For Dummies Like You & Me

This is a long story, and it really began 36 years ago, if you can read that long. It’s in my databank called memory waiting to be told all those years. Memory is a databank that fails every now and then, as any 67-year old will tell you. Ask me. Needs improvement. Quite undesirable, quite understandable.

You didn’t think I would know now, dolt. I’m a dummy with a camera passing by another dummy with a scooter passing by another dummy lying on the sidewalk. I am going that way; he is going the other way; he is going nowhere. Very interesting.

I didn’t realize it that day, but now I see these old hands have captured on my new Canon PowerShot A540 digital camera a modern-day metaphor for an olden-day databank on the information superhighway – that which usually serves its users who are just passing by, or where they are just staying, just staring. Enter an Internet café of your choice and you’ll see what I mean.

Databanking is funny, dolt. You know, if the Internet is the universal databank, each website is a self-directed databank itself, although infinitesimally smaller. In the information highway, websites are middle-of-the-road. From the Philippines & elsewhere, here are interesting items:

The UP Diliman streakers are fast; the UP website is slow.
The UP Los Baños website is in English; the slogan is in Tagalog (Filipino): ‘Iskolar ng Bayan: Tunay, Palaban, Makabayan!’ ‘People’s Scholar: Genuine, Militant, Nationalistic!’ The slogan goes that way, the content goes the other way.
Rice Doctor of IRRI online is not easy to use as it is not easy to decipher a medical doctor’s Rx.
The ICRISAT website is difficult to read because of the fine print.
And it takes forever for MSN to search for elephant images.
So, what else is new?

You dolt lying on the sidewalk. I know this place like my fingers know the keyboard of my desktop PC – I’m a touch-typist, you know; I can tell you’re drunk, probably on a forbidden drug. You’re down, oblivious to the theory & practice of living. Out of this world into your own. When dolts think they have no more choices, they choose Escape.

What?! Dolt, the building to your right is that of a school, and the sign is inviting you, telling you: Be proud you are a Filipino. To your left is a man on a scooter who holds a folder or something, and in a split-second, he’s going to pass you by. The message? If you don’t learn that you have choices – or if you quit before knowing you have other choices – life is going to pass you by, dummy.

Believe me, dolt, the scene I have captured in my photograph reminds me now of the theory & practice of databanking, or databasing, that is, creating & keeping what Encarta (2008) defines simply as a large store of information. I like simple, which gives you an idea of the problem: large store. How can you find anything fast in a large store if you’re not the storekeeper? That’s why in a library we need a librarian.

The problem with a databank is that it comes with the librarian; in fact, the databank is itself the library and at the same time the librarian, one and the same. You know of course, dummy, there are helpful and there are not-so-helpful librarians.

Dolt, you ask me what in heaven’s name is a databank? I’ll give you examples: the Internet, a website, a library, a book. A book, yes; many non-fiction authors don’t appreciate the value of an index – either a book has a miniature index or none at all. The index entries are your keywords or search words; if you don’t have an abundance of those, how can you locate something in the book as fast as you can turn the pages? Without a good index, you will have to turn and read all the pages again and again; without those innumerable, priceless keywords, your book is, dummy, a crummy databank. I once prepared a 100-page index for a 500-page textbook, and the author-editor laughed; she accepted 30 pages. They still make indexes like they used to. I’m glad the electronic index has been invented, in the electronic databank – now the sky is the limit, and the Internet is the sky.

How can you find anything in a library superfast? Don’t use your personal DVD encyclopedia; go to the Internet, the biggest and fastest library you’ll never own. It’s okay; it’s not perfect. With the advent of information technology, not time but speed is of the essence – I can’t wait a minute for the first webpage to upload itself. For me, even with my new Core 2 Duo PC with 1.8 GHz processor with 2 GB RAM with a fast 320 GB hard disk, my SmartBro running at 384 kbps, PC running alone, the Internet is not fast enough. What’s more, as a databank the Internet is not intelligent enough. I have another kind of databank some dummies never even heard of.

Before I even heard of ‘personal computer,’ much less ‘Internet’ and ‘databank,’ I had the germ of that idea 26 years ago, 1981, when I was working with the library of the National Science Development Board (NSDB) – Emil Javier was Director General – as some sort of a consulting Documentalist; it was really a special arrangement, as I was in fact a Special Assistant to the Assistant Director General of the NSDB, Atty Dominador O Reyes, the arrangement made with Ms Delia Torrijos, Director of the National Science Library & Documentation Center, who herself was a consultant with the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW).

Looking farther back, 10 years before, in 1971, I held the job of Documentalist of the National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST), under Director Jose R Velasco (the father of the current Chancellor of UP Los Baños, Luis Rey I Velasco), a job which required that I abstract and index articles in the recently acquired periodicals in the NIST Library. When I understood the essence of what I was doing, I began to love the tedious, repetitive process of distilling the thoughts of others into quite a few words. I loved it when I could capture a thought from a technical paper and put it down in my own words.

Abstracting is writing down, the reverse of the writing process, which is writing up. In a short while, I had the mind to improve the abstract and include the rationale, plus a succinct summary of the main conclusion, plus sometimes the major recommendation – all within the limit of 250 words to an abstract.

Funny, but the authors of technical papers today find it more difficult to write their abstract than their whole manuscript – no original abstract has so far measured up to my standards, and I’ve been editor of technical manuscripts for more than 32 years. They don’t think the abstract is that important. It is. In the library of olden times – 36 years ago – abstracts were the best way to trace an article back to its original publication. They still are, dolt.

26 years ago: Abstracting, one day, the idea struck me that, based on my expanded abstract, there must be a better (faster, with pin-point accuracy) way of retrieving information from the library, and I came up with what I shall now call, for convenience – I didn’t have a name for it then – iUD, for insinuating Universal Data. The idea for my iUD databank was to extract the essence of all articles, big and small, by indexing them in all manners of mixes of terms and words so that when dummies wanted to look for something, even if they didn’t know the exact term or word for it, they would find it. iUD was my library for dolts. I am told you would call that now the use of synonyms. (Google is a dummy if it doesn’t already do that for you in the Internet.)

Still, my iUD databank went beyond synonyms; you dummy would be able to find the article you were looking for, searching using your own words; in addition, another article would suggest itself that you should have looked for it, even if your search word was not found in the article itself. That would be intelligence insinuating itself, dummy. You wouldn’t believe it, dolt. In other words, with my iUD, even if you didn’t know it, you were also searching the database by context. (How? That’s my $64M secret. But if you’re smart, you can guess after this from what this dolt has said. I will have given you a $64B clue. Consider it my Christmas gift to the world.)

The traditional databank is ‘an electronic filing system’ (webopedia.com), electronic files classified for access through keywords or search words. Webopedia also says an alternative concept in databank design is hypertext, where an object (list, document, spreadsheet, image, drawing, audio, video) can be linked to any other object. That’s the Internet already. Beyond already, beyond hypertext, my iUD databank would be a thinking supertext, not a dummy, if this dummy may so himself.

In that age before computers, with Ms Torrijos’ endorsement, the NCRFW bought my crude databank iUD concept and paid a first downpayment of my professional fee, P7500, a princely sum in those days, 1981. I had an IPR even before I had heard the term Intellectual Property Rights. You don’t know how happy I was, an aggie graduate (Ag Ed) dabbling in information retrieval, as it was then referred to. I took to my databanking like a duck to water.

Unhappily, something dumb happened – I didn’t like the sharing, dummy – I resigned from the NSDB to work 65 km away from Manila, at UP Los Baños in 1982, Department of Animal Husbandry of the College of Agriculture as an extension person, and that was the end of my iUD databank. Ms Torrijos, as she was fondly called, went on to greater heights and became UNESCO Regional Adviser for Asia/Pacific; she retired in 1998; among other awards, she received recognition in 2000 from Vietnam in the form of the MOSTE Award (Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment) for ‘her untiring efforts in opening lines (of) communication and information exchange between Vietnam and several countries in the region and elsewhere, especially during the early years when Vietnam’s contacts with the outside world had been very limited’ (stii.dost.gov.ph). In other words, with Ms Torrijos, Asia became Vietnam’s databank. You can count on some old ladies to share-in the new.

Back to my photograph: I was on a scene-stealing walk early that morning, camera ready. I shot that photo because of that dummy, not the school. But now that I think of it, the school is a repository of knowledge, a living databank, so to speak, in the sense that it is really the teachers that make up the school, not the building. Our man down has walled himself out of the knowledge of good manners and right conduct (GMRC) we did learn in grade school yet.

Still, you can’t blame the fellow. As far as I’m concerned, the essence of a databank is choices. In the 1980s, the DG of NSDB Emil Javier said it in words to this effect: Science should be demand-driven, not supply-pushed. I say, same with the databank. If the databank he knows to access is only up to GMRC, or grade school level, the dolt doesn’t have much choice, does he? He’s a dummy through no fault of his. Grade school doesn’t teach you how to live in an adult world. Even if you are a high school graduate and therefore your store of information is at least up to the high school level, still you don’t have access to many options on how to lead an adult life you would be happy with, or at least comfortable with in an uncertain world. You’re still a dummy. After high school, that’s when you have quite a number of options as to which University to attend or what course to take. You don’t have to be a dummy anymore.

Shouldn’t a databank be like University or, better, even better? That’s what I have been thinking of: a large store of information that works like my iUD databank.

2 years ago, as Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), 2005 November, I proposed and prepared for the Crop Science Society of the Philippines (CSSP), publisher of the PJCS, a databank on CD that I called Hands-On Crop Science 1976-2005, which I described as ‘a user-friendly, science-friendly knowledge base of expanded abstracts of papers published in the Philippine Journal of Crop Science’ – it had taken me and 3 Student Assistants (Perla A Pagatpat, Joyce Ann B Abella, Sandra F Magcayang) more than a year to type, revise, edit, format, at CSSP’s expense – we had 2 PCs with 2 printers at the office at the PhilRice Los Baños liaison office. And since the file was published in Word 2003 (you better believe it, dolt), anyone can search anywhere anytime for anything crop science. That would be the ideal databank – you can get inside that thing and search all of its insides up close, staring them in the face. My PJCS databank on CD used my iUD databank idea, of course. Did the CSSP appreciate my creation, dolt? Just a little; they paid me for my brainchild, for a price mutually agreed upon – not much, but mutually agreed upon. They told me they decided against selling the CD during an international conference at IRRI where they were invited, as it was a delicate matter. If you have to handle delicately a databank on a CD beautifully labeled, I say you’re not convinced it’s a good idea in the first place. I forgive you, dolt.

Yesterday, I was rummaging through our new hard disk (it comes with the new PC, dummy) for my old electronic files, and I found an old Word XP document that dates to 2003 December 25 with the long filename Christmas Notes For Open Academy – I was then thinking of an open university for farmers with a databank different from everybody else’s idea – it was going to be built along the lines of my iUD databank and it was going to be:
*problems-driven and
*solutions-driven and
*knowledge-driven and
*research-driven.

Unique.

Even my 2005 PJCS databank on a CD isn’t structured anything like that. I didn’t copy that from some other dummy’s database; I brainstormed that list by myself. I shall refer to that idea of a databank now as PSKR, from the acronym. PSKR was 4 years ago, in Internet time already old. As if that PSKR is not complicated enough, today (November 4, Sunday, Manila time) I have a more radical idea, naming it from such book titles as Windows For Dummies; I believe this dummy knows more now, dolt, hence this new databank:

iKNOW!dolt
i refers to information technology.
K refers to Knowledge.
N refers to Nature.
O refers to Options & Opportunities.
W refers to Wisdom. And
dolt means declare & offer like that, learning & teaching. And the
! signifies exciting possibilities.

It would be an impossible task to program, create, maintain and serve the people with such a databank. But I like challenges. If it isn’t impossible, where is the thrill in that?

i for information technology also refers to the Internet as it is, insights, inspiration, intellect. My databank will not only be instructional; it will also be motivational; it will help the user imagine something else, recognize something new, understand something better etc. In other words, my databank will be intelligent, not a dolt, dummy. I think Microsoft Student is someone acting like that already, dolt.

K for Knowledge refers to science and what is known, surmised, theorized, generalized, particularized, deduced, induced, concluded, recommended, debunked, including being investigated. Includes technologies & techniques: software; hardware; if in agriculture, crop varieties, animal breeds; processing, marketing, distribution of benefits of production; prognosis for the future. More.

N for Nature refers to givens such as carrying capacity of a piece of land, something measurable such as optimum sustainable yield of the milkfish of Pangasinan, something unsustainable such as fossil fuel, something exhaustible such as groundwater. More.

O for Opportunities refers to information such as a crop with comparative advantage (abaca for the Philippines), waste materials that can be transformed into products, new demands for old products, old demands for new products, beta products, beta technologies. Options refers to choices such as which crop for which soil for which site for which season. More.

W for Wisdom refers to recorded experiences of non-scientists (including dummies – you have to give them the benefit of the doubt, as experts are not always right), hand-me-down traditions of generations of the people (folk wisdom), bites of history. More is better.

iKNOW! is structured to show that experts don’t have a monopoly of the truth, dummy.

And I’m making history redefining dolt as someone who has a lot to declare & offer in the language of teaching and at the same time a lot to decipher & occupy oneself in terms of learning & testing.

What do I mean by that, dolt? In other words, iKNOW!dolt as the databank I’m thinking of has a dual purpose: It is a means for learning as well as for teaching. I’m thinking that the sources of information for the databank are humble enough to admit that they know enough that they can teach and yet don’t know enough that they too have to learn. Ignorance, knowledge, mystery. iKNOW!dolt reflects the humility of those who know that they don’t know everything, that they don’t have all the answers because they don’t know enough to ask all the questions.

Ultimately, as a modern databank, iKNOW!dolt is automatically multi-lateral, truly user-friendly, automatically enriching, certainly smart. I’m a dummy for talking this big talk, I know. To see is to believe? Of course, dolt. Wait till I can get a sponsor, even if I have to program it myself. Until then, it’s small talk by this dolt.

According to SQLServer.com, a databank or database is ‘a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed and updated.’ Dummy to that. I have yet to find a database that is easily accessed, easily managed, and easily updated!

So how do you make a databank like iKNOW!dolt easily accessed, easily managed, easily updated? Easy, I say. You start with the programming program. I suggest an object-oriented programming (OOP) software like SmallTalk, invented by the Xerox Park team led by Alan Kay in the early 70s (searchsoa.techtarget.com). Oscar Nierstrasz (iam.unive.ch) describes it thus:

SmallTalk is a powerful and flexible language that allows for rapid prototyping as well as full-fledged application building. SmallTalk influenced heavily the definition of object-oriented languages like Java (garbage collector, single inheritance, everything is a pointer, virtual machine technology). Moreover, SmallTalk is more than a language; it provides a big library of reusable classes, a full programming environment (browsers, debuggers) and a platform-independent run-time system.

I’m not a programmer; although I have an idea, I don’t understand all that technical language. What I do know is this:

If you want your databank programmed fast, SmallTalk is your software of choice. Based on OOP, Java is probably running in your PC right now; it’s valuable; it’s fast.

If I may simplify, borrowing from Alan Kay, SmallTalk makes building blocks of software that are reusable any number of times at any time, so you write much fewer lines of code. With other programming software, which are non-OOP, like Microsoft Access, you need write millions of lines of codes – that explains why, for instance, your Windows and Word 2003 are difficult to access and difficult to manage by you, and it takes Microsoft 4 years to update. In contrast, your OOP-based databank will run on Windows, or Mac OS, or Linux or some other operating system, a comparative advantage you enjoy only with OOP software like SmallTalk.

Says Terry Montlick of Software Design Consultants:

Object-oriented programming offers a new and powerful model for writing computer software. Objects are ‘black boxes’ which send and receive messages. This approach speeds up the development of new programs, and, if properly used, improves the maintenance, reusability, and modifiability of software.

I believe the OOP experts even if sometimes I don’t understand them. Because of non-OOP programming software, tens of millions of codes have to be written by dummies – that’s why software is irrationally expensive, dolt. When we buy non-OOP software, we are throwing good money after bad. What are we doing?! We are rewarding dummies for doing their best, their dumbest best.

Which brings me back to my photograph of a dummy of a man who for all intents and purposes has quit on this world. And why is that? For lack of a more intelligent databank system, his database is limited to that for dummies.

For my databank iKNOW!dolt, what language will I be using then? In plain English, you’re a dummy if you don’t know by now.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 11:03 am and is filed under creative photography, creative thinking, creative writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.