Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Frenzied paralysis – so many things in my mind that I cannot do any of them. I make a list to clear my mind and move from paralysis to action.

I can’t think. Well, that’s not true. I guess the problem is that I am thinking too much. Well, that is not true, either. I guess the problem is that I am thinking about too many different things. Each second I think about ten different things. Round and round and round and…When will this stop? When will I be able to focus on few enough things so that I can write or read or just get up off the couch and do one constructive thing?

Panting, staring, motionless.

A solution for me:

Make a list.

Make a list? That doesn’t do anything. True, it doesn’t do anything physical, but, for me at least, it does a great thing both mentally and emotionally.

Making a list clears my mind.

All those ten-things-per-second that are jumping in and out of my mind are now on a piece of paper. They are out of my mind. My mind is left with only a few items that I can manage without falling into panting, staring, motionless and other such frenzied paralysis.

All those ten-things-per-second that were jumping in and out of my mind were important. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in my mind. I have not erased them; I have not discarded them. I still have them, but now they are on a piece of paper. I can now work on them one at a time or I can leave them on the paper and later decide that they were not that important.

Every few weeks in my journal I find a list of items. I also read words of relief after the list. Every few days I make a list on a sticky note on my desk. My trash can has many of these crumpled lists with lines scratched through each item.

This technique of clearing my mind by making a list works wonders for me. I can’t say if it will do any good for any other person. I suggest you try it. If it works, please use it. If not, try something else until you find what works for you.

by Dwayne Phillips

We do things that we know won’t work. I don’t understand why.

We do things that we know won’t work. Some examples:

The Polygraph: This machine (the lie-detector machine) doesn’t work. People have beat it for decades. That is why polygraph results are not admissible in court. Still, lots of government and business organizations use the polygraph.

Internet Filters: These are meant to keep people, like those on airplanes, from viewing objectionable material. They don’t work. People take pride in breaking through the filters during the first hour they are used. Yet, lots of people still use Internet filters in libraries, airplanes, restaurants, and such.

Computer Voting Machines: I have voted in several elections where the machines were running Microsoft Windows. Uh, er, I think people have punched security holes in that operating system for years. Still, some people “guarantee” that everything is secure and no one can tamper with the votes.

Secure Online Databases: These aren’t secure. People are involved and people make mistakes. I have lots track of how many times a person has lost a copy of a secure database. Millions of credit card numbers are lost; millions of bank account numbers are lost; millions of health care records are lost.

I could continue with the examples. I don’t know the answer here. Why do we continue to use things that we know don’t work. I could be cynical and claim that someone is out to make money, so they lie about something to make a sale. Maybe people are ignorant, i.e., they don’t know that something has been proven to not work. Maybe there is something happening that hasn’t occurred. to me. Still, it continues.

Perhaps it is an integral part of the human condition.

by Dwayne Phillips

I have known people, including myself, who have nagging problems. They, including myself, have had those problems for years and have never done anything about them. These problems are handy excuses. Perhaps that is why they, including myself, keep them.

I am attending a special event this week. There were a few SNAFUs the first day. I am fortunate to know some hard working, conscientious people who worked extra hard to get me in the door. Some of the people responsible for the SNAFUs were a bit embarrassed and humbly apologetic. Others shrugged their shoulders.

That’s just the way it is around here. We get by anyways.

Backup ten years: I worked in a staff organization that provided equipment and tasking to field personnel. The field personnel cursed the crummy equipment we provided them. Yet, the field operations succeeded over 90% of the time. The field personnel prided themselves on succeeding no matter how fouled up the normal situation.

Backup twenty years. I worked with a group of people for a couple of years. They candidly proclaimed themselves to be managed by the worst group of managers in the entire Federal government. Yet, they succeeded over 90% of the time in their work no matter how fouled up the normal situation. They could do the job despite bad management, and that was a source of pride.

The special event this week, the field personnel of ten years ago, the poorly managed people from 20 years ago – they were all disorganized, plagued by bad equipment, and handicapped by terrible management.

And they didn’t do anything to fix those problems.

Pause for effect here as we absorb that. These groups of people were all pretty smart or they wouldn’t be able to perform well in the face of disorganization. Yet for all their smarts, they wouldn’t correct the fundamental problems that tugged at their pants with a load of needless difficulty.

The disorganization was almost a source of pride.

If these people had corrected the disorganization, they wouldn’t have anything to discuss during coffee breaks. Oooops, they wouldn’t have anything to discuss. Ooops, let’s change all this talk of “they” and “them” to “me.”

I have problems, not disorganization mind you, but other nagging problems. I have had most of those problems since…since I cannot remember when. I haven’t corrected those problems. If I corrected them, I wouldn’t have anything to talk about over coffee. Let’s restate that one:

If I corrected my long-standing, nagging problems, I wouldn’t have any excuses.

I guess most of us do this. We have nagging problems, and those become handy excuses for our mistakes. Perhaps this is a universal condition among us less-than-perfect people.

What to do? Think about it. After a long thought, perhaps we could remove maybe one of those little excuses.

by Dwayne Phillips

People should use the systems they build. If they don’t who will? A new concept in the military – Optionally Piloted Vehicles – once again raises the issue of using your own systems.

“Eat your own dog food.” This is an old saying in computer terms – are computers old enough to have old sayings? But I digress… The concept is that you should use your own products. If you don’t use them, why should anyone else?

Simple examples:

• Microsoft employees should use Microsoft operating systems and MS Office
• Compiler writers should use their own compilers as they write new compilers
• Car makers should drive their own brand of cars
• Public school teachers should send their kids to public schools
• Congress should obey the laws it passes …ooops, maybe this one doesn’t count?

Something I noticed this week – Optionally Piloted Vehicles or OPVs. The concept is pretty simple, and as an engineer, pretty neat. At a point in time, you move all your aircraft to “fly by wire” systems. That is, the controls the pilot moves – the stick, the pedals, the knobs – are connected to an analog-to-digital converter. All analog movements of the controls become digital signals sent to the flight-control computer.

If you can send 1s and 0s to the flight-control computer from the cockpit, you can do the same from a building a thousand miles away.

Hmm,  no need to have a pilot sitting in the cockpit. Let the pilot sit in a safe location. This is not a new concept as the technology for this has existed for a few decades. The problem, no one would buy a ticket to ride a commercial flight if the pilot was not on the plane. If the pilot would not eat his own dog food, why should the passengers?

The Optionally Piloted Vehicles are for the military. Send a helicopter on a suicide mission, but you don’t put any of your pilots at risk. That makes sense, especially if you are a pilot. There are problems with this scheme.

1. Will any passengers ever ride in these aircraft?
2. The aircraft cost a lot of money.
3. Build special-purpose aircraft cheaper instead.
4. What is less expensive, pilots or aircraft?

Asking question 4. brings a lot of problems. Is it ethical to even ask question 4?

Anyways, OPVs are here and are probably here to stay. A conventional aircraft is now a multi-purpose aircraft. It can be used with a pilot on board or with a pilot tucked away safely some place else. The military has more options, and fewer lives are risked. At least fewer lives of the people who have this technology. More lives are risked by people who don’t have this technology. And that leads to another ethical question.

by Dwayne Phillips

An Apple prototype is found in a bar. A stream of events ensue where no one seems to do the right thing. That is too bad.

This story won’t seem to die. A basic timeline:

• Person #1 carries an Apple iPhone prototype out of the facility
• Person #1 loses the prototype in a bar
• Person #2 finds the prototype in the bar
• Person #2 sells the prototype to a Tech Blog
• The Tech Blog disassembles the prototype and blogs all about it
• The Police search the Tech Blog for evidence of a crime

I guess a day in court will come next. I think Person #1 was fired from Apple, but I’m not sure about that one.

I see there are places where everyone involved could have done the right thing, but chose to do something else.

Person #1: I think he made a small mistake – he misplaced his phone. I have misplaced things in my life. That isn’t a crime.

Person #2: He could have tried to find Person #1 and said, “I found your phone. How can I return it to you?” That doesn’t seem to be so hard as I have seen lots of people do this. A little greed entered the picture, and here we go.

Tech Blog: Someone comes to them with an Apple prototype for sale. Okay, they buy it. Then what? How about calling Apple and saying, “We have an iPhone prototype. We think one of your employees misplaced it. We’ve had a good relationship in the past, let’s continue that relationship. We want to return your prototype. How can we do that?” The other option: Don’t buy it. Tell the Person #2 that he should return the prototype to its rightful owner – Apple. Who knows, Apple may give Person #2 a reward. But no, a little greed enters the picture. Tech Blog has an exclusive story on the next iPhone.

Apple: Ooops, misplaced prototype, embarrassment, and so on. Admit it. Don’t fire anyone. Don’t call the Police. Consider all the publicity you received. Consider all the bad publicity you will receive if you call the lawyers and the Police.

Apple’s phone competitors: Apple had some misfortune. Call Apple and commiserate. Don’t “take advantage” of their misfortune.

Perhaps I am too naive for all this. The temptation to gain money and a competitive advantage is great. The desire to be forgiving and do the right thing – well, sometimes that is not so great.

by Dwayne Phillips

I turn a book manuscript into a paperback book with little fuss and no setup fee.

A few years ago I published a book with iUniverse. I enjoyed that experience with in self publishing or publish on demand. The package with iUniverse cost me $200, and I sold enough books to cover that expense. The book was one done for family and friends, so it all worked well.

I recently complete a manuscript of a book on systems engineering. I have put that online for free download as a PDF file. I wanted to have that book in the standard, paperback book form. The 6″x9″ paperback book is just plain handy at times.

For the past six months I have looked at various publish-on-demand sites. I stumbled on FastPencil.com. There are two things I love about FastPencil:

1. no setup fee
2. quick publish an existing PDF book

All I had to do was

• reformat my manuscript to 6″x9″ paper
• convert that to a PDF
• create a FastPencil account
• upload my 6″x9″ PDF
• create a front cover and a back cover
• click the right buttons online

And so now I can buy paperback book copies of my manuscript for $8 in low quantities (including shipping costs). Again, I love that I didn’t have to pay several hundred dollars for setup and that FastPencil would accept a PDF book. A number of publish-on-demand houses limit the number of figures and things like that – no such limits with FastPencil.

Now I have to wait until the ten copies I bought arrive at the house. I’ll report on the quality of the binding, paper, and such at that time.

by Dwayne Phillips

Several weeks into the iPad has me still searching for that one great application.

Now I’ve had the iPad for several weeks. Some observations:

3G or not to be – My model doesn’t have 3G, just WiFi. This is fine for what I want to do, but I recommend a model with 3G. It seems that every time I want to demonstrate something to someone, I have no Internet access.

Weather – The Weather Channel app is excellent.

Battery Life – ten hours of battery life is also excellent. I think I recharge the battery once a week or so.

eBook Reader – the iPad is excellent for reading. It is much better than the iPhone. I read books everyday on the iPad.

Input – I really want the camera connection kit. When can I buy one?

Input – I type with only two fingers. Maybe I should spend the $70 for an external keyboard. Surely someone besides Apple will start selling a cheaper Bluetooth keyboard.

The Great Application – I am still looking for this one. I believe that, in time, one will come along. My wish list:

• handwriting recognition
• a little stylus
• drawing software
• image processing (like Photoshop or, even better, GIMP)
• WiMax – I know, that is 4G, but hey, this is a “wish” list

by Dwayne Phillips

Universities report that cheating is prevalent in computer science classes. A closer look shows me that the universities are cheating the students by teaching them bad work habits.

Computer science enrollment is high this year in universities. Cheating in universities is also on the rise. Universities are proclaiming that the cheating is coming from introductory computer programming classes. Whoa!

Let’s step back and look at all this computer science cheating. Universities have policies about programming projects. The policies state that the student programmers are not to talk to other students and not to look at online resources. The universities catch the cheaters using automated tools that compare the programs among students and also compare the student’s program to source code on the Internet.

So let’s see, cheating is:

1. working with other students
2. finding answers online

I guess I am backwards. Those are two things that I want new computer science students to know how to do. I want new employees who have experience working with other people on problems. I want new employees who can find answers online instead of re-inventing them.

I don’t understand what universities are trying to teach and why they call these good qualities “cheating.” Sure, we want the students to “do their own work” so we can grade them accordingly. Let me try to say it this way:

Doing your own work all by yourself is not a good quality on the job.

What I want are people who can

1. work well with others
2. find answers to tough questions

But how does a university assign grades to students if they don’t do their own work? Two answers:

1. I don’t know.
2. I don’t care.

What I care about are new employees who can work in the real world. I grade on work delivered, not methods. I don’t tolerate stealing, lying, fraud, waste, and abuse. If a person delivers product from a collaboration, they say they delivered from a collaboration. That is ethical. If a person delivers product by finding answers online, they say they delivered by finding answers online. That too is ethical.

Pretending that a student is all by himself in the world is just that – a pretense. I have no interest in pretenses. And, by the way, I have little interest in adults labeling smart kids as “cheaters” when the kids use available resources and admit that is what they did.

by Dwayne Phillips

A recent peek into the world of grad students in engineering and related fields reveals a group of people with a strong desire to work for the benefit of others.

I have been working with grad students on writing. This took many months to arrange, but for the past couple of weeks I have spent a few evenings each week working with grad students in engineering, computer science, and information technology. They are writing their dissertations and dissertation proposals. Most of these grad students are not native English speakers. They do speak English and can write in English. Nevertheless, they struggle with writing about complex technical topics. The native English speakers in these majors also struggle with writing on complex topics. Writing, it seems, is not a highly sought skill in the sciences.

Aside from the consistent woes of writing, one thing impressed me from these tutoring sessions:

These are good people.

I realized this while explaining one of the bad habits that engineers and their cousin scientists have in writing. You see, we are explaining complex topics. We want the reader to understand the topic clearly, so we explain it, then we explain it just a bit more. The extra explanations tend to clutter the writing with too many words, too many phrases, too many sentences, and too many whatever comes next.

All these sleep-inducing extra words stem from a desire to be helpful.

Aha, that was it. A desire to be helpful. I opened my eyes a bit wider and took note of the topics these grad students were studying. They included:

• Help people use the Internet
• Help people maintain their privacy
• Help people survive emergencies

Each of these students could take their dissertation ideas to venture capitalists and probably receive funding. The ideas are good enough to become money-making products. Instead, they are working on these ideas to publish them to the world. These students are good people who are trying to help others. I am glad I met them. I cheer them along as best I can knowing that they have the good of others in their hearts.

That’s not bad for a bunch of emotionless nerds – a stereotypical view of these students that once examined is about as false as a view can be.

by Dwayne Phillips

The title of this post is a telephone number – the way we used to say telephone numbers. Much has changed in telephones, and much of the change is for the better. Still, we have lost a lot of our culture about telephones.

The title of this post is a phone number. When I was a little boy, that was our phone number. For half a dozen decades telephone numbers in the U.S. were made easier to remember by saying a word at the beginning. Taylor meant TAylor with the T A being the numbers 8 2. Hence, TAylor 3 3983 was 823-3983. All that has gone away.

We used to talk a lot about making long distance phone calls. I don’t know if my 21-year-old son knows what a long distance call is. He just flips open his cell phone and dials. He doesn’t dial a “1” in front of the number regardless of where in the U.S. he is calling. All the calls are covered by his phone plan. Long distance? All that has gone away.

I used to buy phone calling cards. I would put minutes on them and use them when calling my wife from motels. I think you can still buy phone calling cards. They are useful from some motels and some pay phones. Almost all that has gone away.

Pay phones? I remember all too well calling people from pay phones. I always had enough change in my pocket to do so. In Louisiana, where I went to high school in the 1970s, you could make a pay phone call for 5 cents. That was at a time when pay phone calls cost 25 cents in most places. All that has gone away.

We used to dial phone numbers. There was a round thing on the face of the phone that we would push around in a circle and wait for it to return to the home position. Sometimes I hear someone use the phrase “dial this number.” All that has gone away.

It isn’t a big headline to declare that telecommunications in America has changed. I guess everyone knows that. What is a small headline is that a large part of American culture has gone away. So the next time you are watching an old movie with some young people, point at those things that have gone away. Tell the young people how we used to live. I think things are better today, but it is helpful to recall all those things that have gone away.