Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

You would think by now that we would have straightened out all this mess with computers not quite working right. Sigh. Maybe one day.

Over 30 years ago, (yes, I am that old) I was loading software onto a computer via 5 1/4″ floppy disks (yes, I am that old) and… kaput. The software didn’t work.

“Ah,” said an older man looking on with disgust, “you are trying to run version 2.017 on version 1.89 and that doodad isn’t compatible with the thingabob. You need to reverse to last week’s version and match it with next month’s version and …”

On he went in derision. The computer wasn’t working right. The versions were backwards incompatible or some explanation that sounded more professional than doodad and thingabob. The result was the same.

Just this past week… The same thing. Load this, load that, twiddle this and that, hope it worked… it didn’t. The problems were on several different systems attempting to do wildly different things.

“Well,” I can hear someone chime in, “you should be using the triple-B system as that overcomes these incompatibilities and it has all been settled and … “

Yes, the triple-B system or whatever we have now is a bit better that this and that, but it too has its foibles when paired with something that is more than 32 hours old and…

You would think by now that we had this all worked out and some of this new AI stuff would patch it up or settle it down or move it just a little bit this way or that way like hanging a painting on a wall. Sigh.

Maybe one day these things will work. Still, on that day, someone will create something newer and wonderful-er that will not work with last week’s wonderfulness and we will have to…

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we fight against something with all our might only to discover that are foe is ourselves and what we do everyday.

As I write this, there is a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Note, I am not in Hollywood writing this as a writer who is on a writer’s strike. Now that I have cleared that up, let me continue.

One of the central issues in the writer’s strike and in all lines of work in Hollywood is the work that AI software can do. This new software, with a little help from real intelligence from people, can write scripts for jingles and commercials and TV episodes and even full-length movies. Then this new software can create the appearance of human actors with just the right look and just the right voice and just the right wardrobe. And the the software can create the sets out of thin air. And then the new software puts all this stuff it created onto a video ready for distribution to the world for entertainment. And, by the way, those who are entertained give money to those who created the entertainment.

The folks in the entertainment business are upset that new software will create things that don’t exist for our entertainment.

Oh, uh, er, wait a minute. “Create things that don’t exist for our entertainment.” Hasn’t Hollywood been doing that for a hundred years or so? Didn’t Shakespeare do that? Didn’t the court jesters do that 5,000 years ago or something or other?

Washing the dishes isn’t entertaining. Seeing someone wash the dishes on a star ship while battling bad guys with light sabres on a 50-foot screen with Dolby stereo sound blasters with a thousand dancers in flashy costumes… now THAT IS ENTERTAINING. It doesn’t really exist, and that is why it is entertaining.

What is wrong with those Hollywood folks? Don’t they realize they are fighting against what they do?

Those of us who program computers are programming computers to program themselves so that those who use computers won’t have to talk to those who program computers because the folks who program computers are difficult and nerdy and … are us. Wait a minute.

Those of us who write news stories belittle those in power who make lots of mistakes that make life difficult for us and who should be replaced by people who don’t make mistakes so that we won’t have any news stories to write that belittle those in power and … Wait a minute. If our stories came true, we wouldn’t have a job.

I could continue with silly examples of how silly we often act. We can be fighting ourselves and what we do everyday.

Solution? Think. Examine our words and actions. We can all do better. Let’s try.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we attribute things we don’t like to things we don’t like. It’s easier that way, even though it isn’t reality.

Well, here we have it: AI is replacing people. We can read it in the newspaper. Plain and simple. I link to one newspaper article. I could link to a dozen more. Sigh. Newspapers used to have editors. I guess newspapers still have people called “editors,” but they don’t seem to do their jobs any more.

All this AI chatter-this and chatter-that stuff does not and will not replace people. People replace other people with new tools that are less costly.

Yes, I am writing that, “AI doesn’t replace people; people replace people.” (Readers can wince in pain at such a trite statement that mirrors other statements in the press.)

People in positions who have the authority to fire and hire other people are firing other people. Why? Because there are new tools that will do the jobs of those other people at lower cost.

When word processing computers and software became widespread, secretaries lost their jobs. Everyone was supposed to do their own typing. The new tools enabled that. Expectations changed, and so did jobs. Secretaries became Office Coordinator, Executive Assistant, Office Manager, and Administrative Professional, or something or other.

Now we have software that can “write” short, basic memos, emails, etc. Why pay a person to do that when software does it at a lower cost?

Well, there are many reasons to pay a person to do that. Still, some persons don’t agree with those reasons, so they replace persons with software.

AI didn’t replace the person—the boss replaced the person.

That sounds mean to blame the boss. Let’s blame some thing, especially some thing that we already don’t like, like “AI.”

by Dwayne Phillips

This is another fundamental of written communications that we seem to have forgotten—the humble abbreviation.

Let’s abbreviate:

1. Jn: John
2. DevSecOps: Development, Security, Operations
3. &: and
4. etc: and other similar things
5. USA: United States of America or United States Army or …

The last item in the list is confusing, but given the context we always know what that means, right? Sorry, we don’t.

I contend that we should not use abbreviations any longer. 98.6% of the abbreviations we use today are not worth the trouble.

An abbreviation is to be used in a case where we don’t have enough space to type the full word(s).

That is a controversial statement. In the days of computers (that’s us, right?) with word processors and “powerpoints” and all this wrap around text automatically and easily scaled font sizes and such (gosh, a lot of things to help us), we have plenty of space.

Why do most of us abbreviate so much? We don’t want to type the words. “USA” is much easier to type than “United States of America.” It is so much work to type those four words instead of those three letters.

Again, all this computer writing stuff makes it easy to type the four words. Just type USA everywhere. Then use the find-and-replace software to … well, you know, find the abbreviation and replace it with the words.

Confusion gone. Extra work gone. A little more clarity restored. A little more clarity is a good think. At least I think so.

I think it is worth the effort. Let’s lessen our use of abbreviations. We have the space for the full words.

by Dwayne Phillips

We predict the future poorly. We know we do. What we don’t seem to realize is how often we predict the future.

We predict the future poorly. Very poorly. Very, very poorly. Which among us predicted ChatGPT would arrive? And then become that fastest adopted system ever? I am waiting. Okay, I didn’t predict it. Who predicted that a virus from China would allow many of us to work from home, forever? Not me.

Sigh, if predicting the future was easy… well, I don’t know what that would mean.

Another problem with predicting the future is that we still try to do it—often.

“This is a temporary measure.” That’s a prediction of the future.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Another prediction of the future. We get that one right most of the time.

How about rephrasing these things.

“I think and hope we only have to do this a little while. Things will change, and we won’t have to do this any longer.”

“If all goes well, I’ll be back here tomorrow and so will you.”

Wait, do we have to do those things? Must we be so literal? No, we don’t. Life is already too complex to toss in all these caveats to what we say.

Still, let’s consider what we are doing. Let’s realize when we are predicting the future and remember how poorly we predict the future.

Is the future we are predicting costly? Some temporary structures cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. Being back here tomorrow to see you again costs just about nothing.

Are our predictions of the future merely hopes and dreams? Remember that “hope is not a plan” or something like that.

Are we merely too busy and tired to do anything but (poorly) predict the future? My experience is that “busy-ness” and fatigue are the reasons most of the time.

Yikes. I am too busy and too tired to think. My response is to predict the future. I don’t predict the future well. I predict the future poorly. Back to where I started.

Here is a prediction: I will continue to predict the future (poorly).

I hope that prediction is wrong, too.

by Dwayne Phillips

New problem? Need a new solution. First, try the simplest thing.

It happened again at work the other day. We have a new problem (new day, new problem). We need a new solution. What will we do? Hmmm, there are so many options. Each option with its good things and bad things and … gosh this gets complicated quickly. Let’s make a matrix, hold a conference, maybe a seminar before the conference to learn the latest tools and techniques, then maybe in a few months we can do something that will last for ages and withstand all the slings and arrows that those who hurl slings and arrows can withstand and … have I lost track of where I am in this sentence?

Let’s step back for a second or moment or something. Let’s try something simple. Actually, let’s try one of the simplest things that come to mind.

How about a clipboard with a few pieces of blank paper and a pencil (attached with a string of course so we will always have the pencil ready)?

Don’t want that simple? Okay, how about a Word document or Google Docs thing? Most folks have access to those things. We can share them and collaborate and all that goodness we learned during the work-from-home pandemic. Yes, how about that?

With a simple thing, we can learn a few things about our problem and our “permanent” solution. Hmmm, that sounds ominous—permanent solution. That implies the problem is “permanent.” If we solve the problem, won’t it go away and not be permanent? Perhaps, but I digress.

See, trying a simple or simplest solution allows me to pause and consider the relationships among problem, solution, time, permanence, etc. All the while, I have a solution that helps me do what I am trying to do.

There are many good things about the simplest solution. One, it is quick. Here, I have a solution right now. It is flexible. Here, I have changed my mind and moved to another solution. It is cheap. Here, I already own all the tools and I didn’t spend much time on this.

If we are trying to solve a problem, let’s do the simplest thing first.

by Dwayne Phillips

We live in a world of fake photos, videos, voices, and accounts. Go back to some old country wisdom I heard as a teen.

We can fake videos. We can fake voices. We can fake photograph. We can fake entire people. We can fake fake detectors (Does that make sense? Yes, it does.).

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Someone told me, “Don’t believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.”

Timeless wisdom whose time has come.

by Dwayne Phillips

The experts devise a better way to do things. The rest of us attempt to follow their expert lead. We flop.

Object-oriented programming flopped.

Microservices and serverless computing flopped.

I guess I could think of a few other great ideas that flopped. How about teaching kids to read via that total method or whatever it was called instead of “sound it out” or whatever that was called?

These and most other great ideas came from experts. Those experts are simply smarter than the rest of us, that is how they came to be called “experts.” Experts have great ideas. They use these great expert ideas to do great expert things that astound the rest of us.

Let’s all do it that way!

We spends lots of resources to do it like the experts. Many years later we are all sitting around looking at each other with wrinkled faces and headaches of frustration.

This wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.

What happened? Well, let’s admit it: we weren’t smart enough to do it the way the experts did it. We didn’t draw our object-oriented diagrams correctly. We didn’t architect our systems correctly. We didn’t tell the kids how to think in four or five dimensions correctly. We just didn’t do it right because we just weren’t smart enough or disciplined enough or we just had too many other things to do instead.

Gosh. It seems this would be easier. It seems the experts would create a better way to do things that the rest of us could follow. Now and then that happens. This Internet thing seems to work. These computer typing programs seem to work.

I suppose we have to learn how to pick and choose which expert method fits us—the not-so-expert.

by Dwayne Phillips

Look at the world. Those countries with seemingly unsolvable problems were under communist rule the longest.

This post is a bit different as I delve into some political science and recent world history. It appears that the countries on earth that accepted communism the longest are the biggest messes.

Russia is a mess. The West missed a great opportunity when the Iron Curtain fell. We could have used a new Marshall Plan to help the Russians build a country where rule of law was the case. Instead, we celebrated and turned our backs. The Russians fell into corruption. Steal and sell everything you could. Drink more vodka. Fall into a deeper hole of alcoholism, drugs, and corruption.

Look at Cuba. Talk to folks who have been there and still have relatives there. It is a corrupt place where people live by stealing and selling.

Look at North Korea. Well, we can’t look at North Korea because, well, we just can’t.

Look at China. Prison camps for those who were born on the wrong side of the tracks out west. We became trading partners with China for various reasons, but we didn’t use the opportunities we had for humane reforms.

And so here we are. Perhaps after the Ukraine-Russia war we will do what we should have done in Eastern Europe two generations ago. Perhaps.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some people are using text-generating software to write a book a day. The world changes daily. Some people change while some don’t.

Here is a story about some folks in India(?) who are putting several books a day every day onto online book sellers. The same bunch of folks are writing glowing reviews of those books under different names and accounts. Wow. Someone figured out how to use the latest tools to make money.

And some, like the Washington Post’s editors, are crying foul. These aren’t real books. These are spam books or something bad like that. Someone needs to stop this before … well before something happens.

Note, the writers of the Washington Post are writers who want to earn a living from writing. The people in the news story are earning a living from writing in a different manner than the Washington Post writers. Hence, the Washington Post writers have a conflict of interest in their stories in that someone else has learned how to do their job far more efficiently at a far lower salary.

Nevertheless, these folks in India (we think that is the location) are creating books. One person working one day creates one book. The books are probably pretty good in that they convey information that is correct. There may be some writing hiccups, but “real” books have those as well.

Times have changed. If lower-paid people can use technology to do this type of thing, why pay other people more money to do the same thing. To write books AND make good money, you need to do something special(er).

And that is the point: we don’t use quill pens to write any longer. We use mechanical metal pens to do that. Times changed with pens and some people didn’t change. Times changed when we moved from the typewriter to the computer word processor. Some people didn’t change. Times have changed with writing. Some people are refusing to change. Some of those people want “the government” to take care of them. We shall see if that happens.

Times haven’t changed. To earn money as a creative person (painter, actor, sculptor, WRITER, etc.) a person need to do something special, something that others cannot do. Let’s use the tools at hand and put that extra something special into the product.

Times haven’t changed.