Working Up

By Dwayne Phillips I had to explain the concept of a subroutine in a computer program. The humble subroutine is a type of a module in a system. Modules in systems are wonderful devices. Often, however, we forget about them and how to use them well. Now and then, a fundamental concept comes back to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some system developments take a long time and drain people. You walk in to work and there is no energy. A demonstration of capability is one way to awaken people and bring focus to a project. Several years ago, I was working with about a hundred people on a large ($100 million) […]

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by Dwayne Phillips What do Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) have to do with engineering, project management, systems development? I am afraid that the answer is “too much.” Intellectuals are taking PEDs. College professors are the latest to join the crowd. They are using ritalin to extend and focus their concentration. I suppose the professors are […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have seen many “critical” systems built with commercial products that are available at the mall, Best Buy, Circuit City, you name them. The result can be disastrous. Please be careful. About ten years ago I worked on a small project that built a data link. We were sending short, simple text […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In part 1 of this post, I covered the mathematics and truth table of implication. Implication shows that If I accept something that I know is FALSE, I can prove anything else that I know is FALSE For example, if I accept that “1=2”, I can prove that “2=3”. I know that […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is dangerous – I am splitting a blog post into two parts. Hang in there with me. People are not always logical. That bothers logical engineers like me to no end. There is a mathematical and logical method to prove the non-logical behavior of people. That math helps me understand the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I like uniformity. Expectations are met, there are few surprises, and yes at times it is boring. The boring parts are become more prevalent. I could use a little more variety and more choice these days. When I was a kid I discovered K-Mart. It was wonderful. It didn’t matter which K-Mart […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This should be fun, right? A billion dollars to spend on technology to stimulate the economy. I mean, the new Administration is proposing spending $37Billion in 18 months on technology. Let’s do some calculations on a napkin (I am literally doing that here at the table). $1Million hires four technically skilled people […]

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Here is an update on Michael Arrington’s attempt to build a simple, inexpensive, web-browing tablet computer. One issue I see is that he is learning that it may cost $299 to build this “simple” computer. We can buy fully-functional portable computers for that price. Once again, the general purpose computer makers have bypassed someone trying […]

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by Dwayne Phillips With the presidential inauguration a week away, there is much chatter on the Internet about Barack Obama being allowed to have a Blackberry when he is president. The issue is of course SECURITY. Any competent intelligence service can eavesdrop on a cell phone. Can we make a secure Blackberry or iPhone or […]

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