by Dwayne Phillips Big data? What we usually do is automate work on data that is too big to work manually. I used to work on a project where the project leader would tell people, “We work big data.” I was frequently asked (later after the project leader left the room), “What is big data?” […]
(too) Big Data
March 28th, 2022 · No Comments
Tags: Cloud Computing · Computing · Data Science · Work
Is the Light Bulb On or Off?
March 21st, 2022 · No Comments
By Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we need to remind ourselves what it is that computers can and cannot do. Computers are taking over the world. Well, maybe not. Let’s recall what a computer can do. A computer can tell if a light bulb is on or off. That’s about it folks. Nothing more. Everything else is […]
Tags: Cloud Computing · Computing · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Software · Teaching · Technology
Hacking the International Order
March 3rd, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Expediting the fall of the nation state are the hacktivists or activist hackers. We have had mercenaries for many centuries. These were soldiers hired by governments to fight battles for them. Sometimes nations hired the armies of other nations to do this. Sometimes nations hired individuals. And we have had Internet mercenaries. […]
Tags: Change · Computing · Concepts · Government · Technology
Data has always been Everywhere
January 20th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Lest we forget, we have always had more data than we could process. For some reason, we are now recording it with magnetism. I just read yet another article telling me that “data is everywhere.” Then there are the usual numbers of peta-peta-something-or-other bytes of data every second or so. Cries follow […]
Tags: Computing · Culture · Data Science · History · Scale · Science
The General Store (as a Service)
January 13th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We have XaaS or EaaS. We have returned to the day of the general store. We have almost everything as a service. Some call this XaaS. I call it EaaS (Everything as a Service or maybe AEaaS Almost Everything as a Service). Examples, IaaS, DHaaS, SaaS, PaaS, etc. (how many letters are […]
Tags: America · Computing · Customer · Technology
The CRUD Systems
December 23rd, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Once stripped of all the extras, the great majority of computers systems we use are CRUD. And that is okay. We invented computers to compute, i.e., to calculate things. 1+2=3 and so on. We also learned that computers are good at storing information. We put information in the computer, it is there. […]
Tags: Change · Cloud Computing · Computing · Writing
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 […]
Tags: Choose · Computing · General Systems Thinking · Systems · Technology
The Essence of Data Science (attempt #2)
September 2nd, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips After a few more years, I think I understand the essence of Data Science. It isn’t that complicated. I wrote a post in November of 2020 attempting to describe the essence of data science. A few thoughts came to me recently. So here goes another attempt. A person has a large amount […]
Tags: Computing · Data Science · Questions · Science · Time
Forward to the Past: Infrastructure as Code and JCL
February 22nd, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We tend to reinvent the past as we move into the future. Remember JCL? I took an class in operating systems in 1980 (yes, I am that old). At least that was the name of the class. In reality, it was a class in what IBM called Job Control language or JCL. […]
Tags: Change · Computing · History · Language
The Mundane Necessity of Computing (Professionals)
December 17th, 2020 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Some things are so obvious that we all miss them for a long time. Moving from experiment lab to the real world requires some expertise. To do artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, etc. you do computing. This means a lot of software work. Though not as old as physics and chemistry, […]
Tags: Computing · Engineering · Experiment · Programming · Reality · Systems