Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The humble public restroom illustrates our tendency to security over privacy, even when we know better.

Privacy: the door opens in such a way that the first thing you see is NOT toilet.

Security (safety): the door opens in such a way to permit easiest exit in event of something bad.

Security means a tiny crack in the door reveals the person using the toilet who forgot to lock the door.

Guess which one Starbucks, and everyone else, uses? Public “safety,” i.e., security, overrules privacy all the time in public buildings. This is so that when the building is on fire, we will be able to escape to safety and security.

When was the last fire we had in a public building? One in a thousand means the building burns down every three years. Ooooops, we miscalculated on that one. One in ten thousand means the building burns down every 30 years. Well, uh, the building was demolished so that a new one could be built after 20 years. Ooooops, we miscalculated on that one, too. And don’t we have dozens of other safety measures in place?

Security takes precedence over privacy. Didn’t someone once say something about security and liberty?

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”—Benjamin Franklin

by Dwayne Phillips

How I wish to be introduced says much about myself and what I wish for myself and those around me.

How do you wish someone would introduce you at work or at a social setting (gosh, there is a variety of these)?

Here is something I would like to hear in the workplace:

This is Dr. Dwayne Phillips. He is here to observe and work with us on big items to enable us to accomplish our mission. While he is doing that, he will also … do the job that people usually think is important.

At the coffee shop:

This is Dwayne. He is here to enjoy coffee, company, conversation, and view the Internet a while. While he is doing that, he will also observe and take notes on the human condition.

What would you write for yourself?

by Dwayne Phillips

Organizing is pretty easy. Shuffle some squares and you have a company. Creating an organic system where persons can thrive is much more difficult. The results, however, are amazing.

I made up the word “organi-mizing.” At least I think I did. I found some pages on Pinterest that had the word. So at least a few persons consider it a word.

Organi-mizing has something to do with being organic or some sort of natural growth. Perhaps “planting” or “seeding” is the better word.

The concept is pretty simple. Instead of “let’s get organized” how about “let’s plant and water,” or “let’s create a situation where persons can grow without our daily interference.”

I have read several books where the concept of organic management or gardening management was mentioned. (I can’t remember where I read these. If you know, please remind me.)

Organi-mizing is more difficult than organizing. Perhaps that is why it is rare when compared to its well-known cousin. Just about any “manager” I have ever met can shuffle squares in a piece of software or on a board. The squares represent generic people. “Let’s put an engineer here, an accountant there, a few HR persons over there, and viola’, we have a company!”

Creating a place where persons grow together and in a direction that improves everyone else…well…that is a bit more difficult. Too bad. When done well, the results are amazing. See, for example, a rose or a strawberry. Now those things are amazing.

by Dwayne Phillips

“Dot Notation” has some nice things going for it. Let us not, however, believe that it is object-oriented programming.

“We do object-oriented programming,” said proud practitioner, project manager, and recruiter. “Believe us,” they all added.

Silly me. I did believe these well-meaning folks. Time teaches.

class-name DOT function-name

See? Object-oriented programming (oop). Sorry. The above uses dot notation. It does not necessarily mean oop.

What is the object? What are the methods or functions or whatever we call the things that manipulate or operate the objects?

The two are not the same. The DOT is a nice thing. It allows us to say, “Hey, I’m talking about the blue addition function, not the red addition function. They are different.” The DOT does not mean oop. Too often we claim it does, that is convenient when a job recruiter asks us that veto-laden question. “Do you know oop?”

“Why yes,” I answer. “I first did oop in 1983.” (Which I did, and with real objects, not just dots.)

The other end of the phone line goes silent.

Consider, as an example, money. Let’s define a class for money. There are a few things we can do with money like add, subtract, divide, and various forms of input and output. Notice that we cannot multiply money (what is $3 x $4? $12$$ or something?).

Try to define this in one of the popular IDE’s in one of the popular programming languages. It doesn’t work well. The IDE tries to make window classes and such the foundation. That is a quick and easy way to make an application with windows, icons, menu, and pointing devices. oop? Sorry.

So folks, from someone who made all the mistakes and pounded my head to the wall, let’s not confuse the fundamentals. It is okay if a recruiter confuses the terms because that is what the checklist shows. The rest of us, however, should have it straight by now.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some of us have been here before. “AI” is hot again. Perhaps this time the future will be different from the past, but I doubt it.

I worked extensively in AI in the 1980s. What I see today is remarkably similar. This is due to what I believe is a gross misunderstanding of what AI is, where it has been, and probably where it is going.

At its most basic, AI is an area of research. Sometimes the research releases products into society and those products are no longer called AI, they are just something else we have and use. See, e.g., the thermostat. That is a machine that causes hot air to enter a cold room and cold air to enter a hot room. Whoa! That requires thought and judgement and all that stuff of AI.

In the 1980s, we did lots of AI research. One of the hot fields of the 1980s was the expert system. It was software that stored knowledge of a narrowly defined field and provided advice like “this has a high probability of being cancer” or “this is probably a problem with the carburetor.” Some of those systems went into general use, and no one thinks of them as AI.

Today we are doing lots of research in supervised learning in general and neural networks in particular. These techniques are decades old, but today we have the required computing, and that computing doesn’t cost much money. Hence, those techniques are “hot topics.”

Many of these supervised learning systems are being released into general use. Cars can park themselves between white lines. Maybe they don’t part so well if the lines are blue, but someone is working on that. Systems can recognize faces as long as we don’t have too many different persons come to our front door and the persons aren’t wearing funny clothes and the lighting is pretty good and a few more things.

Once these few more things are solved, we’ll have automatic door openers and we won’t consider it AI. Come to think of it, how about those door openers at stores and such that recognize when a person wants to enter, so they open the door. Once that was AI research, now its just something that opens the door when we approach it.

Research to everyday use. Some of us have seen it before, and some of us will see it again.

by Dwayne Phillips

Is this yet another boring meeting or a new opportunity to learn? Is this naive?

I attend meetings. In my former employment, I attended several meetings each day. My current employment has reduced that to several a week.

Most meetings are boring. They are inefficient. They are drudgery. Yuck.

Some meetings are opportunities to learn. Not kidding. They actually provide me an opportunity to walk away knowing more than I did when I walked in.

Boring or opportunity? Perhaps the difference between the two is in my mind. How do I approach meetings? That is all up to me. No one else controls that choice. The content of the meeting is not controlled by me, but my attitude and approach ARE controlled by me.

Perhaps this is naive. Perhaps not. Again, that is my choice.

by Dwayne Phillips

Our backgrounds don’t often determine our present.

I took one English class in high school. I took one English class in college.

Not much of a background in writing, huh? I have written half a dozen books (published) and over a hundred articles (published) as well as a hundred short stories (self-published) and all that.

How did my background lead to my present? I worked at it a little each day and continue to work at it a little each day.

The most important factor is that I wanted to write, and no one convinced me that my background was insufficient.

Now let’s pause a moment here: I have written and published and all that. I have not earned much money from all that. Doing something we want does not mean we can earn a living from it. It does, however, mean that we can do something we want.

What do we want to do, regardless of our background?

by Dwayne Phillips

Technology enables us to fake photos and videos. We can make anyone appear to say and do anything. Preventing such is quite simple.

Someone makes a deep fake video of me saying and doing something I neither said nor did. How do I disprove it?

“You know me. You know I wouldn’t say and do that.”

Simple, right? Yes, it is simple. It, however, requires time and effort to come to know a person and the types of things they say and do. We all create ourselves every day. We all create background in which we can say, “You know me.”

Funny how 200 years ago someone would walk into town and say, “My name is Fred Jones.” Everyone believed that because we had no records. Today we have records (photos and videos and voice recordings). Someone can show a video and say, “This is Fred Jones. Look at what he did.” The abundance or records replaced the dearth of them. We are still left to trust.

by Dwayne Phillips

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, …

A few words from a unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.

Lest we forget, which is our tendency.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some matters are certain in my mind. Others are a bit fuzzy behind a veil of doubt and cause me to argue with myself. There are times for both situations.

Some things are fuzzy in my mind. I am not certain about them. I have to argue with myself. I start a sentence, but pause after a couple of words and interject, “Yeah, that little situation is true, but you haven’t considered some other factors fully, and you really should…”

I argue with myself for a while. When things go well, I am able to argue enough to clear the doubt and bring the situation to certainty. Ah, certainty.

As with most things (and now I argue with myself about this), there are times and places for both.

I am sitting in a restaurant as I write this piece. The waiter arrives at the table and explains the menu. Certainty. I want certainty. No hesitation, no pause, tell me certainly what is on the fish in today’s special.

Yesterday my colleagues and I were discussing a new and complex situation. We needed pauses, interjections, considerations of other factors, and some arguments. We moved towards, but did not reach, certainty. There will be another day to resume that discussion.

Now to the lesson for the manager: there are times to doubt and argue and there are times for certainty. Recognize which is which and proceed accordingly.