Note: This post is a mere recap. Related blogs will be linked to, later. Part of the motivation was a post by Jon Ostrower with respect to relations of Spirit and the unions from a year ago. Of late, the new is that the bad work seen might be handled by Boeing buying back the old organization. Where do I stand? Merely as having been there, did not take an offer from NewCo (lots of reasons), watched from afar (only talked to a couple of people there in a very indirect manner - feeling out the situation), went onto the modes that Boeing inspired (truth engineering, KBE - knowledge-based engineering, and a patent dealing with the filtering and smoothing of data - core issue of AI and ML). So, here goes.
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It is no secret that I worked for Boeing. The sister blog (Truth Engineering) to this started about the same time. It deals with truth engineering which, for me, was motivated by working in engineering support for the 777 program, in the role of applying knowledge based engineering. The prior post in this blog mentioned a recent paper with regard to AI being more than ML.
Wait, what does that have to do with the current problem that is associated with an earlier program? After the 777 program demonstrated remarkable results which have stood up in time, KBE was applied to subsequent work which eventually led to the 787 project. It was about then that Boeing farmed out work via a NewCo. For several months, I worked on setting up that split and have written some general posts on the deal.
The same thing was done at Beech. There's a post titled Hawker spooked, or similar. Yes, I gave some of the details. We can recap that. Essentially, private equity ruined Beech just like it ruined that NewCo of Boeing that became Spirit. I watched this through the news and a bit of talking to local people.
So, on the technical issues, we will address those a couple of ways. One is that these are interspersed in this blog over the 17 years. Too, they deal with the future. Say, the idiocy of the OpenAI premature release in 2002? Bears with the same mentality.
Engineers are the mainstay of the economy. Without them, we'd be dragging our knuckles. Wait, do we see some of that even now?
The name, 7'oops 7? Well, 2005, July was my first day of retirment. Yes, coming on 19 years. One of my friends stayed with NewCo. The last time I saw him, we talked the reality of his situation. Yeap. Screwed by private equity. But, that'll be addressed in another platform. Though, I have to note that union busting was not unknown in attitude (I was in the rat hole that they said later was a bat cave - will depict some of that). So, from day one, there was stress. Not just of late.
Note: Boeing gave each employee an estimate of retirement benefits. Depending upon age, some went to NewCo with their full benefits. Many did not. Myself, I opted out and retired. My friend and I would go through his and ponder the future. That changed, drastically. Employees and the unions could give a better summary. I was in the Technical Excellence program and not of the union.
What has changed? Lots of things. We'll review those.
Okay, two years later, July 8, 2007 (7/8/7) was approaching. By then, I had heard that things were not progressing as expected. Okay. We'll punt that down the road a little to let me assess the situation. Remember, we're talking what was before the 737 problem. Process knowledge applies. And, there seemed to be a huge gap between the expectation and the status of the section to be delivered by Boeing at the time. But, it was going to be shipped anyway. What? Boeing had a huge media deal scheduled.
I was talking to my wife as we discussed what was going on. She said, seven 'oops seven. It stuck.
Note: Thi isn't hashing old stuff. With the 787, Boeing relaxed along almost all decision axes. That's not the way of engineering nor mathematics. It's too easy to lose sight of control. I've been in systems enginering from the getgo, in an engineering context. Anyway, this has to be discussed, sometime.
Now, later in July of 2007, I started the truth engineering blog. After the event mentioned above. Why? I was browsing and saw some use of "truth engineering" in Europe and thought that it was time to make a presence on the web. There are many avenues taken (or to take) with the concept. In fact, it's seminal to AI's future. Academia just doesn't know it yet. Too, it deals with analyzing history as well as the mathematics that everyone is relying on, especially with the computing modes being everywhere densely.
I started this blog in August, one month later. So, 1st posts of Truth Engineering and 7'oops7, respectively (Truth, can it be engineered?; Mission and method).
Note, please, that neither of these initial posts mention the "potemkin affair" that happened. But, for both, it had already happened. I was not sure how to address the issues seen and heard. In this blog, I mention Flightblogger who was the first that I saw who was talking about the empty shell (more or less). That was Jon's blog.
Also, notice that with this 7'oops7 blog's post, after Carson was out of the way (imagine, marketing running engineering?) and engineers took over, we see the 787 making progress. So, guess what? Financial cats out of MIT had misled the people using techniques that have no basis (tsk) except to pick pockets had created a serious situation. So, 2008 happened. That became the focus, for a while, until I pulled that to FEDaerated.
Then, 7'oops7 blog became oriented toward complex systems which is our reality going forward.
So, jumping back to now, there 307 posts here of different categories. Truth engineering has 315. FEDaerated has 331. All about the same count. Why? These are differing views of the same thing. We need more of that. I'm the author of all of these. Plus there are others.
But, mainly, in 2015, I switched to Quora. Same themes, for the most part. The dynamics differ.
So, I'm getting back to blogging. See this page for status: https://tgsoc.org/papers/. I am working with Larry Walker of the Sperry Knowledge Systems Center (KSC) to establish an overarching view of advanced computing in all of its aspects that is not reduced generally by academic influence. That's my take on the matters. Larry has other concerns. The KSC was thwarted from doing great work by business decisions that were suspect. At Boeing, KBE diminished after Wichita was sold. I will use the patent to start the discussion.
So, can industry and academia work well? Different hats, folks. As Larry says, no technical brain that he saw in the C-Suite kept his/her mojo. Now, the computer? Another factor? You bet. That's my focus from a view of generalizing western civilization's role in the development. AI needs this overview.
Remarks: Modified: 03/03/2024
03/03/2024 -- Adding more links.
