Category: Uncategorized

Political Heat (Chicago 1995). New Yorker (via Jorn again – how does he find them ?) review of book by Malcolm Gladwell. A complete set of rationalisations of poor decisions leading to many deaths, and the “political” reality and “act-of-god” justifications used. Interesting blend of science / engineering calculations in sizing power supplies and air-con units, vs the “complexity” of weather forecasting vs the political aspects of decision making, together with the “random” chance outcomes of who does and doesn’t survive. Review based anecdotally around July 1995 Chicago heat-wave disaster, but drawing on references to many earlier, mainly natural / extreme weather related, disasters. Interesting angle on behaviour at extreme cases in complex systems being the true determinant of “good performance”, rather than long-term steady-state averages. I was beginning to wonder why disasters like Enron, 9/11 etc were becoming an emerging theme of this research – morbid fascination / ambulance chasing or a natural consequence of looking at complex behaviour ? In fact it is quiet literally “Catastrophe Theory” all the significant minutiae are hidden or suppressed until the chaotic outcome reaches some cusp, whereupon we have a catastrophe on our hands. Blindingly obvious again – “ambulance chasing” a euphemism from the “Many a true word” thread.
[And a further review from Salon, also via Jorn.]

. Just posted a first draft (barest outline actually) thesis / essay / paper on the threads emerging from this effort. Accessible from my Work in Progress page too. The threads identified are (1) Values & Levels, (2) Rationalisation, (3) Emergence, (4) Many-a-true-word. Bookmarks to this draft should avoid my continuing need to repeat myself in the K-Blog itself everytime I find a relevant link. Encouraging that Heylighen’s draft paper on complexity and overload (below) should turn up so recently too. I wish I had the personal bandwidth to do justice to this research.

Salon interview (via Jorn) with D. Quinn Mills author and professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, by Paul Roberts. Enron et al “evidence, not of the irrational exuberance of ordinary investors, but of a complete ethical collapse”. Also includes a reference to the McNealy (Fools Paradise for CEO’s) link blogged below, concerning complex IT systems products which don’t work.

Complexity and Info Overload. Recent draft paper (in pdf) by Heylighen for The Information Society.
Covers – Ephemeralisation, Value judgements in identifying progress, Competitive selection and evolution, Friction, entropy and “send three and fourpence”, Several paradoxes in speed and efficiency of “miscommunication”, Chaos, and much more. (Two separate papers in fact – one on the symptoms, another on tackling the effects.)

I’ve given up on the Tiscali take-over of my ukgateway.net domestic webspace, which is a pity ‘cos it went so smoothly at first. This site is now hosted on commercial space, ironically also hosted at Tiscali. If you haven’t noticed the status remark in the header above, please re-tune to www.psybertron.org. What was it Ev said, in “The end of the free” ?, “People will in fact pay for what they value”. Onward and upward.

Tiscali have still not succeeded in setting up new ftp account (!!!) since their server migration 5 or 6 weeks ago. This is a temporary publish arrangement, not sure if all updated pages will now link correctly, but here goes, better than a 6 week old Blog ! (I have alternative arrangements now in hand – watch this space.)

Link from Blogger. The above is a chapter of a book from “blogroots” on the business potential of blogging or klogging. Includes quotes from interview with John Robb. (See earlier klogging threads.)

Blogroots are Meg Hourihan (megnut), Matt Haughey (wholelottanothing) , and Paul Bausch (onfocus). All part of the original team that created Blogger.

Need to investigate “trackback” from Moveable Type. Apparently creates a reverse link from a URL ? Pete Holiday is trialling a remote trackback suitable for non MT bloggers like me.

Common Dreams via Robot Wisdom. Another one spot on the mark. Interesting that the hand-wringing fall-out from 9/11/FBI, Enron / Andersens / WorldCom should spark this re-emergence of the blindingly obvious facts. If you insist on rational models (like accounting) you should not be surprised that the rationalisation of the irrational creates misinformation and misguided business decisions – this is the Galbraith / Argyris / DeLorean thread at work – I must sound like a cracked record.

Of course ! – “blindingly obvious” is a clue in itself – so blinding that ignorance of it looks like a deliberate conspiracy in hindsight ? – hadn’t spotted this angle before. Many a true word spoken in aphorisms. How can you not see the blindingly obvious ? is a non-sequitor. Standard metaphorical jargon is often closer to the truth than the reality for which it is a metaphor – another recurring theme.

Interesting corollary I’ve been meaning to follow-up – the article includes quotes concerning Adam Smith’s writing of “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” before “The Wealth of Nations.”, that the order they were written is significant. Pirsig’s levels of values / Maslow’s hierarchy of needs all relevant here. I have a strong thread on “knowledge” being an emergent property of humans interacting and, in looking for the reverse relationship of what drives human nature / common sense / no-brainer actions to be the way they are, I have been drawn towards Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” analogy. Could there be more to this than analogy I wonder ?