<commit_before>#[Portfolio](http://dwin357.github.io/)

---

### Dwin - After Dark
##### an informal interview by an anonymous questioner with the person known as Dwin 

**_Q: Thank you for agreeing to speak with us_**
Oh it is no problem really.  You know how it is when you are "actively seeking opportunities", you have to make yourself available to the world.

**Q: I take it by your answer job hunting is not something you enjoy? **
I wouldn't go quite that far.  I'm a shy-extrovert, I draw my energy from other people, so on some level I enjoy getting out and meeting all the new people.  The catch is that shy part.  When I am working with people on a common problem there is a defined/known relationship between us that I find reassuring.  I find the same thing with boardgames in a social setting.  The trouble I have with job-hunting is how chaotic it is, like going to bed at night with no assurance that the sun will rise tomorrow or that a rouge-asteroid won't wipe everything out during the night.

**Q: Does that mean you dislike change? **
Quite the opposite actually, I am a huge fan of change.  What I struggle with is randomness.  

**Q: That is kind of a strange answer, could you elaborate a bit more **
Well there are two parts to my answer.

For starters, I think people basically have patterns/frameworks that they use to navigate the world.  Mine has to do with the inherent "contextual-ness" of things, and when I have to deal with truly random events it ends up feeling like I am operating without a sense.

As to what I mean by the inherent "contextual-ness" of everything, I believe that whenever you observe or think about a thing, the outcome is always a comprimise between (the thing you are observing) and (the conditions under which you are observing it).  A lot of people take this approach when they are working on a problem, but then abridge the process once they find a solution; the difference for me is that it is "context all the way down".  This perspective means I tend to focus on the connections between elements.  Also, when I try to achieve change I don't run directly at it; I start by understanding how present conditions created the current outcome and then work out a series of transformations necessecary to get to my destination.


**Q: Have you always thought like this? **
Maybe?  The ability to make something different just by shifting the lighting on it while never touching the object itself was a major revelation for me as a child, what cooler thing is there than action-from-a-distance, but the specific incarnation changed over time.  When I was seven, the perfect embodiment of this principal was stage-magic; when I was twenty-one it was psychology; now it is technology.  At every stage though [performance -> individual-perception -> collective- organization & communication] I refined my methodology of shifting context to produce change.


**Q: Wow; that, is a lot to take in **
Ya, I'm sorry, that is one of the drawbacks of my methodology.  If I don't have certain concepts cached with the other person I tend to put a load on them when setting up my assumptions.  It actually tends to make people yawn and feel sleepy (or disengage), currently an unsolved problem for me.


**Q: So 'Dwin', your given name is Edwin, any particular reason behind dropping the 'E'? **
It was a symbolic decision actually.  I figure, a name is the reduction of a person to a word, and an initial is the reduction of a name to a character... so what if my moniker  was what was left of my name after this reduction had run its course.  A gesture of allegiance to the anti-thesis of today's prevailing reductionist winds.  It is purely symbolic of course, but I take my victories where I can find them.

**Q: And the '357' that normally follows, any significance there? **
Ya, that is my optimism poking out.  Intended as [3, 5, 7...], as in a sequence of ascending prime numbers; it is an assertion that in the course of development humans will inevitably discover irreducible ideas which will force the expansion of our perceptions despite all of the reductionist head-winds which might be encountered along the way.  Basically a "long-arc-of-the-moral-universe" argument against the reductionist point of view.

**Q: You seem to be taking a very strong position on "reductionism", going so far as to set up an allusion to segregation and racism.  That seems a bit over blown **
Well yes.  Keep in mind the last two questions were specifically about my moniker, which was selected when I was younger and is perhaps more hyperbolic than one I would create now.  That said, I feel I had a legitimate grievance back then which are still relevant today.  There is a natural link between the language people use to talk around something and the analysis they use to interpret it.  So, to the extent that network effects force an individual to communicate in the lowest-common-denominator, this has a deleterious effect on the individual's private ability to analyze what is going on.  As someone who's private thought patterns may be more different, I might notice this more, but it is never the less an externality that runs counter to enlightenment-ideals and which all people suffer under to some extent.

**Q: You have expressed a couple of big ideas, how does your philosophy relate to technology? **
Sure.  Thank you for asking, this is a question I love to answer.  Calling back to what I mentioned before about **contextualness**, for me this question is at the cutting edge of my understanding of how outcomes can be shaped by context.  Without diving too deeply down the rabbit-hole, my logic flows: 

assertion: collaboration is powerful because of an ability to leverage the effort from multiple individuals 
  constraint: the potential of collaboration to scale across people is directly limited by the ability of people to accurately and effectivly communicate with each other
    assertion: within communication, the biggest risk comes from a misalignment of definitions. Ie: in conversation you propose 'X', I agree with 'X', and in practice we find we had totally different ideas of what was meant by 'X'.
      assertion: this risk of the misalignment of definitions is the organizational equivalent of friction.  It can be mitigated, but never elimiated; it becomes aggervated with scale; and always end of being the limiting factor unless preempted by something else.

assertion: machines are absolutely literal in their interpretation of language, and so people who write instructions for machines must write them in a way that is compatible with this super literal interpretation.
  assertion: this requirement that people's communications be compatible with extrem literalism forces a shift in each person's private thinking to be grounded on a more robust collection of definitions.  This is actually the same relationship / phenomena I referenced when talking about "reductionism", except here it is brought about by the a priori requirement that "machine programers talk to machines" rather than by a network-effect.

conclusion: to directly answer your question, the way I see my philosophy / methodology applying to technology is in leveraging coders's capacity for literal-ness in the thinking and communication to minimize the misalignment of definitions which limit the potential of organizations.

on a more personal note, to my eyes software development today holds the same privilaged place that building skyscrappers did at the turn of the last century.   Going back to what I said before about being a shy-extrovert, I want to work with people on common problems so that I can have some framework to socialize with them and at this functional level details of the problem are less important than the fact that it is shared.  ...but, given that the details of the problem are interchangible, why would you want to work on anything other than a skyscrapper!?!



**Q: We only have time for one more question, so why don't we leave on, "If you could have any job what would it be?" **

Ha ha, yep still "actively seeking opportunities".  My long term ideal is a role where I use technological interventions to help organizations change the context of their operations, thereby developing insights on these operations and/or adjusting their outcomes.  Within this framework, the "perfect job" question breaks into 1) perfect job for me right now, and 2) job which perfectly expresses my ideal.

In the immediate sense, I am looking for a job which will provide me intense exposure to the variety of ways technology can be used to impact business outcomes.  I am in a growth phase right now.  I have learned the basics of how different technologies function, but I need to develop my understanding of how they behave under special circumstances as well as how these technologies can be wed to human problems.  As a practical matter, this probably means either a role that takes advantage of my language skills and/or scales work to my ability as I undergo this development.

In the longer term, as I pass out of this growth phase, my perfect job would shift to one where I am asked to solve/answer business questions which cut across multiple domains of an organization and/or across multiple pools of data collected by an organization.  To my eyes, these problems represent a unique subset because a solution by definition must cut across existing organizing-structures (within the scope of business organization and/or data), but the organization's present success is invested in these existing structures.  Under these circumstances, a sucessful solution must exist along both a technological axis as well as an organizational axis and seem to me to be the most interesting kinds of problems to be solved.<commit_msg>strong bold<commit_after>#[Portfolio](http://dwin357.github.io/)

---

### Dwin - After Dark
##### an informal interview by an anonymous questioner with the person known as Dwin 

**_Q: Thank you for agreeing to speak with us_**

Oh it is no problem really.  You know how it is when you are "actively seeking opportunities", you have to make yourself available to the world.


**_Q: I take it by your answer job hunting is not something you enjoy?_**

I wouldn't go quite that far.  I'm a shy-extrovert, I draw my energy from other people, so on some level I enjoy getting out and meeting all the new people.  The catch is that shy part.  When I am working with people on a common problem there is a defined/known relationship between us that I find reassuring.  I find the same thing with boardgames in a social setting.  The trouble I have with job-hunting is how chaotic it is, like going to bed at night with no assurance that the sun will rise tomorrow or that a rouge-asteroid won't wipe everything out during the night.


**_Q: Does that mean you dislike change?_**

Quite the opposite actually, I am a huge fan of change.  What I struggle with is randomness.  


**_Q: That is kind of a strange answer, could you elaborate a bit more_**

Well there are two parts to my answer.

For starters, I think people basically have patterns/frameworks that they use to navigate the world.  Mine has to do with the inherent "contextual-ness" of things, and when I have to deal with truly random events it ends up feeling like I am operating without a sense.

As to what I mean by the inherent "contextual-ness" of everything, I believe that whenever you observe or think about a thing, the outcome is always a comprimise between (the thing you are observing) and (the conditions under which you are observing it).  A lot of people take this approach when they are working on a problem, but then abridge the process once they find a solution; the difference for me is that it is "context all the way down".  This perspective means I tend to focus on the connections between elements.  Also, when I try to achieve change I don't run directly at it; I start by understanding how present conditions created the current outcome and then work out a series of transformations necessecary to get to my destination.



**_Q: Have you always thought like this?_**

Maybe?  The ability to make something different just by shifting the lighting on it while never touching the object itself was a major revelation for me as a child, what cooler thing is there than action-from-a-distance, but the specific incarnation changed over time.  When I was seven, the perfect embodiment of this principal was stage-magic; when I was twenty-one it was psychology; now it is technology.  At every stage though [performance -> individual-perception -> collective- organization & communication] I refined my methodology of shifting context to produce change.


**_Q: Wow; that, is a lot to take in_**

Ya, I'm sorry, that is one of the drawbacks of my methodology.  If I don't have certain concepts cached with the other person I tend to put a load on them when setting up my assumptions.  It actually tends to make people yawn and feel sleepy (or disengage), currently an unsolved problem for me.


**_Q: So 'Dwin', your given name is Edwin, any particular reason behind dropping the 'E'?_**

It was a symbolic decision actually.  I figure, a name is the reduction of a person to a word, and an initial is the reduction of a name to a character... so what if my moniker  was what was left of my name after this reduction had run its course.  A gesture of allegiance to the anti-thesis of today's prevailing reductionist winds.  It is purely symbolic of course, but I take my victories where I can find them.


**_Q: And the '357' that normally follows, any significance there?_**

Ya, that is my optimism poking out.  Intended as [3, 5, 7...], as in a sequence of ascending prime numbers; it is an assertion that in the course of development humans will inevitably discover irreducible ideas which will force the expansion of our perceptions despite all of the reductionist head-winds which might be encountered along the way.  Basically a "long-arc-of-the-moral-universe" argument against the reductionist point of view.


**_Q: You seem to be taking a very strong position on "reductionism", going so far as to set up an allusion to segregation and racism.  That seems a bit over blown._**

Well yes.  Keep in mind the last two questions were specifically about my moniker, which was selected when I was younger and is perhaps more hyperbolic than one I would create now.  That said, I feel I had a legitimate grievance back then which are still relevant today.  There is a natural link between the language people use to talk around something and the analysis they use to interpret it.  So, to the extent that network effects force an individual to communicate in the lowest-common-denominator, this has a deleterious effect on the individual's private ability to analyze what is going on.  As someone who's private thought patterns may be more different, I might notice this more, but it is never the less an externality that runs counter to enlightenment-ideals and which all people suffer under to some extent.


**_Q: You have expressed a couple of big ideas, how does your philosophy relate to technology?_**

Sure.  Thank you for asking, this is a question I love to answer.  Calling back to what I mentioned before about **contextualness**, for me this question is at the cutting edge of my understanding of how outcomes can be shaped by context.  Without diving too deeply down the rabbit-hole, my logic flows: 

>assertion: collaboration is powerful because of an ability to leverage the effort from multiple individuals 
>>constraint: the potential of collaboration to scale across people is directly limited by the ability of people to accurately and effectivly communicate with each other
>>>assertion: within communication, the biggest risk comes from a misalignment of definitions. Ie: in conversation you propose 'X', I agree with 'X', and in practice we find we had totally different ideas of what was meant by 'X'.
>>>>assertion: this risk of the misalignment of definitions is the organizational equivalent of friction.  It can be mitigated, but never elimiated; it becomes aggervated with scale; and always end of being the limiting factor unless preempted by something else.

>assertion: machines are absolutely literal in their interpretation of language, and so people who write instructions for machines must write them in a way that is compatible with this super literal interpretation.
>>assertion: this requirement that people's communications be compatible with extrem literalism forces a shift in each person's private thinking to be grounded on a more robust collection of definitions.  This is actually the same relationship / phenomena I referenced when talking about "reductionism", except here it is brought about by the a priori requirement that "machine programers talk to machines" rather than by a network-effect.

>conclusion: to directly answer your question, the way I see my philosophy / methodology applying to technology is in leveraging coders's capacity for literal-ness in the thinking and communication to minimize the misalignment of definitions which limit the potential of organizations.

on a more personal note, to my eyes software development today holds the same privilaged place that building skyscrappers did at the turn of the last century.   Going back to what I said before about being a shy-extrovert, I want to work with people on common problems so that I can have some framework to socialize with them and at this functional level details of the problem are less important than the fact that it is shared.  ...but, given that the details of the problem are interchangible, why would you want to work on anything other than a skyscrapper!?!



**_Q: We only have time for one more question, so why don't we leave on, "If you could have any job what would it be?"_**

Ha ha, yep still "actively seeking opportunities".  My long term ideal is a role where I use technological interventions to help organizations change the context of their operations, thereby developing insights on these operations and/or adjusting their outcomes.  Within this framework, the "perfect job" question breaks into 1) perfect job for me right now, and 2) job which perfectly expresses my ideal.

In the immediate sense, I am looking for a job which will provide me intense exposure to the variety of ways technology can be used to impact business outcomes.  I am in a growth phase right now.  I have learned the basics of how different technologies function, but I need to develop my understanding of how they behave under special circumstances as well as how these technologies can be wed to human problems.  As a practical matter, this probably means either a role that takes advantage of my language skills and/or scales work to my ability as I undergo this development.

In the longer term, as I pass out of this growth phase, my perfect job would shift to one where I am asked to solve/answer business questions which cut across multiple domains of an organization and/or across multiple pools of data collected by an organization.  To my eyes, these problems represent a unique subset because a solution by definition must cut across existing organizing-structures (within the scope of business organization and/or data), but the organization's present success is invested in these existing structures.  Under these circumstances, a sucessful solution must exist along both a technological axis as well as an organizational axis and seem to me to be the most interesting kinds of problems to be solved.
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