Constructive Pessimism is Like Being a Platoon Sergeant...

Bear with me on this analogy, it will all hopefully make sense in the end...

So one of my fellow Constructive Pessimists wrote a brilliant article, which sadly has elapsed from the net, so you'll just have to take my word on this. He proposed that team members could be plotted on a cartesian graph with a horizontal axis representing the pessimism-to-optimism continuum and the vertical axis representing the destructive-to-constructive continuum.

From this, he identified some stereotypes in the team and suggested that the best performance occurs when the team is using at least one constructive pessimist for decision making.

Well, nothing beats a cartesian graph like a tasty doughnut!!!!

In the doughnut model, we have four types - obviously, any real person will vary along this continuum and behave either optimistically or pessimistically depending on mood, circumstance, involvement in the project and such.

The four types are Destructive Pessimist (DP), Constructive Pessimist (CP), Constructive Optimist (CO) and Destructive Optimist (DO).

The trick,

 for the manager

or anyone in the team needing to influence the team,

is to shift attitudes from

Destructive Doughnut to

Constructive Hole.

This is a far cry from what most of us are taught: That attitudes need to shift from Pessimism to Optimism.

In fact, I suspect it's easier to do the former than the latter anyway.

What you do is:

1. Get the COs to set the targets - it pays to dream big.

2. Get CPs to brainstorm the solutions - they will identify the potholes and work out how to get past them

3. Give DOs difficult new projects outside their expertise so they can't wing it. They will either become COs, or they will fail to change - and ask any T-Rex what happens when you can't change!

4. Give the DPs easy stuff to get some quick wins under their belts - they will either become more CP, or again, they will fail and you really don't need their negativity!

So how does this fit with the platoon model?

The most successful organisations are military - partly because shoot people who try to leave, partly because they blow up the competition, but mostly because they have had a lot of practice!

In  a platoon, the Platoon Commander decides what they will do strategically - he is a CO. The Platoon Sergeant is the guy who maintains discipline - that is, he ensures that what the CO wants is feasible, because he makes sure everyone is prepared - that is surely the perfect use for a CP!

And the soldiers? Any type, but I can tell you from experience, the army does not tolerate destructive personalities, and they have a knack for changing people!

Viva la Philosophie!

A Novel Concept - CPU with a one gate ALU

This was something I wrote a few years ago, and I found it again just the other day . Y'know, like your cloud drive becomes the bottom of the closet kinda thing? A Novel Concept…

Here's an idea for a logic controller that uses only one mnemonic! It's based on the fact that any sequential logic can be expressed as compound logic, and any compound logic can be expressed in "NAND" gates. Each instruction is in fact 3 register addresses:

A

B

X

So the function of each and every instruction is X=A.B. The architecture is similar to a PLC: Registers are 1 bit memories, and the scan cycle is:

1. Read Inputs into Registers

2. Execute Logic

3. Write Outputs from Registers

4. Check for Programming Device Interrupt

5. Goto Step 1

The Program memory is a printer buffer, with each read instruction generating a write to put a copy back in. A counter keeps track of where execution must stop and I/O servicing start.

The format used for notation is A-B-X - an instruction such as "start OR latch" becoming a sequence:

start-start-nstart

invert start

latch-latch-nlatch

invert latch

nstart-nlatch-nresult

NOR= NAND of the inverses

Some basic logic:

Dummy:

A dummy register, whose contents is considered irrelevant is used instead of a "NOP" instruction, as in D-D-D

Invert:

Not-A can be done 2 ways: A-A-X or 1-A-X, where 1 is achieved by always having a register with a 1 in it, called "SET"

NAND:

A-B-X

X=A.B

AND:

A-B-NX

NX-NX-X

X=A.B

OR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

NA-NB-X

X=A+B

NOR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

NA-NB-NX

NX-NX-X

X=A+B

XOR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

A-NB-C

NA-B-D

C-D-X

X=A(+)B

XNOR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

A-B-C

NA-NB-D

C-D-X

X=A(+)B

R-S Latch:

NRESET-Q-NQ

NOTE THAT NRESET & NSET ARE

NSET-NQ-Q

ACTIVE LOW, AND ALSO, IF NSET

GOES LOW, FOR 1 CYCLE OF THE

PROGRAM, BOTH Q AND NQ ARE HIGH.

Q-Q-NQ

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TO AVOID THIS, USE THIS LINE

AFTER THE LAST.