Computer Science

Maxwell’s Demon: Planning for Technology Obsolescence in Acquisition Strategy

Imagine a chamber divided into two parts by a removable partition. On one side is a hot sample of gas and on the other side a cold sample of the same gas. The chamber is a closed system with a certain amount of order, because the statistically faster moving molecules of the hot gas on one side of the partition are segregated from statistically slower moving molecules of the cold gas on the other side. Maxwell’s demon guards a trap door in the partition, which is still assumed not to conduct heat. It spots molecules coming from either side and judges their speeds…The perverse demon manipulates the trap door so as to allow passage only to the very slowest molecules of the hot gas and the very fastest molecules of the cold gas. Thus the cold gas receives extremely slow molecules, cooling it further, and the hot gas receives extremely fast molecules, making it even hotter. In apparent defiance of the second law of thermodynamics, the demon has caused heat to flow from the cold gas to the hot one. What is going on?

Because the law applies only to a closed system, we must include the demon in our calculations. Its increase of entropy must be at least as great as the decrease of entropy in the gas-filled halves of the chamber. What is it like for the demon to increase its entropy? –Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex, W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1994, pp. 222-223

“Entropy is a figure of speech, then,” sighed Nefastis, “a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow. The Machine uses both. The Demon makes the metaphor not only verbally graceful, but also objectively true.” –Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1965

Technology Acquisition: The Basics

I’ve recently been involved in discussions regarding software development and acquisition that cut across several disciplines that should be of interest to anyone engaged in project management in general, but IT project management and acquisition in particular.

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The Medium Controls the Present: Is it Too Late to Stop a Digital Dark Age?

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” ― George Orwell, 1984

A few short pre-Covid years ago, Google Vice President Vint Cerf turned some heads at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, warning the attending scientists that the digitization of the artifacts of civilization may create a digital dark age. “If we’re thinking 1,000 years, 3,000 years ahead in the future, we have to ask ourselves, how do we preserve all the bits that we need in order to correctly interpret the digital objects we create?” Cerf’s concerns are that today’s technology will become obsolete at some future time, with the information of our own times locked in a technological prison.

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Big Data and the Repository of Babel

In 1941, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) published a short story entitled “The Library of Babel.” In the story Borges imagines a universe, known as the Library, which is described by the story’s narrator as made up of adjacent hexagonal rooms.

Each of the rooms of the library is poorly lit, with one side acting as the entrance and exit, and four of the five remaining walls of the rooms containing bookshelves whose books are placed in a completely uniform style, though the books’ contents are completely random.

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The Need for an Integrated Digital Environment (IDE) Strategy in Project Management*

Putting the Pieces Together

To be an effective project manager, one must possess a number of skills in order to successfully guide the project to completion. This includes having a working knowledge of the information coming from multiple sources and the ability to make sense of that information in a cohesive manner. This is so that, when brought together, it provides an accurate picture of where the project has been, where it is in its present state, and what actions must be taken to keep it (or bring it back) on track.

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Potato, Potahto, Tomato, Tomahto: Data Normalization vs. Standardization, Why the Difference Matters

In my vocation I run a technology company devoted to program management solutions that is primarily concerned with taking data and converting it into information to establish a knowledge-based environment. Similarly, in my avocation I deal with the meaning of information and how to turn it into insight and knowledge. This latter activity concerns the subject areas of history, sociology, and science.

In my travels just prior to and since the New Year, I have come upon a number of experts and fellow enthusiasts in these respective fields. The overwhelming numbers of these encounters have been productive, educational, and cordial. We respectfully disagree in some cases about the significance of a particular approach, governance when it comes to project and program management policy, but generally there is a great deal of agreement, particularly on basic facts and terminology. But some areas of disagreement–particularly those that come from left field–tend to be the most interesting because they create an opportunity to clarify a larger issue.

In a recent venue I encountered this last example where the issue was the use of the phrase data normalization. The issue at hand was that the use of “data normalization” suggested some statistical methodology in reconciling data into a standard schema. Instead, it was suggested, the term “data standardization” was more appropriate.

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Open: Strategic Planning, Open Data Systems, and the Section 809 Panel

Sundays are usually days reserved for music and the group Rhye was playing in the background when this topic came to mind.

I have been preparing for my presentation in collaboration with my Navy colleague John Collins for the upcoming Integrated Program Management Workshop in Baltimore. This presentation will be a non-proprietary/non-commercial talk about understanding the issue of unlocking data to support national defense systems, but the topic has broader interest.

Thus, in advance of that formal presentation in Baltimore, there are issues and principles that are useful to cover, given that data capture and its processing, delivery, and use is at the heart of all systems in government, and private industry and organizations.

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Sledgehammer: Pisano Talks!

My blogging hiatus is coming to an end as I take a sledgehammer to the writer’s block wall.

I’ve traveled far and wide over the last six months to various venues across the country and have collected a number of new and interesting perspectives on the issues of data transformation, integrated project management, and business analytics and visualization. As a result, I have developed some very strong opinions regarding the trends that work and those that don’t regarding these topics and will be sharing these perspectives (with the appropriate supporting documentation per usual) in following posts.

To get things started this post will be relatively brief.

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Learning the (Data) — Data-Driven Management, HBR Edition

The months of December and January are usually full of reviews of significant events and achievements during the previous twelve months. Harvard Business Review makes the search for some of the best writing on the subject of data-driven transformation by occasionally publishing in one volume the best writing on a critical subject of interest to professional through the magazine OnPoint. It is worth making part of your permanent data management library.

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Money for Nothing — Project Performance Data and Efficiencies in Timeliness

I operate in a well regulated industry focused on project management. What this means practically is that there are data streams that flow from the R&D activities, recording planning and progress, via control and analytical systems to both management and customer. The contract type in most cases is Cost Plus, with cost and schedule risk often flowing to the customer in the form of cost overruns and schedule slippages.

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Synergy — The Economics of Integrated Project Management

The hot topic lately in meetings and the odd conference on Integrated Project Management (IPM) often focuses on the mechanics of achieving that state, bound by the implied definition of current regulation, which has also become–not surprisingly–practice. I think this is a laudable goal, particularly given both the casual resistance to change (which always there by definition to some extent) and in the most extreme cases a kind of apathy.

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