Strange Dreams

Donnie Bryson

Well, I have retired. I guess that is what I can call it. I am working in my ministry full-time. I am no longer playing with computers for my living. I still dream about it though.

I had the wildest one the other night. I dreamed that I still worked for IBM. I dreamed that the company ran a contest that if one of its employees broke its new encryption scheme that they would win a bonus. I broke the scheme! The funniest thing about the dream is that I was thinking how I broke it. The safety light came on in my head, to keep from realizing it was only a dream, and I thought I would just mull it over later. Haha, wild dream!

Category: Experiences

  • Charlie Wisdom

    Charlie Parker once advised, “you learn the changes and then forget them.” Of course, he was talking about music. His advice is great for musicians of any style. We do not want to be overly academic with our music. But, I have seen many composers be more concerned about pleasing their freshman composition teacher then…

  • Correlation and Causation Explained in the Real Word

    All of us that have provided services that have fallen into a classification like  Decision Support System, Business Analyst, Business Intelligence, or Data Science have had to explain the difference between correlation and causation.  There have been times that I have found these conversations can be tense, confusing, and sometimes futile. First, forget the academic…

  • When to Have a Product or Project Perspective in Software Development

    Introduction Architects and developers approach our craft from two different perspectives. One perspective is the project perspective. The project perspective takes one specific business challenge and uniquely creates a software solution for that particular problem. Usually the architect starts with a blank canvas and interviews the users. The developer takes the notes and diagrams from…

  • Building Software For A World Where It Can Mean Life or Death

    Three questions engineers should ask themselves to help prevent tragedies like that of the recent Boeing 737 Max 8 fatal plane crash On the morning of 10 March, under a beautiful Ethiopian sun, 157 men, women, and children boarded flight ET302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya. The Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane took off…

  • Adventures in Encryption Breaking

    Background Well over twenty years, when I owned Quality Software Solutions, I cracked the hardest encryption, obfuscation scheme, or whatever you want to call it. I have always considered reverse engineering completely ethical under two conditions — if the sole purpose was fixing a broken system or extracting data for its true owner. So, I…

  • Software Patents — An Inventor’s Personal Perspective

    Before I say anything, let me clearly state three things: (a) I am a retired IBM Senior Inventor (b) I speak only for myself and my opinions are not a reflection on any current or former employer (c) my experiences should not be used as an activity gauge for any larger group. My experiences are…

  • Agile Development, Documentation, and Fixed Cost

    Introduction One of the twelve principals of Agile development is, “Welcome changing requirements, even in late development.” This has made our craft to be more responsive to our customers and deliver projects that better fit their business needs. However, “changing requirements” can also unreasonably escalate cost if it is not properly defined and managed. A changing…

  • Computer System Analyst, Software Engineer, or IT Architect?

    One of the changes that I have seen over the years in the trade is the change in the terminal technical job description for a programmer. Names have never meant much to me. I have performed the same job as a System Analyst, IT Architect, or a Software Engineer. I have been called all three…