Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Makers of systems might consider an old, old list when considering the -ilities or non-functional requirements. “This system is fool proof!” said one person. The other person replied, “I know some pretty big fools.”—paraphrase from something written somewhere at sometime. Considering the “fool proof” system brought to my mind a few questions […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some of the best advice I ever heard and heeded is simply, “Don’t try too hard.” Writing. Studying. Researching. Don’t try too hard. Writing: let it come out of you. When you hit a difficult spot, type “this is a difficult spot, come back later.” Done. Now keep banging away on the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have a failing in that I like to call things what they really are. Hence, I take on the recent AI financial boom. AI is everywhere (too bad we don’t seem to feel that real intelligent people are everywhere, but that is another topic). AI drives our cars. AI reads our […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A reminder of a basic from systems engineering. There are several baselines we use most of the time regardless of intent or realization. I once worked in an organization that (1) flew machines and (2) practiced systems engineering. One of the favorite phrases of persons there is the title of this post: […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Part 2 of 2 blogs on writing about…of course I write about what don’t I know. How else would I ever learn anything? This one doesn’t make as much sense as part 1 did. How can I write about something that I don’t know. Well… First, I learn. Second, I write. Or […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In many cases it is a bad idea to have the problem solver in the room when a problem describer describes a problem for the first time. About a generation ago, there was a movie about engineers and scientists at work in a small tech company. A couple of consultants arrive and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Does expertise mean you are focused on a narrow area or that you have become narrow minded? I recently met with a few persons who all had PhDs. Perons with a PhD tend to know a lot about a little. That is the state of us. We study something in great detail […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The user interface and the user experience seem to be based on two, quite simple things. I love to look at the photos on the Analog Dreams posts in tumblr. Those big, beautiful round knobs. I owned a lot of the things shown in the photos, and there was something magical about […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The recent rash of misuse and abuse of social media reminds us of that old, boring practice called systems engineering and limiting systems to do only what they are supposed to do. Recent news reports point to all sorts of “misuse” and “abuse” of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. These […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Which way is your team facing? When? Why? Consider a few options. If we are all facing the same direction…we can’t shake hands, that only happens when we face opposite directions. We can’t see what is sneaking up behind our colleague, again that only happens when we face opposite directions. If we […]

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