in the depth that the genius of the principle is found.

Here is a disclaimer or qualification:

I worked in the U.S. Federal government—the biggest hierarchy in the world—for over 25 years.

This book is true! It is a documentary, not a commentary.

I wished I had read the book in 1980. Then again, I would have dismissed it as humor as no one would participate in such nonsense. Well, I participated. In some ways I was able to avoid my level of incompetence by assuming that someone would notice me doing real work and reward me. I was wrong about the reward, but right about how to stay in a work-producing, competent place. Yes, there are some work-producing spots in the Federal government.

While reading, one thought stuck in my mind:

This book was written 45 years ago, but reads as if it were written 45 minutes ago.

Read it. Try to avoid the principle in your workplace.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes smartphones and the like only come in one color. There is more to adding colors than meets the eye.

I used to work for an organization that built little gadgets. Every little gadget came in the same color: black.

One year I worked on a project where I thought I was going to change the color of the gadget. In this case, I was powerless. This gadget ran hot — literally hot. You could boil water on its surface. The black coating pulled the heat from the gadget and radiated it to the atmosphere better than any other color of coating.

It was black for a technical reason.

I don’t work inside the companies that make tablets and smartphones and all of today’s wondrous consumer gadgets. I would like to see them all offered in a rainbow of colors. Perhaps there is a technical reason why they are not.

by Dwayne Phillips

Those people who love you the most, may try hardest to stop you from becoming something you want to become.

I recently read a blog post about how your friends and relatives may try to stop you from becoming a writer.  This is not a surprise, and it does not speak badly of your loved ones.

Consider your loved ones: they love you for who you are now, where you are now. That is admirable.

You walk in the room and announce that you are becoming a writer (butcher, baker, candlestick maker, or fill-in-the-blank). You have told them — these people who love you for who you are — that you are becoming something else, i.e., you are changing.

Your declaration of change is frightening. Will you still be lovable after you change? And the big fear: will you still love them after you change?

I guess at this point I am supposed to have a wonderful conclusion to this. So here goes:

Your loved ones’ resistance to you becoming something is an expression of their love. Take their love and use it to boost your becoming, boost your change. They may not love you as much later, but you can still love them.

by Dwayne Phillips

I am a problem solver. Sometimes, however, solving a problem is the worst thing to do.

This story made the rounds recently about how our military is experimenting with small jolts of electricity to keep sleep-deprived troops awake. The electricity might have fewer bad side affects than the current treatment — lots of coffee or Jolt Cola or Red Bull or that Five Hour drink thing.

Then again, the military might try to eliminate the problem of sleep-deprived soldiers. I mean, why are we depriving our troops of needed sleep? Surely, better management of resources could, well, you know, allow them to sleep as needed.

I go back to a morning conversation many years ago. A colleague’s father was once a cook in the Army (back to our military, see a trend here?). His troops were spending lots of time and cleaning products removing spilled sugar at the coffee station from the mess hall along with killing the pests that the sugar attracted. My colleague’s father threw away the sugar at the coffee station. No one spent any more resources cleaning spilled sugar or chasing pests.

He eliminated the problem vice solving it.

As in the case of sleep-deprived soldiers, eliminating problems requires innovation by managers. And that, is rare.

by Dwayne Phillips

Writers need not be afraid to take a chance in their writing. Criticism first requires something that most of us writers lack.

Writers are insecure. Well, I read that a lot on the Internet. We don’t write this or that because we are afraid of being criticized for writing something like that.

I offer this one bit of hope:

security via obscurity

This little phrase is often used to comfort all of us on the Internet. No one will hack into my email account because I am only one of a billion people using Internet. I am not rich or famous or anything worthy of attention. I amobscure, so no one will bother me.

I apply this phrase to writers.

To be criticized for what you write, someone has to read it.

And, take it from me, the odds on anyone reading what we write is very, very small. The vast majority of us who write are obscure. Sure, J.K. Rowling will be criticized for her next book and hundreds of major reviewers will join in the criticism.

Me? No one will criticize my next book because maybe a hundred people will read parts of it, and none of them are major reviewers.

Take a chance. Write that poem or story or novel or book about that topic that you aren’t supposed to write. Any criticism will come from people who read it. If you are afraid your mother will read it, don’t give her a free copy. If she buys a copy and criticizes you, soothe your conscience by holding the royalties in your hand.