CLIOS / Panic - simulations / On drug testing / Daily crono

To live effectively is to live with adequate information. Norbert Wiener

CLIOS

I attended a lecture about transportation by professor Sussman in the afternoon. He told about the work the Civil Engineering-department is doing. Of particular interest for me was the CLIOS-concept: Complex, Large-Scale, Interconnected, Open, Socio-Technological systems. For example, the transportation system, or the energy system. Just the kind of systems I really want to work on. Actually, telephone networks are also such systems. It is a pity, that most engineers/managers do not realize it and work only on very limited technical parts of the system. What's more, the usual way of organizing the work, or dividing the responsibilities, encourages such thinking. No wonder the development projects are usually so painful and prone to fail.
Sussman also divided complexity in four classes: structural, behavioral, evaluative, and nested. My thesis was about the first one, about structural. I need to think about the other classes more.

Panic - simulations

I got to know about these simulations of the way we behave in panic, stampede, etc in a complexity workshop today. Check them at the panic site. It is remarkable how much panic decreases the flow of people from a room. The site also contains some real pictures (disturbing) and videos (very disturbing, I assume, since they require a password).

On drug testing

If the reason for drug testing is safety, why is overtime allowed? I think the companies should test (daily) their employees and send tired ones back home. We know that staying awake for 24 hours lowers performance in tasks requiring alertness as much as drinking some 4 pints of beer. Or, why are employees allowed to work while sick? I assume (high) fever is not good for performance and safety either. Since companies do not care about tiredness or sickness, the only real reason for drug testing is the need and desire to humiliate the employees. So sad!

Daily crono

Sleeping very late, not coughing too much as I got the new medicine yesterday. Then workshops, lectures at MIT. Back at home at 8pm. Great day. Some very irritated job search related developments, but who cares.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs January to February 2006".