So, what is a system? A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world.
When it comes to Slinkies, this idea is easy enough to understand. When it comes to individuals, companies, cities, or economies, it can be heretical. The system, to a large extent, causes its own behavior! An outside event may unleash that behavior, but the same outside event applied to a different system is likely to produce a different result.
Think for a moment about the implications of that idea:
• Political leaders don’t cause recessions or economic booms. Ups and downs are inherent in the structure of the market economy.
• Competitors rarely cause a company to lose market share. They may be there to scoop up the advantage, but the losing company creates its losses at least in part through its own business policies.
• The oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil- price rises. Their actions alone could not trigger global price rises and economic chaos if the oil consumption, pricing, and investment policies of the oil-importing nations had not built economies that are vulnerable to supply interruptions.
• The flu virus does not attack you; you set up the conditions for it to flourish within you.
• Drug addiction is not the failing of an individual and no one person, no matter how tough, no matter how loving, can cure a drug addict—not even the addict. It is only through understanding addiction as part of a larger set of influences and societal issues that one can begin to address it.
And an initial definition of a system on chapter 1 page 1:
A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.
edit oops, I misinterpreted what you meant by “some of those words”, didn’t take it literally... Will leave this up anyways I suppose, sorry!
DrRacket IDE [0] + the SICP compt language [1] and you can start writing it instantly in a well built and maintained environment that’s racket based and pretty fleshed out library wise, certainly nothing compared to Clojure but among the rest, it’s the best (imo), I recall Carmack writing a server in Racket for fun and praising the experience a few years back.
Additionally, if SICP proves too slow going or difficult math wise [3] you can always use drracket for HtDP [4] and it’s corresponding misnamed edX course(s) [5] and later on, PLaI [6].
From the article: ““One of them was scheduled to leave but GABed [ground aborted] after an issue prior to taxi. The other three were jets that couldn't be spun up in time to fly.” Two had been cannibalized for parts, he said, and the others had “issues that couldn't be fixed. They were in hangars that [they] are usually put in according to hurricane plans.””
Your line of commenting here is unreasonable and does a disservice to any valid criticism of military spending.
Planes cannot be fixed instantly. I would hope that is obvious.
This was a powerful storm that did a huge amount of damage to more than just these planes. You could take a more generous and broad view of the events and ask if saving these planes would have been worth the opportunity cost to other resources that would have then been left in the storm's path.
I appreciate your last two sentences because they made me pause, and realized I hadn't thought about this much living on the left coast.. (waiting for a decent earthquake).
I guess my point from the beginning is that these planes didn't need to exist in the first place, so the money spent could have been provisioned differently, like for programs to possibly help tax payers that just got given the finger.
edit: Your first sentence sounds like it's meant to dissuade criticism about military spending, because your opinion mandates it.
My first sentence does nothing of the sort. As I clearly state this kind of rhetoric will undermine any valid criticism of military spending. I have said nothing that should suggest to you my personal beliefs on the state of military spending.
A certain percentage of these planes are always on the ground being repaired. They rotate in and out of flight readiness. What's important is that enough planes are ready for their missions at any one time, not that ALL the planes are ready.
It's common practice to use a small number of planes as spare part source to keep a larger group flying while you wait for spares to be delivered. Better 3 planes with lots of bits missing than 10 with one piece broken each.
These planes require many man hours of maintenance for each flight hour. So it isn't unusual for them to be in a state where maintenance isn't complete.
For that you would need an animal that breeds in captivity, reaches maturity quickly, eats inexpensive food (not meat), with good temperament, and that can be handled in a farming environment (not as agile as deer or as strong as a bison).
In the Americas, the only animal that responds to that description are llamas, guinea pigs, capybaras, etc. None of them found in North America.
As a hypothetical user who doesn’t post on niche tech forums, I totally prefer a native app over a web app
It’s pretty
It’s fast
It’s not stuttery-stoppy
I can swipe back and forth between pages without waiting 4 seconds for everything to display, and then inevitably move around right before I fucking tap
It’s on the app store
I can use it instantly.
I can remove it instantly.
I don’t know what sandboxing is
I don’t care about privacy
There are convenient share buttons
I can use it on the single device I use regularly
I can screenshot it
I can unfortunately change the style by updating
It can use my battery when it’s closed? Wait wha-
ooh notification
...
I’m gonna go use facebook now like a normal person, later nerds
Every time I try to use Facebook app - on any platform - it breaks my workflow about 5 minutes in, because I can't post a link to a group (or another comment) in a comment.
Some kinds of things are just a better fit for the web.
I prefer native apps over web apps, but for most things I vastly prefer a website to both of those. I shouldn't have to install an app for every single thing I want to use, especially if I only use the thing once a week or so.
