Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Why is it that people ask questions when they don’t want to hear the answers? Let’s go in reverse order here. Result: Dead silence. My Answer: I want to work with good, smart people on difficult problems whose solution enhances national security. Recruiter’s Question: What is it you like to do? What […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In which I consider what happens in a kitchen and ask, “what was it those guys with the manifesto invented?” For years, my wife has managed kitchens in all-volunteer organizations. For years before that, my wife’s mother did the same. Consider the situation: There is unprepared food There is an end-state—prepared food […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Stories of sexual harassment in the technology industry are rampant. Why is anyone surprised? This will be short and bitter. Stories of sexual harassment in the technology industry are rampant. I won’t put links here to representative reports. There are too many from which to choose, and I find them disgusting. Brogrammers. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We will change and improve the situation to improve our products and services to better satisfy our customers…as long as… Change for the good is good. Hey, it is great. Notice, I am writing about change that IS going to improve our situation and WILL help us better satisfy our customers. I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I delve into politics or politicians and submit an ugly theory about polarization in American politics. American politics seem to be polarized more than in the last few generations. There are plenty of explanations and denials (see a recent New York Times story as an example). One explanation that makes a lot […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A new high or low in robots in the warehouse. I find this one fascinating. This warehouse “robot” walks a human to the right spot in the cavern of products. The touchscreen shows the human what product to load in the bin. Hence, the robot knows where the product is and how […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I used to love the NCAA basketball tournament. Perhaps it is only for the young. The NCAA men’s basketball championship game will be played tonight. I won’t watch it as the game won’t start until after I go to bed on the east coast. It starts late in the east as that […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There is a fundamental question to ask in analyzing and engineering systems. Why don’t we use it more often? A: We put this into the system. B: And then what happens? A: Well, now the system can do this great function for the users. B: And then what happens? A: For one […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have seen this in people often, especially when looking in the mirror. Not off to a good start, but let’s try to pull something useful from this. We all tend to do what we like and avoid what we don’t like. Not surprising. I like ice cream. I hate paper cuts. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips One function of systems engineering is to open the black boxes, look at the entire system, and apply some wisdom. We often build systems by connecting existing systems and subsystems. These existing pieces are black boxes, i.e., we don’t know or don’t care to know what is inside them and how they […]

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