Working Up

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

Working Up header image 4

Safe AI Text

March 24th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Are we spending too much time and effort on making AI systems “safe?” Perhaps we should allow adults to be adults and move on. Consider an LLM or whatever that creates text promoting: Those people, those philosophies are horrible! Okay, are you an adult? If so, you can easily reject those horrible […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Adults · Artificial Intelligence · Choose · Data Science · Decide · Technology

An Augmented Reality Suggestion

March 17th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Here is a suggestion to those folks who can make these augmented reality (AR) glasses that would help me as a writer and reader. Last year I provided the world with a suggestion for a pencil that would link to a spelling checker and AI. And here is another AI-related suggestion for […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Cloud Computing · Technology · Visibility · Word · Work · Writing

Yes, We Can Remember Everything

March 6th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We store more information on computers. And we FIND it all. Back in ’07 (2007 for those who don’t know an old old way of writing the dates in the first decade of a century), I had a conversation with a senior manager of a government agency. Like 98.6% of senior managers, […]

[Read more →]

Tags: History · Knowledge · Remember · Research · Technology

Remember Carbon Nanotubes?

March 3rd, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Every generation seems to have its magic technology just about to burst on the scene and doing something wonderful and financially rewarding. Most of the time, nothing happens. Back in the early years of this century, carbon nanotubes were the thing to discuss. We were to build computers thinner than a piece […]

[Read more →]

Tags: General Systems Thinking · History · Technology · Thinking

Fishing Rod Technology Roadmap

January 13th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A different take on the technology roadmap. This story goes back some 25 years (yes, I am that old), but it still applies. There were guys trying to do a technology roadmap that was nice and linear and just right. You know, this year we are using this technology, we will move […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Alternatives · Baseline · Calendar · Expectations · Experiment · Technology

AI Assistant (Nothing New Here)

October 28th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Here come the AI assistants. They will do amazing things for us. Nothing new here. We’ve had these for decades. Nice, but not new. I’ve seen several AI assistants recently. They are usually called “agents.” Well, “agent” is shorter and easier to spell than “assistant,” so I guess that is an improvement. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Ideas · Problems · Software · Solutions · Technology

The Most Important Processor Ever

August 26th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The most important computer processor ever made was the Intel 8087 (well, a little exaggeration). Spend more money on hardware or more money on smarts? The decision is still with us. It was 1980. Intel had just released the 8086 CPU—a computer on a chip that worked on 16 bits at a […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Computing · General Systems Thinking · Problems · Solutions · Technology · Thinking

Playing Checkers on the Computer

August 22nd, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We have computing power a thousand magnitudes greater than what took us to the moon and back. And we use it to play checkers. Sitting here in the coffee shop writing these blog posts, I look across the room and note someone playing checkers on their new Windows 11 computer. Also on […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Communication · Computing · Energy · Humility · Humor · Technology · Writing

This Isn’t a Mystery Novel

June 3rd, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Writing about technology on the job breaks just about every rule taught in creative writing classes. That is because you are writing to inform, not entertain. Sometimes I encourage others at work who are writing about technical topics. Their job is to inform. I encourage them not to entertain. All these encouragements […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Technology · Writing

Big Government Overshadowed by Industry

April 25th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips You think the US government is big and spends lots of money? It is now overshadowed by industry—especially in computing. I was an employee of the US Federal government for 28 years. We did big things in computing that cost big dollars. I once worked in a lab where we had four […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Choose · Government · History · Technology