{"id":775,"date":"2011-04-11T01:12:36","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T06:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/?p=775"},"modified":"2011-04-02T09:31:25","modified_gmt":"2011-04-02T14:31:25","slug":"knowledge-multipliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/2011\/04\/knowledge-multipliers\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowledge Multipliers"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n

Knowledge multipliers are pieces of technology that allow for experiment and growth of knowledge. With each generation, they are more plentiful, powerful, and inexpensive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1986 – I have finished three years of full-time graduate school. I earned an MS in EE and have completed all the course work towards a PhD. All I have to do<\/em> is finish my experiments in computer vision and write a dissertation.<\/p>\n

There were a few small hurdles in the way:<\/p>\n

One, I have to return to work.<\/p>\n

Two, I need a sufficiently powerful computer for my computer vision experiments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I work around number one in the evenings and on weekends. I work around number two in early 1987. I buy a home computer for $3,000. It has an 80286 processor clocking at a leading-edge 10 MHz. The price tag was big for me, but something that I could manage. Four years of evenings and weekends later, I finished my degree on that same computer.<\/p>\n

That computer was a knowledge multiplier<\/strong>. It enabled me to learn, experiment, learn, experiment, and turn the crank<\/em> a bit on the computer vision knowledge base. Without it, I could not have completed my experiments. I would have been tied to the minicomputer at the lab at the college.<\/p>\n

This story from my past came to mind recently when I saw this post. These college students built a self-balancing robot to enhance telepresence technology<\/a>. They turned the crank<\/em> a bit on the telepresence knowledge base. How could they do that? Simple, they had knowledge multipliers. Computers – powerful computers – are really cheap. So cheap that students can buy them. Telecommunications technology is cheap, really cheap. So cheap that a bunch of students can access knowledge bases in all parts of the world.<\/p>\n

I see stories like this almost every week now. We live in an amazing age. There are knowledge multipliers all about us.<\/p>\n

If I had some of the really cheap, really powerful knowledge multipliers available today when I was young… Well, I did have access for that access I am truly thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips Knowledge multipliers are pieces of technology that allow for experiment and growth of knowledge. With each generation, they are more plentiful, powerful, and inexpensive. 1986 – I have finished three years of full-time graduate school. I earned an MS in EE and have completed all the course work towards a PhD. All […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,83,20,3],"tags":[143,200,142,126],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-change","category-computing","category-learning","category-technology","tag-change","tag-computing","tag-learning","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":776,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}