Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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Mistakes and Learning

May 5th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We all make mistakes. Some of us learn from some of our mistakes some of the time. The choice is ours. We all make mistakes. That is part of being imperfect humans. How many mistakes did I make this week? How about just this morning? (Forgot to bring my laptop’s power cord, […]

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Tags: Choose · Humility · Learning · Mistakes

A Meat Grinder (time for a reframe)

March 17th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips That job is a “meat grinder.” It has chewed up several people. Stay away. Or do we simply need to reframe the situation? While writing this, I have spent much of the past week(s) looking at the help wanted ads and talking to several companies about their job openings. Several of the […]

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Tags: Adapting · Choose · Jobs · Learning · Reframe · Stories

Telephone and Smartphone

December 2nd, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When the terrain and the map differ, believe the terrain. It is there in front of us. We ignore this at our peril. We have a telephone (at least I still do in my home) and a smartphone. We call both of them “phones.” Their names are the same. How we represent […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Appearances · Choose · Differences · Experiment · General Systems Thinking

Do You Want to Communicate?

November 22nd, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Of course we want to communicate. That is a basic. Nevertheless, here is a small test to measure the actual desire to communicate. Here is a quick test to measure a person’s desire to communicate to others. Here is a blank piece of paper. Here is a pencil. Write three things (plus […]

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Tags: Authentic · Choose · Clarity · Communication · Growth · Testing · Writing

Centralized vs. Disbursed

November 18th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We revisit an old tradeoff that moves to a different dimension, but retains the tradeoff. In the early 1990s, (yes, I am that old) we had about a dozen different computing systems in a laboratory. On any given day, one of the dozen would be “down” for repair. Too bad, but we […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Analysis · Choose · Decide · Security · Trust

There are Always Trade-Offs

November 11th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Have a direction? What did we lose in choosing it? Sorry, we traded something for something else. We lost something. I am never supposed to write “never” and “always.” And there is always an exception to all rules. Hence, the title of this post. I have yet to find a perfect solution […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Choose · Decide · Management · Questions

No-Cost Learning

October 4th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I find it unfortunate, but no-cost learning doesn’t exist. I guess this goes back to the concept of if it is worth something, it is worth something. No-cost learning? Boy, I sure do want that! Free online courses have a price tag of $0. They do, however, require time, energy, and other […]

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Tags: Choose · Learning · Resources · Teaching

RISC, CISC, and General Systems Thinking

September 23rd, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Reduced complexity optimizes for simplicity. Increased complexity optimizes for simplicity in another form. Which simplicity is “best” is a matter of situation. Apple has recently moved to their own “Apple Silicon” processors. In general terms, Apple switched from Intel’s processors to ARM’s processors. ARM processors are a form of RISC. Intel processors […]

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Tags: Choose · Computing · General Systems Thinking · Systems · Technology

Does it Have a USB Port?

September 20th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Every generation has a default question that hearkens backwards. These can be quite irritating, but return the evolutionary thinker to earth. And that is needed. Way back in the 1990s, the world was crawling out of one generation of computing into another. No matter what great new thing there was, there was […]

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Tags: Choose · Design · Engineering · General Systems Thinking · Questions

Programming Languages for Artificial Intelligence

August 9th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We used to discuss this topic, but with different choices. Time passes. People discuss this on the Internet. Today’s question is “R or Python?” Good grief, two interpreted languages that run slow. But they are good for prototyping things, bringing in mammoth libraries, and writing useful things in ten lines of code. […]

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Tags: Choose · Data Science · General Systems Thinking · Programming · Research · Thinking