Category: Aside

The secret to successful system dynamics modeling

Whenever a student wandered in late to a lecture at MIT, Jim Hines would announce, “… and that’s the secret to system dynamics.” If you were one of those perpetually late students, who’s struggled without the secret ever since, I will now reveal it.

”The key to successful modeling is to keep one’s understanding of the model and what it says about the problem ahead of its size.” – Geoff Coyle, via JJ Lauble at the Vensim forum.

Maintaining understanding is really a matter of balancing model testing and critique against creation of new structure, which requires a little discipline in your modeling process. A few suggestions:

Happy hour for moose

I’m wallowing in models and data – emissions scenarios for C-ROADS and very interesting vehicle fleet data from a modeling project in support of a state climate plan. Hopefully I can share some of the latter at some point, when the dust settles.

A nice break was provided by these two visitors, right on schedule for the annual ravaging of a crabapple tree in our yard.

C71V98~1

C71V9827

That’s a cow and her baby. Mama is really big – bigger than our 1200lb draft-cross horse anyway.

Living Litigious

From a box of tea:

Sit cross-legged or in a chair with spine straight and feet flat. Curl your tongue down its length and extend slightly past lips, inhale deeply through tongue and exhale through nose. Continue for 1 to 3 minutes. Finally, inhale, pull tongue in and hold breath briefly, exhale and relax. Feel the cool burst of refreshment.

Before doing this exercise or participating in any exercise program, consult your physician.

Hello, doctor? Is it OK if I breathe?

Coincidence?

The equinox brought a strange confluence of two recent posts: Brian Eno on intuitive design, via TOP.

The trouble begins with a design philosophy that equates “more options” with “greater freedom.” Designers struggle endlessly with a problem that is almost nonexistent for users: “How do we pack the maximum number of options into the minimum space and price?” In my experience, the instruments and tools that endure (because they are loved by their users) have limited options.

Although designers continue to dream of “transparency” – technologies that just do their job without making their presence felt – both creators and audiences actually like technologies with “personality.” A personality is something with which you can have a relationship. Which is why people return to pencils, violins, and the same three guitar chords.

Why is the arctic brown?

I’m blogging from a 757, somewhere over the North pole, returning from a sustainability meeting in Iceland. The world below is a wilderness of sea ice and clouds. I’d expect brilliant white, but there’s actually a brown haze over the landscape. It’s stratified, much like the odd sight of half-white, half-brown clouds one occasionally sees when flying into a polluted city. Where does it come from? Chinese coal fumes? Russian fires? American SUV tailpipes? Icelandic airplane exhaust?

You are what you eat

I’m on my way home from the 29th meeting of the Balaton Group, held in Iceland. Iceland seems to be rising gracefully from it’s financial crisis, with introspection into the values that led to it and a renewed interest in sustainability. Author Andri Magnason visited us at dinner, and talked a bit about Iceland and his wonderful book, Dreamland – A Self-help Manual for a Frightened Nation. I picked up a copy in the airport (can’t get it at amazon yet) and got halfway through on the plane – I highly recommend it.

Another Magnason project is a book of Bonus Poetry, named for and spoofing the Icelandic Walmart.

You are what you eat
My grandfather was 70% water
He was 70% the stream
that trickled past his farm
he was the 30%
the sheep that grazed on his mountain
he was the fish swimming in his lake
he was the cow eating
in his field
he was the stream, he was the grass,
the mountain and the lake
I am not 70% water
perhaps 15% mineral water
the rest is beer and coca cola
I am italian pasta, swiss cheese
danish pork and chinese rice
american ketchup
runs through my veins
you are what you eat
I am a miniature of the world
no
I am a miniature of Bonus

My head may explode from the irony

Next week I’m off to the EMF Snowmass conference on climate change impacts and integrated assessment. I’m more excited about the great minds than the great venue, though I can’t complain about the latter. Except this: “to ensure your safety, the steep road winding its way from the mountain’s base to the Top of the Village is heated in the winter to keep it dry.”

Hatchetations, interrupted

The temperance movement may have won the prohibition war (temporarily), but a minor battle was lost just down the road from here, in Butte.

Despite the reformers’ best efforts, Butte’s demimonde was larger and seedier than ever by 1910. That year the federal census recorded Butte’s highly transient population at more than 39,000 and enumerated more than 250 prostitutes.  In 1910 when temperance crusader Carrie Nation came to Butte, “booze joints” in nearby Anaconda sported signs that read: “All Nations Are Welcome Except Carrie.” Butte’s morally upright citizens, who had invited Nation, welcomed her with open arms, yet her performance failed to match their expectations.  With a flourish and a crowd in tow, the stout sixty-three-year-old Nation charged down the length of Pleasant Alley. Once back on Mercury Street, she stormed into the Irish World, where she met her match in madam May Maloy. The two women joined in a scuffle, and Nation emerged the obvious loser. It was a moment savored by May’s patrons and celebrated with drinks all around. – Ellen Baumler, Montana Historical Society

Nation died 6 months later.