Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Much of the jargon we use doesn’t make sense. If we didn’t use the nonsense, no one would understand us.

We use jargon. I work in computers, and we are one of the worst offenders of jargon in communication. The jargon is nonsense. If I used real words, however, no one would understand me.

Consider: do you have your computing in the cloud or on premise?

First, we consider cloud computing. Cloud?

Cloud: noun, a visible mass of condensed water vapor floating in the atmosphere, typically high above the ground. OR a state or cause of gloom, suspicion, trouble, or worry.

What is the relation between computers in a data center hundred of miles away and condensed water vapor floating in the atmosphere? I have sought that relation for years and don’t have a clue. And then there is the dark cloud of gloom, suspicion, trouble, or worry. Calling a data center a cloud is closer to gloom, suspicion, trouble, or worry than anything else.

Second, we consider computers on premise.

Premise: noun, a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion.

People mean premises.

Premises: noun, a house or building, together with its land and outbuildings, occupied by a business or considered in an official context.

For some reason we drop the “s” at the end of the word as we want to save one byte of storage or something.

Cloud, premise: two simple yet common forms of nonsense. Yet we repeat the nonsense. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

I can introduce problems by asking others to consider a specific example. Often, a general example works better.

Years ago, author and consultant Jerry Weinberg was leading a session on how to lead sessions. Jerry began with, “feel the sand between your toes on the exotic beach with the surf gently sounding in your ears.”

Then Jerry asked us to open our eyes and see the pained expression on the face of one of the women in the session. Jerry knew that she hated sand. Sand between the toes was torture.

Years later, I was at a session hosted by one of America’s highest-esteemed universities. The leader of the session provided a specific example of an analysis situation and asked that we work towards a solution. Two hours later, some participants were arguing the fine points of analysis and such instead of considering the point of the exercise.

These were cases where a specific example ruined things. People focused on the specifics of sand and analysis instead of on solving problems.

A better technique would be to speak in general terms such as:

Imagine the best place you want to be…

Imagine the mess you have and how a group of strangers might fix it…

Specific is good in most cases. Specific is bad when it can lead people off the tracks into endless arguments. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

This is a practice I recommend for non-fiction writing—especially writing where the writer is attempting to teach good practices.

I have written books and dozens of articles and other things recommending good practices. If you want to accomplish such and such, do this and that and the other thing.

And then I try to toss in the title of this blog post. Yeah, but. Okay, smart guy, if you have all the answers, what about? And there are lots of things I can always list that fit in the what-about category. If I am so smart, why doesn’t my advice work all the time? Why doesn’t my advice work even half the time?

It is at this moment where I try to admit in my writing that my advice, while well meaning and pretty good, flops many times. I don’t have all the answers; I don’t have the answers to many, many questions. No one’s advice has all the answers. There are too many persons involved with too many goals and wishes and dreams and hidden gripes.

I find it worth the time and space on a page to attempt to address the yeah, but statement.

For example, if asking yeah but is such a good practice, why haven’t I asked yeah but about the advice given in this blog post? Well, here it is. Ask yeah, but all the time. Even when the advice is to ask yeah, but. That question fails often. There are occasions when asking it is a waste of time. There are occasions when I should just say it, write it, and do it now!

The building is on fire. Leave now! No debate about yeah, but.

People have spent too much time reading my advice already. No more patience to read my yeah, but section.

Asking yeah, but about a post on yeah, but is too much meta questioning.

There. I cleared the air. I still recommend asking yeah, but…even when the topic is yeah, but.

I trust all this yeah, but hasn’t been too confusing. Yeah, but it is worth it perhaps.

by Dwayne Phillips

Are we spending too much time and effort on making AI systems “safe?” Perhaps we should allow adults to be adults and move on.

Consider an LLM or whatever that creates text promoting:

• fill-in-the-blank with your least favorite group of people ever
• fill-in-the-blank with your least favorite philosophy ever

Those people, those philosophies are horrible!

Okay, are you an adult? If so, you can easily reject those horrible people and philosophies. If those people and philosophies are horrible, other adults will reject them as well. If some adults accept those horrible people and philosophies, they will suffer and who wants to be like them?

There is some merit to preventing some adults from seeing, hearing, reading, etc. some philosophies. For everyone else, however, adults can be adults and decide as adults.

I am writing about adults, not children. That is another topic for another day of writing.
All the efforts to make “AI safe,” i.e., not ever ever show horrible people and philosophies, are they worth the effort? And “horrible” is a subjective term with a definition that changes.

I recommend adulthood for adults. And I am sure I could find examples where that recommendation didn’t work well.

by Dwayne Phillips

The first rule of consulting involves how much improvement a consultant can suggest at a time. Recent news highlights this rule and the peril caused by ignoring it.

There is an unwritten rule among smart consultants that you only suggest things that improve a situation by about 10%—no more.

If you suggest something simple that will increase productivity by 50%, you have embarrassed the current persons because they are managing a grossly ineffective and inefficient operation, i.e., they are ineffective and inefficient managers.

Mr. Musk et al are basically consultants trying to improve operations in the Executive Branch of our Federal government. These consultants, however, are breaking the unwritten rule and suggesting improvements that are so simple and effective as to embarrass the current operations persons. Hence, loud cries of angst are present.

Mr. Musk is new to consulting endeavors. He is accustomed to owning businesses wherein he directs, not consults. Perhaps he will learn in time to be more effective—perhaps not.

by Dwayne Phillips

Here is a suggestion to those folks who can make these augmented reality (AR) glasses that would help me as a writer and reader.

Last year I provided the world with a suggestion for a pencil that would link to a spelling checker and AI. And here is another AI-related suggestion for those folks who are making AR glasses.

I face a piece of writing: that could be text on a computer screen or a book or a piece of paper (even something written by hand and even in that ancient font known as cursive).

The AR glasses “see” the writing (that is a pretty good AI trick, but not all).

The AR glasses use the cloud or some other form of magic to recommend, summarize, suggest changes, translate, and all those things these chattering bots do these days. Those things appear in my view on my AR glasses.

Viola’. A miracle. Well, maybe not a miracle, but I would find this useful and helpful. Okay folks, get to it.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes some person has a significant achievement, but the resources weren’t approved, so it was all quite embarrassing.

This is a true story that occurred in the last century. A person at work had a neighbor who worked at a different government agency. The other agency had a colossal failure with some data recordings. The recordings were ruined as was all the data collected from the field in a year. A year wasted!

The person who worked at my agency told his neighbor to give him a recording. He brought the recording in to work (not allowed) and worked on recovering the data from it. He invented a method to recover the data from the ruined recordings. The neighbor gave him all the recordings from the year, he recovered all the data from a year’s worth of ruined recordings, and saved the other agency a year’s budget. Wow! Amazing! SIGNIFICANT!

Months later, a memorandum of thanks appeared on the desk of our agency’s director. It was personally from the director of the agency whose data had been rescued.

What was this? What rescue? What recovery? Who did this? What? Where? How? How much did it cost?

A month or two of digging, and the culprit was found. Someone performed unauthorized work for another agency and sneaked data in and out of a building (another unauthorized no no).

Yet, the director of our agency was lauded for great work. Well, you cannot refuse such adoration and thanks. You cannot fire and jail a hero. And you cannot reward such an unauthorized hero. If the word gets out, everyone will try to do good regardless of authorization and we just can’t have that. After all, there are legal restrictions.

I could tell several other stories of significant achievements that were, nonetheless, quite embarrassing. You can’t fire heroes. You can’t reward unauthorized heroes too visibly.

At this point, I am supposed to provide some lessons learned and words of wisdom. After all these years, I am still stumped. Sometimes persons achieve something significant that embarrasses many other persons. That’s life, and us smart folks shrug.

by Dwayne Phillips

I find it good to be specific. There are, however, times when being specific limits thinking, and that is not good.

Precise, concrete, and specific: three concepts that are good for writing and communication. I try to remember these things that were burned into me in my first semester of college way back when we wrote on cave walls with rocks.

There are, however, times when being specific limits thinking, and that is not good.

• Focus on the topic at hand.
• No distractions.
• List specifically the traits of the person we want to hire!

The bullets can go on and on. Consider the last one. Let’s be specific about who we want to hire! Wait. What about other traits? What about other types of persons? What about completely different roles of a new person?

Focus. Be specific. But, what about this, that, and the other thing? What about taking a few moments to NOT be specific? What about taking a few moments to think?

Create an amount of time to think out of focus and be ambiguous. Set a timer if that helps. Create time for thinking. Think. Think of all sorts of crazy things. Scribble them on the white board or wall or computer screen. When the timer dings, go back to the specific.

Go back to the specific after thinking. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

We store more information on computers. And we FIND it all.

Back in ’07 (2007 for those who don’t know an old old way of writing the dates in the first decade of a century), I had a conversation with a senior manager of a government agency. Like 98.6% of senior managers, he was not aware of a major yet simple change happening in front of him.

“Yes, we can remember everything,” I told him.

New things were happening: Web 2.0, blogs, wikis, Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and ever less expensive computer hardware and networks. And ever more folks willing to type a few words and do some copying and pasting.

And along with all this stuff was the idea of search. Searching changed from searching to FINDING. Knowledge was right in front of us. Finding was practical. We could remember and recall everything.

Old news. Today, however, multiply that finding by 1,000 or 1,000 times 1,000 times whatever. Events of January and February 2025 show that some folks who can write a few lines of code can have the computer crawl through a computer network and highlight where money was spent. The famous cases show where the taxpayers’ money was spent. Yikes! And senior government agency managers are still clueless about such. Yes, folks can FIND where folks spend money.

We can remember everything. Sometimes that is embarrassing to some persons. Often, however, it is enlightening. We can remember everything. Let’s do so and use what we remember.

by Dwayne Phillips

Every generation seems to have its magic technology just about to burst on the scene and doing something wonderful and financially rewarding. Most of the time, nothing happens.

Back in the early years of this century, carbon nanotubes were the thing to discuss. We were to build computers thinner than a piece of paper. One excited engineer told a seminar that she was nervous every time someone handed her a piece of paper as she wasn’t sure what electronics were hidden inside that piece of paper. Carbon nanotubes where thinner than the carbon trace left on paper after writing with a pencil. Why, who knew what would happen in the next ten years.

Some of us had a pretty good guess about what would happen: nothing. And time showed that we were correct. Yes, some researchers are still researching carbon nanotubes and some researchers are actually doing a few real things with them. Still, the marketers ruined the topic by hyperventilating over it and hoping they would receive huge commissions on the sales of pretty much nothing.

Not many younger engineers today remember carbon nanotubes. That hype came and went 20 years ago.

Now, artificial general intelligence is right around the corner. Here is my prediction: it will be like carbon nanotubes. Great marketing material, but not really anything real.

Sorry, most of the time nothing happens. That is a general principle of general principles or general systems thinking or something that is almost universally true.

Pessimism? Realism? Wisdom borne of age? Or am I just a bit lazy? We can do better in the combination of science, engineering, and marketing. Let’s do better.