Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips I read the FCC’s document on Net Neutrality (“Report and order,” 2015) and provide my comments. The FCC recently released the full text of their document on the Open Internet (the full document is available in PDF here). I read all 400 pages of document and assenting and dissenting views of the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Can we stop the silliness surrounding drones and come back to reality? This recent story decries coming regulations that may require a pilot’s license to fly a drone. Let’s repeat a bit of reality: Today’s drones are not autonomous flying robots are remote-controlled (RC) flying vehicles For decades, hobbyists have flow RC […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A look at 21st century Digital Government shows that government is still decades behind. Look at this ground-breaking document from our Federal government. It describes how to achieve 21st-century excellence in IT services for the citizen. Okay, enough of the hyperbole. Let’s look at the document. It shows IT in three layers: […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Here is a brief explanation of why innovation doesn’t work in government. Too bad as there are clever, innovative people in government. I worked several decades inside the US Federal government. There are plenty of dedicated, smart people working inside government. They often have good ideas for things and gadgets the government […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Much has been made of the Google guy in Washington running the US Digital Service. The USDS is not needed and won’t succeed. There is a lot of splash in the regular media these days about the US Digital Service. Our government has recruited stars from Silicon Valley, brought them to the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When it comes to government documents, shorter is better almost all the time. I used to write government documents. I still read government documents. Such is the life of someone who worked for the government, retired, and went to work for companies that compete for government contracts. Here is it, something regarding […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A veto is where one person can say NO, and that over rules a multitude of YESs. Look around and notice the prevalence of the veto. I was in a fast food restaurant early on a recent Saturday morning (old people like me tend to do those things). Three teens were sitting […]

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by Dwayne Phillips To understand a non-sensical decision, consider the age of the person deciding. It was the early 1990s (yes, I am that old), we were using Cray and other supercomputers (government program, so we had several), and we were interviewing your programmers. They all gasped to learn that we were programming in FORTRAN […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Government agencies often build systems with considering other government agencies, not taxpayers, as the customer. I hate to keep writing about healthcare.gov, but the lessons are so obvious. I have to wonder who is in charge and what they are thinking. It was the early 1990s, and the management fad of the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Don’t try big government programs. The government doesn’t have the expertise. There have been lots of problems with the new government health care site. What surprises me is that some people are surprised. How can you not build a web site that registers users and takes orders? Amazon and just about everyone […]

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