Working Up

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

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Tools and Abilities

January 21st, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Just because you have a tool in your toolkit doesn’t mean you know what to do with it. Tools tools tools. Everyone in the tech world has lots of tools. If you don’t have a list of tools on your resume, you aren’t hired. Let’s go through some obvious things: Just because […]

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Tags: Certification · Competence · Concepts · Technology

Wiring America, Again, and Again

October 9th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Once again, we march into the future doing the same thing we did in the past. And it isn’t a bad thing to repeat. There was a time when a President and Vice President of America were doing a photo opportunity “wiring” a school. They were pulling Ethernet cables through conduit so […]

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Tags: America · Technology · Uncategorized

Gone with the Self-Driving Car

August 21st, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A little future prediction about what we used to call automobiles. When the self-driving car actually arrives. We will no longer have: Rear-view mirrors – we’ll have lots of sensors “looking” in all directions. Steering wheel – what would we do with that? Front-facing seats – car interiors will be rectangles that […]

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Tags: Technology · Time

Forward to the Past

August 10th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Once again, our new “technology” brings us back to where we started a few decades ago. Recently… I walk into Starbucks. And there is a long line. So I sit in my usual spot and start my Internet work. I order my coffee and bagel on my phone. Five minutes into work […]

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Tags: Change · Childhood · Choose · Technology

Artificial Intelligence and Other Misused Terms

June 15th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I realize that my plea won’t do any good, but could we please use the right terms in describing “artificial intelligence?” Everybody is doing artificial intelligence (AI) these days. Really? Consider… Artificial intelligence Deep Learning Machine Learning Neural Networks Pattern Recognition The vast majority of what people call AI today is really […]

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Tags: Computing · Learning · Technology

The Condescending Robot (Employer)

April 10th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A new high or low in robots in the warehouse. I find this one fascinating. This warehouse “robot” walks a human to the right spot in the cavern of products. The touchscreen shows the human what product to load in the bin. Hence, the robot knows where the product is and how […]

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Tags: Adults · Technology · Work

Analog Had Its Advantages

March 23rd, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Somteimes I miss the analog days. They covered a lot of my mistakes. Handwritten notes let me fudge and smudge and avoid mistakes—like spelling. I could smudge the “i” and the “e” together and put the dot of the “i” somewhere in the middle, and no one could tell that I didn’t […]

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Tags: Knowledge · Learning · Technology · Work · Writing

The $80 Writing Computer

December 26th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A new edition of the cheapest computer in the store finds a small tablet and keyboard for $80. Slow, but sufficient. Want to write a book? Can’t afford a MacBook Pro or Surface Pro or someone-else’s-pro? Here is a writing system for $80. It comprises an Amazon Fire 7″ $50 tablet and […]

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Tags: Technology · Writing

Programming Without Programmers—the Holy Grail

December 19th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Those who don’t program still seek the Holy Grail of business: the ability to flush programmers from their lives. Google recently launched its App Maker. Its a tool kit that allows persons who don’t know how to program to write programs. Well, sort of. I guess Google’s product, similar to other similar […]

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Tags: Adults · Programming · Technology

Facial Recognition Folly

December 1st, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Facial recognition is easily fooled. So when will our law enforcement stop using it? The polygraph is one example from history of technology barred from court. Facial recognition is one of the latest hot technologies in law enforcement. Facial recognition software scans huge databases to identify a person at the scene of […]

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Tags: Security · Technology