Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes, if you wait a week before writing something, you can write it well and quickly.

Here is a writing technique that works for me. Try it; it may work for you.

I think about something for a week. No great concentration, but thinking now and then, off and on, having conversations with myself in my mind.

Then I sit at the keyboard, and bang it out in an hour. Finished.

This works if I have a week. What if I don’t? I make a week. Sometimes I delay the due date. Sometimes I compress the things I do over a week (think now and then, talk to myself) into a day or an hour. That isn’t easy, but it works for me.

There is something about time. There is something about “mulling it over.” There is something about waiting until a writer is ready before writing. Wait for the right time.

by Dwayne Phillips

Is it a data leak or an information share? Perhaps it is both; perhaps it is for the greater good.

An old question has been asked again several times recently. Several decades ago I read of the non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that the chip makers in Silicon Valley had. Employees signed legal documents stating that if they left this company for another company, they wouldn’t tell the other company how this company made stuff.

For the most part, these NDAs held. People did not reveal the secrets of patents and obvious things.

For the most part, these NDAs didn’t hold. A person on the job, any job, does what they know how to do. They don’t stop and ask themselves, “Hmmm, I learned how to chop tomatoes at the last restaurant, I signed an NDA there, so do I have to act like I don’t know how to chop tomatoes?”

These little odds and ends of knowledge learned elsewhere spill from one employer to the next. One result was that an entire regional industry advanced quickly. The knowledge shared quietly and in small pieces among the companies improved all of them.

I am now working for my fourth company in the last 14 years. I use the knowledge gained from the first three companies while working for the fourth company. Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? I use the knowledge gained from personal study over the last forty years on all of these jobs. Of course I do.

Is that a data leak (a big no no)? Is that information sharing (a big plus to everyone)?

by Dwayne Phillips

A new acronym for each day: what did you learn today?

I have read about a new trend called “quiet quitting” in which persons earn their paycheck (a necessary component) and do not more. They are not climbing the ladder or whatever we call is these days. They work hard and then stop working.

What do you do with the rest of the day and its precious resources?

Learn.

Yes, learn. Grow. Do something more that may come in handy one day. Hence, I have a new acronym to go along with WDYWT (what did you write today, a form of learning). What did you learn today?

Take a few of your newfound moments (remember, you earned your paycheck by working, now you have a few moments), recall the day, and jot down what you learned today. Write it on a sticky note and stick it on the door or the wall or the sliding glass door. Soon that thing will be covered with new learnings. This is great stuff or it can be great stuff.

by Dwayne Phillips

Most tasks provide us with something and information. Often the information is more important than the something. Often the information is something we already know. If that is the case, skip the task.

Testing is a task that provides information. Well let’s back up: a good test provides information we can use.

Building a model is a task that provides information. Let’s build a model of a building, put it on a table, and show the neighbors how it fits in the surrounding area. That provides information to the neighbors and to us.

I could go on with designs, first drafts, and all sorts of things that help us do our work, but really provide information.

We now reach the question that is the title of this post: what will this tell us?

A model of a building sitting on a table will tell me how the building looks in the surrounding area. If I already know that information because of my experience with buildings and the surround area, the information is neither new nor useful. It is a waste of time to build that model.

A preliminary design of a system will tell me what I know about the system and tell others the same. If we all have experience with this type of system and know everything about it, the preliminary design is a waste of time.

I could go on and on with examples. Does the task provide information I don’t have? If yes, do the task. If I already know the situation, the task provides nothing new and nothing useful. The task is a waste of time.

What will this tell us? If the answer is, “Nothing new and nothing useful.” Skip it.

And be wise when skipping tasks. There are risks, but often they are quite small.

by Dwayne Phillips

Stop worrying about the next technology. Do something simple that has all the functions you need.

The database. Sigh. Gosh, what is next? What is the next database technology that will solve all my problems?

Requirements: Enter information. Find entered information. Read entered information. Change entered information.

Solution: The ASCII text file.

The text file meets all the requirements. What is more, it met them 30 years ago and will still work 30 years from now.

Use Notepad (Windows), TextEdit (Mac), emacs or Vim (Unix and those other two as well). I think these things also run on iPhones and Android phones and all the tablets.

There must be a catch. No, there isn’t. I can put all my recipes in this text file. I can list the titles and authors of all the books I have ever owned or read. I can find these things later. I can alter them and copy them and morph them into something else and do all sorts of things that I want to do.

Simple. Do something simple that moves you in the desired direction.

Buy something? Analyze something? If that is what you want to do, do it. If you want a database that works, just do a text file. If you want to do something, do something simple in the right direction.

by Dwayne Phillips

Each generation laments how no one recognizes how special they are. Well, sort of. Times change, ya’ know?

I just saw another one of these things online. It was a black and white photo of kids on their bicycles in the street. We were the last generation to ride bikes in the neighborhood. We used a clothes pin to attach a playing card to the bike. The playing card flapped in the spokes of the wheel. It made the bike sound like a motorcycle for at least two minutes, then it tore itself to bits.

We were the last generation to eat Kool-Aid from the package and turn our tongues purple or red or green or something.

Alas, time. It moves. Of course we were the last generation to…

I am writing this on Saturday, September 3rd, 2022. This day is unique in the history of mankind. Those alive today will be the only persons in human history to be alive today. We are special. If you don’t believe me, well, you just are worth believing anything obvious or some put down that I can state about you who don’t think I am really special and so are all the others in my arbitrary “generation.”

Alas, time. It moves. Today is unique; tomorrow will be unique, and so will the day after. I will be the last person alive to write this blog post. See, I’m unique and special. Well, there are probably a million other folks out there writing blog posts today. Maybe I’m not so unique.

Alas, time. It moves. Enjoy today. Watch some kids doing whatever it is those unique kids in their unique generation are doing on this unique day. Smile. No one else will ever experience today again.

by Dwayne Phillips

We need more explainers. These are persons who answer the question, “Whatcha’ doin’?”

• Whatcha’ doin’?
• Hows’it work?
• How ya’ doin’?

These are simple questions. These are the basic questions we ask others all the time. Often, we repeat the question six or seven times in different forms and still don’t receive an answer. Why? Because we don’t have enough explainers.

An explainer has the ability to answer a basic question. An explainer can understand a question and answer that question instead of answering 531 other questions.

The explainer gives the who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Somehow, the explainer keeps track of those things, sticks to those things, and doesn’t wander off into the weeks.

The explainer understands how much detail the person asking the question wants.

For some reason, we don’t have many explainers hanging around. Those of us who are explainers are quite irritated by those who either cannot or do not want to explain.

by Dwayne Phillips

There is nothing wrong with mimicry. Let’s stop kidding ourselves; much of today’s machine learning is simple mimicry.

mimicry: noun, the action or art of imitating someone or something, typically in order to entertain or ridicule.

Let’s be candid here. Much of Machine Learning (ML)—a currently popular branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI)—is mimicry. Point to a million pictures and say, “These are giraffes, these are penguins, and these are snakes.” The system will be able to mimic you and correctly say, “These are giraffes, these are penguins, and these are snakes.”

That is a simple case of ML. There are more complicated ones, but those are more complicated types of the same thing. “I sat on a fill-in-the-blank.” What will I put in that blank? Probably not “nail” or “bumble bee.” Probably “chair” or “couch.” Simple mimicry.

Is that intelligence? Again, let’s be candid. The answer is, “No.” Is that useful? Well, in many situations it is quite useful and in many situations it enables a machine to do a rather mundane job. That is also useful.

The current ML branch of AI can be quite useful and profitable. Let’s stop there and not delve into calling it intelligent or sentient.

by Dwayne Phillips

“Everyone” wants flexibility in their job (work from home when I want). How many of us want “meaning” in our job?

“I can do this job from anywhere at almost anytime of day or night.”

That statement is immediately followed by the question, “So why do you want me here from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday?”

If the statement is true, the question is an excellent one that probably does not have an excellent answer. If I can do the tasks from anywhere at anytime (as long as I meet the deadline), what is this office building attendance?

Okay, let’s back up a bit. If I can do the job anywhere anytime, how many other people can do the job? If someone has a basic mastery of the English language, they can do the job as well as me. If they live in a relatively low-cost-of-living place on earth, they can do my job at a much lower salary than me. They have the job. I am unemployed.

Wait a minute, how did we go from, “I want flexibility” to “I am unemployed?” The answer is, “simply and quickly.”

Okay, let’s back up a bit. Flexible jobs bring a high risk of unemployment. Sorry folks.

Let’s move to another type of job; a job that is full of meaning. Meaningful jobs may not be so flexible. They may require more brains than I alone have. That means several people in the same place at the same time to combine brains and solve problems that are too difficult for me. The result is much more meaningful than the jobs that can be done anywhere, anytime, (by just about anyone).

ZoomerTeamz meeting? They are sometimes inefficient. I don’t have a home computer with a 99-inch touch screen that links to the 99-inch touch screens of the other persons on the team. We are not all drinking the same coffee, breathing the same air, feeling the same carpet under our feet, sitting in the same chairs, and so on. We are a fake team; not a real team. We are probably not doing meaningful work on ZoomerTeamz.

Sigh. Flexibility or meaning? Why do we have to answer these questions?

by Dwayne Phillips

When assuming that another person already knows something, ask, “And why would they know that?”

It happened again the other day at work, someone interrupted a presentation, pointed to something mentioned but not shown, and asked, “But what is that thing? What does it do?”

The presenter, unable to hide the aghast expression lurking under the surface, answered, “That’s the universal do-hicky that universally underlies the entire system and allows it to universally do everything in the universe. Everyone knows that. Surely you know that, huh?”

The presenter and, to spread the blame, the entire presentation team never asked, “And why would they know that?”

They are working on this project. Everyone on this project knows that!

And when did we provide them with that information?

I might blame this on the agile development world. We value working software or systems more than documentation. Sometimes this becomes, we value working software or systems and disdain and neglect documentation. If a project lasts more than six weeks, it is probably worth the time and money to document things well and in a manner that makes it easy for new persons to enter the project and know what everyone else knows.

Then again, back in the days before we were all agile we didn’t have good documentation. New persons were chastised for not knowing what they should know. No one asked, “And why would they know that?”

Those who knew such things had job security and, more importantly, a feeling of superiority over the unknowing who were just cannon fodder for the next round of job layoffs.

Sometimes we should ask, “What are we doing here?” If we are doing something worthwhile that will last past the weekend, perhaps we should provide the information others need so that they will know that just like we know it. This isn’t easy. Don’t want to do it? Hire someone to do it. Pay them well to do the task well. It pays for itself later.