Random Thoughts on Emergent Systems

[Parks, Raymond]

Folks,

   If you think you'd like a random thought to ponder for a few minutes,
then read on, else delete and be happy.  You FFs (Freakonomics Fans)
might enjoy the first one.  Warning - somewhat BLOGish.

Random Thought #1:  This morning I paid for coffee and a pastry at the
cafeteria of the company I'm visiting with a twenty-dollar bill.  It
occurred to me that ATMs have changed the requirements for cash
registers and possibly even the money supply.  Of course, I don't know
that either saw any effect from the introduction of ATMs and the effects
may have been gradual as folks have grown comfortable with using ATMs.

Random Thought #2:  Does anybody have a telephone that doesn't go dead
if the power goes off?  I remember when I was young, if the power
company had problems one could always pick up the phone and call them.
That's because telephones back then all took their power from the phone
company.  I recently had my parents ask me about using VOIP at home and
I warned them that if the power went out they wouldn't have telephone.
Then I realized that they were talking to me over multiple cordless
phones - so they wouldn't have phones anyway.  Being in the critical
infrastructure protection business, nowadays, I wonder what effect this
has if one models a population affected by a large-scale emergency, be
it malevolent terrorist or abnormal hurricane?  Certainly the lack of
command and control in the areas affected by Katrina point out a
possible real world validation for a model.

Random Thought #3:  From the feeling old department - I have a young
friend who can't read an analog clock because he's always used digital.
  I was recently cleaning out my desk at home and came across my old
slide rules.  I picked one up and realized I didn't remember how to use
it.  So I Googled and the first site that came up was The Museum of HP
Calculators.  That explains why my younger colleagues at work didn't
recognize what I had when I showed them my circular slide rule.

Ray Parks

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 09:07:28AM -0600, Raymond C. Parks wrote:

> Random Thought #2:  Does anybody have a telephone that doesn't go dead
> if the power goes off?  I remember when I was young, if the power
> company had problems one could always pick up the phone and call them.
> That's because telephones back then all took their power from the phone
> company.  I recently had my parents ask me about using VOIP at home and
> I warned them that if the power went out they wouldn't have telephone.
> Then I realized that they were talking to me over multiple cordless
> phones - so they wouldn't have phones anyway.  Being in the critical
> infrastructure protection business, nowadays, I wonder what effect this
> has if one models a population affected by a large-scale emergency, be
> it malevolent terrorist or abnormal hurricane?  Certainly the lack of
> command and control in the areas affected by Katrina point out a
> possible real world validation for a model.

Hence my reason for leaving one old rotary dial telephone connected
(actually later touch tone phones suit the purpose as well). The other
reason is when the phone goes on the blink, I can quickly establish
whether the problem I can quickly establish whether the problem is the
line (hence the phone company's problem), or the phone (and hence my problem).

--

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is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.

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[Carl Tollander]

Thanks Raymond - blogworthiness back at you....

  >Random thought #1?
Newspaper machines predate ATMs, and, increasingly, they only take
quarters.  (Some say deposit any
coins, but a larger percentage of them lie).  I can do just about
anything with quarters, most all vending
machines take them, and they are easier to manage.  So, I say quarters
are the only real useful coin.
All others go in a jar; their only job is to make more quarters, or wait
til I take them to the place where
that will get done.  Over the years, for the same size jar, the value of
the coins in a full jar has changed
(since I extract the quarters out of proportion to their occurrance in
change in order to purchase the
morning paper).  However, over time, the value of the coins in a full
coin jar has stayed about the
same as two six packs of ale.  What, if anything, has emerged?

  >Random thought #2?
Loma Prieta earthquake 1989.  The only phone working (for a few minutes)
at Autodesk in
Sausalito was a lobby analog (ie non-PBX) phone.  As soon as the shaking
stopped, I ran the 100 feet
towards it, but was still 5th in line.  Point is, people knew even
then.  (in really old wood cabinet wall phones,
they had an internal hand-crank generator - why not plug cordless VOIP
house phones into an APC?,  I mean,
the computer will be plugged into one....)

  >Random thought #3?
For all the time I spent staring at analog clocks in grade school, one
would think it would take longer
to parse digital clocks, but no, it takes me an instant longer to parse
analog.  Now, calendars, I really
need monthly calendars: October 4 doesn't make sense to me unless I also
know it's Tuesday.  Wierd.

I'm a fan of emergence, but regardless of how easy or hard it is to
define, it seems like a hard concept to
use.

Seen somewhere in recent news on the hurricane season, "Some butterfly
has a LOT to answer for".  Our
colloquial definitions of emergence don't differentiate it all that much
from chaos theory, though they're
clearly different - or are they?

Carl

Raymond C. Parks wrote:

>Folks,
>
>   If you think you'd like a random thought to ponder for a few minutes,
>then read on, else delete and be happy.  You FFs (Freakonomics Fans)
>might enjoy the first one.  Warning - somewhat BLOGish.
>
>Random Thought #1:  This morning I paid for coffee and a pastry at the
>cafeteria of the company I'm visiting with a twenty-dollar bill.  It
>occurred to me that ATMs have changed the requirements for cash
>registers and possibly even the money supply.  Of course, I don't know
>that either saw any effect from the introduction of ATMs and the effects
>may have been gradual as folks have grown comfortable with using ATMs.
>
>Random Thought #2:  Does anybody have a telephone that doesn't go dead
>if the power goes off?  I remember when I was young, if the power
>company had problems one could always pick up the phone and call them.
>That's because telephones back then all took their power from the phone
>company.  I recently had my parents ask me about using VOIP at home and
>I warned them that if the power went out they wouldn't have telephone.
>Then I realized that they were talking to me over multiple cordless
>phones - so they wouldn't have phones anyway.  Being in the critical
>infrastructure protection business, nowadays, I wonder what effect this
>has if one models a population affected by a large-scale emergency, be
>it malevolent terrorist or abnormal hurricane?  Certainly the lack of
>command and control in the areas affected by Katrina point out a
>possible real world validation for a model.
>
>Random Thought #3:  From the feeling old department - I have a young
>friend who can't read an analog clock because he's always used digital.
>  I was recently cleaning out my desk at home and came across my old
>slide rules.  I picked one up and realized I didn't remember how to use
>it.  So I Googled and the first site that came up was The Museum of HP
>Calculators.  That explains why my younger colleagues at work didn't
>recognize what I had when I showed them my circular slide rule.
>
>Ray Parks
>
>
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>  
>

[Owen Densmore]

> Random Thought #2:  Does anybody have a telephone that doesn't go dead
> if the power goes off?  I remember when I was young, if the power
> company had problems one could always pick up the phone and call them.
> That's because telephones back then all took their power from the  
> phone
> company.  I recently had my parents ask me about using VOIP at home  
> and
> I warned them that if the power went out they wouldn't have telephone.
> Then I realized that they were talking to me over multiple cordless
> phones - so they wouldn't have phones anyway.  Being in the critical
> infrastructure protection business, nowadays, I wonder what effect  
> this
> has if one models a population affected by a large-scale emergency, be
> it malevolent terrorist or abnormal hurricane?  Certainly the lack of
> command and control in the areas affected by Katrina point out a
> possible real world validation for a model.

Yes.  I love it that the local loop has a huge number of batteries  
powering my vanilla phone.  Not that the other phones don't need  
power (cell phone sorta in the middle .. works fine on car charge  
though).  We have always had a vanilla phone (no power), initially  
'cause California has earthquakes, and secondly because its the  
easiest way to test phone plugs for functionality.

> Random Thought #3:  From the feeling old department - I have a young
> friend who can't read an analog clock because he's always used  
> digital.
>   I was recently cleaning out my desk at home and came across my old
> slide rules.  I picked one up and realized I didn't remember how to  
> use
> it.  So I Googled and the first site that came up was The Museum of HP
> Calculators.  That explains why my younger colleagues at work didn't
> recognize what I had when I showed them my circular slide rule.

I always liked slide rules because they are so much faster than  
calculators.  Also, for anything but trivial use, none of the  
calculators found a common user interface.  When I was a peace corps  
volunteer in Ghana west africa, I got a manufacturer to send us a  
couple of dozen and taught the kids how to use them.

     -- Owen

Owen Densmore
http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org

[Tim Densmore]

If you're at all interested, what you're describing is a "CO Powered
Phone."  Most cheapie clamshell style phones will stay powered by the
line voltage, and some can even feed their caller ID with that voltage.
  Most require a battery though.  The main issue with voip is that it is
carried over IP, and I lose internet much more often than I lose power,
so does the rest of the united states.  If you're having a heart attack
(or whatever) it won't matter at all if you have power if your cable
modem isn't synching.

Thank you,
Tim Densmore

-------------------------------

"There's an awful lot of people in the world that sneer at Segways
because other people are having fun. There must be something bad about
it. But I always tell people, that hey, these Segways are so
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Hummer."

-The Woz
On Oct 8, 2005, at 10:24 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

>> Random Thought #2:  Does anybody have a telephone that doesn't go dead
>> if the power goes off?  I remember when I was young, if the power
>> company had problems one could always pick up the phone and call them.
>> That's because telephones back then all took their power from the
>> phone
>> company.  I recently had my parents ask me about using VOIP at home
>> and
>> I warned them that if the power went out they wouldn't have telephone.
>> Then I realized that they were talking to me over multiple cordless
>> phones - so they wouldn't have phones anyway.  Being in the critical
>> infrastructure protection business, nowadays, I wonder what effect
>> this
>> has if one models a population affected by a large-scale emergency, be
>> it malevolent terrorist or abnormal hurricane?  Certainly the lack of
>> command and control in the areas affected by Katrina point out a
>> possible real world validation for a model.
>
> Yes.  I love it that the local loop has a huge number of batteries
> powering my vanilla phone.  Not that the other phones don't need
> power (cell phone sorta in the middle .. works fine on car charge
> though).  We have always had a vanilla phone (no power), initially
> 'cause California has earthquakes, and secondly because its the
> easiest way to test phone plugs for functionality.