Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Measuring small things is much more difficult than measuring large things. We do it anyways and report the results with great confidence. Woe is us.

It is more difficult to measure small things that it is to measure large things. Consider measuring the diameter of a sphere. We can use a device that is accurate to 1/10th of an inch. If the diameter of the sphere is 1 inch, we are off by 10%. If the diameter of the sphere is 100 inches, we are off by 0.1%. Hmm, measuring the smaller sphere is much more difficult.

This difficulty of small things extends to events in everyday life. Consider a drug test on ten persons. If each person is healthy, the drug is 100% effective. If one sickly person joins the group and the drug fails, now it is only about 90% effective—wow, that was a big jump. If we test the drugs on 1,000 persons and a few sickly persons join, the drug drops from 100% effective to something like 99% effective. Hmmm, a few this and that doesn’t make a big difference.

Now we consider America. We have a population of about 330 million. If we perform a study that involves 3 million of us, that is a 1% study. That is a small number and we are back to the difficulty of measuring small things. If something happens with 30,000 of us, let’s see, that is 0.01% of us. Whoa, that is a tiny group. Now we are trying to measure tiny things. That is really difficult.

If something happens to 30,000 of us, that seems like a big number, but is only a tiny number. It seems unfair, but no legitimate news organization would report something that happens to 0.01% of us.

I must be naive. The news media reports everything that happens to 0.01% of us and everything that happens to tinier groups than that. Yes, I must be naive.

by Dwayne Phillips

This is the third or fourth time I wish us all a happy birthday.

Happy birthday America.

We are free to address our grievances to those who govern us. That one happens so often and freely that we forget someone had to put it in the Constitution. Congress cannot stop us from complaining. If we could jail anyone who complains, well you know how that wouldn’t work out well.

We still struggle with the freedom from search and seizure. At least there is something on paper that allows us to push back.

There is this right to due process. We do pretty well with that one. It keeps down the urge to “string ’em up right now.”

And we sure are glad that if we do something here, we won’t be tried by folks over there. Folks over there are nice folks, but they don’t live here and don’t understand here very well. And, by the way, folks here don’t understand there very well, either.

If we don’t like a judge, we can have a jury instead.

Then comes the tenth amendment. We haven’t figure that one out, yet. We are trying.

All in all, a pretty nice place to have a birthday.

by Dwayne Phillips

Information is power. It can be good as well.

I keep a steno spiral notebook on my workspace. I jot the date for today and everything I do today. I have done this since sometime in 1986. That is … a bunch of years. I have all the notebooks, so if you want to know what I did in September of 1999, you should talk to someone about that desire. It may not be healthy, but I can tell you what I did that month.

Recently I read a writer call this a “work diary.” I guess that is a good name. I just call it a notebook, and on second thought “work diary” might be better.

Anyways, the writer finished the post with, “this is data and data is power.”

I call it information. I suppose “information is power.” I don’t like the “power” part, but I guess it fits. I find that the notebook on the workspace has saved me many troubles over many years. I could type these notes on the computer, but I’ve used many different computers over the years. I have no idea what kind of computer and software I used in 1987, but I am pretty sure that I would have lost those notes due to something not being compatible with something else.

These steno notebooks are “backwards compatible” and “forwards compatible” with whatever I am doing now. Yes, “you can’t grep trees” is still true (that means you can’t use a computer to search all the notebooks). Still, this all works pretty well.

The little notebook that you use everyday and keep forever is one of the few practices that I recommend to everyone.

Yes, that Sheldon character on the Big Bang Theory uses the black and white Composition Notebooks for everything and keeps them all. Same idea.

by Dwayne Phillips

Recent fueling tests at NASA once again show us the peril of shortcuts.

NASA recently completed a fueling test for its Space Launch System. Good for them. Test completed.

The story in the link is a good one as it describes several things that went wrong while fueling. One of the problems meant they had to repair a valve. WHAT? Repair a valve? Was that valve tested beforehand? Were they ready to run the big test after all the little tests were completed?

Or perhaps they took a few shortcuts (like not testing all the parts before testing the system).

Then there was the minor issue of a fire in a grassy area next to the rocket. They felt that was not a problem, so they changed the software so that the fueling would continue despite the little fire.

I hope nothing terrible happens because of that shortcut. What is a little fire anyways? What could possibly go wrong? Why was there logic in the software that stopped fueling when a fire occurred? Someone at sometime thought that could be bad (or really really bad), so they put that logic in the software.

This is a great example of folks taking shortcuts. They see a problem and decide that skipping something will gain them time. As written earlier, I hope nothing terrible happens. After all, they will one day put human beings on top of that great big rocket and have a—hopefully controlled—great big explosion that hurls them to the moon.

by Dwayne Phillips

We have more data today. Really? I don’t think so. We do have more places to put data, so we need to put something there. Right?

I don’t know how many times I have read about all the new data we have today. The amount of data we have is BIG. The amount of data we will have in five years will be a thousand (or is it a million) times more than we have today. We are collecting zillions of zillions of bytes every day.

I disagree. Those are opinions, and we can all have our own opinions.

Fact: we have more places to put data than ever before and the places to put data is rapidly growing.

This week I read about 30TeraByte disk drives coming next year. Put a dozen of these 30TeraByte disks under my table at home and … and I don’t know what to do with them. I can put a few dozen sensors in my backyard that record the weather a thousand times a second and store that data on all those 30TeraByte disks. I can put a dozen 120FramesPerSecond cameras in and around my house and put all that data on all those 30TeraByte disks. Wow! Data. Data storage.

And what would I have? Data that has almost no meaning and almost certainly has no audience of persons who want any of it.

My opinion is that when we have a place to put data, we will find data to put there. See? We did grow our data by leaps and bounds. Our predictions were true. Right?

We have the ability to collect more digital data. Wonderful analog-to-digital converters made that possible. We have the ability to store more digital data. Wonderful new magnetic-media technologies made that possible.

More data? I guess so. More data that anyone wants? I doubt it.

by Dwayne Phillips

A part of the Great Resignation and Great Embarrassment is the Great Transition. We are in this period of time now. We think we know the end state, but things sure are chaotic now with many unforeseen and unwanted events.

We had the Great Resignation. That is still in progress. The pandemic accelerated that.

We had the Great Embarrassment. Again, still in progress and also accelerated by the pandemic. We learned that we have been grossly inefficient in much of what we have done for the last 20 years.

The great reaction is what we really have. Since work from home is now okay, tech companies can recruit nationwide instead of local only. And where are tech companies recruiting? Other tech hubs. That is because that is where the tech talent is. Silicon Valley is hiring from Austin and Washington D.C. and Boston and…

Wait a minute. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Tech companies are supposed to be recruiting from Kansas and North Dakota. Recruiting from other tech hubs, however, is the way it is. We are in the great transition.

One day, big tech will hire from Kansas and North Dakota. There are colleges in those places and computer science and computer engineering graduates there. But we are not at “one day.” We are here today.
This is the chaos of transition. “In time…” Well, we aren’t at that place, yet.

by Dwayne Phillips

I see a trend in people using the word “modern” to describe technology. I find that unfortunate.

Just this morning, I read:

• modern data stack
• modern programming practice
• modern machine learning
• modern artificial intelligence
• modern compilers

And then I quit.

I guess I am one of “those people” who expect others to say what they mean and mean what they say or some other cliche’ that “those people” use. I am old enough to have gone through the debates about modern and post modern this and that. The use of modern as an adjective was rejected and tossed aside. The word was redefined. At least I thought it was.

Every day now I read about “modern” this and that technology. I guess the engineers and scientists didn’t go through the post-modern or post-post-modern discussions.

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) means AI practices that are less than ten years old, or is it five? Sometimes I am confused on these numbers. Then again, modern this-or-that technology usually means, “I learned this technology. I have yet to learn any approaches to problems that are older.”

That definition of “modern” is disdained. It causes us to admit that we don’t know as much as we think we do. The person realizes that, “Oh, there are other ways to solve this problem and I don’t know any of those other ways. Perhaps I should study more before opening my mouth or clicking the keys on my blog.”

Here comes the concluding part of this blog post from an old person who tends to conclude these things:

Use the adjective “recent” before stating a noun or the phrase “this is what I have learned in the last six months” around a noun. For example:

• recent machine learning techniques
• these are the machine learning techniques I have learned in the last six months

Others may understand you better as you are saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Come on folks, let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

We move forward to the 1980s when the lawyers prevented artificial intelligence (AI) from helping us do our jobs.

Note: This post is about legal maneuvers that prevent helpful AI systems. It is not about AI systems that were built poorly and mimic some human tendencies to discriminate against persons illegally. Those poorly made systems should be banned until fixed.

In the 80s, AI technology produced “expert systems.” These systems held the rules of thumb that experts used to do their jobs. The expert systems never had bad days and didn’t forget things. The expert systems performed better than humans and would have been great helpers in many fields (think lessening deaths in hospitals).

One problems was that the users (e.g., hospital administrators) would be deploying systems that they knew were not 100%. They would be liable to the lawyers, so they canned them and stayed with people only. Note, the people were correct about 80% of the time. The expert systems were correct about 90% of the time. Why? People have bad days. Lack of sleep or indigestion or other slings and arrows of the day cause otherwise knowledgeable persons to forget this or that on that or this day. The expert systems didn’t have bad days.

We are back. The lawyers have come around to understanding the recent generation of AI and how it works and what it does and that it too is not correct 100% of the time. Hence, users would be deploying systems that they knew were not 100%. They would be liable to the lawyers, so users are discarding them and staying with people only.

For some reason, we don’t deploy AI as “advisors” instead of “deciders.” Just like the expert systems of 1980s, we can deploy the most recent generation of AI as advisors. The final decision is left to humans. The AI can nudge the human with a, “Hey, think about this. Remember that?”

Well, let’s see what happens this time around.

by Dwayne Phillips

Please, choose words wisely so that actions will match the words.

Yesterday, I was hit with a couple of examples of the Aesop’s fable. The trouble was, these were real life, and a boy wasn’t crying—it was adults jabbering nonsense. I won’t repeat the examples. There is something about these crying-wolf examples that when repeated a day or two later they are so ridiculous that they are not believable.

Sometimes people exaggerate to make a point. “The hole in the roof is thiiiiiiiiiisssssss big,” we exclaim with arms stretched wide to stress that a repair is needed right now. No. The hole was not that big, but we all understand, right?

Sometimes the exaggeration proclaims something else. The speaker exaggerates to the point of lying, and once a person lies they become like the boy crying wolf in the fable; no one trusts a liar.

If exaggerating to make a point, preface the exaggeration with, “I am exaggerating to make a point. I need your attention right now.” That works better. Not great, but better.

Words that don’t match action or needed action tend to be heard as lies. Let’s be careful and do better, especially if you need people to work unpaid overtime over the weekend because fill-in-the-blank-with-an-untrue-catastrophe.

By Dwayne Phillips

Time is a marvelous tool. Allow time between an action or event and the reaction or the feedback for the event.

I have spoken at large gatherings many times in my career (500 or 600 persons attending, most of them staying awake). I enjoy it. When I am finished speaking, I am full of adrenaline or the mental equivalent of that. I have been backstage when performers finish performances. Same thing with them. They are excited and more excited.

One thing usually happens when coming offstage or finishing a talk. All that excitement clogs the ears. I cannot hear anything people are telling me. Of course my ears are working. Of course I hear their words, but ask me one minute later what someone told me, and, well, I don’t know. I have observed the same with professional performers. For a few moments after the performance, they don’t take anything in. The input is blocked.

There needs to be some time between the act and the react. There needs to be some time for the person to return to a normal state of mind so that their input is open and they can hear words and comprehend them.

When a performer or speaker steps off the stage and asks, ”How did I do?” Answer, ”Let’s talk later.” Otherwise, the reaction is lost.

And now we bring this blog post to the real world of work. Someone walks in with a draft of a report. ”Just finished this. Tell me what you think,” they say with sparkles of excitement gushing from their eyes. Answer, ”Let’s talk later.”

A group of persons just deploys a new version of software. Same words, ”Tell us what you think.” Same answer, ”Let’s talk later.”

This is why a project retrospective should be conducted a while after the project ends. This is why a book review should be delivered a while after the book is published. When the reaction quickly follows the action, the words fall to the floor.

What do you think of this blog post? Let’s talk later.