http://syntilect.com/cgf/ 2009-01-06T11:40:34+00:00 http://syntilect.com/cgf/ http://syntilect.com/cgf/lib/images/favicon.ico text/html 2008-12-15T15:26:55+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/essays:index?rev=1229354815&do=diff They're not peer reviewed, they're too long to be a log but at one point or another I liked them. Take them with a grain of salt - I might think they're rubbish now but just not have got around to pulling them down. * ValuJet 592 (020081215) * The Epistemic Divide (020080730) * Antireduction (020080529) * Good Academic Writing (020080206) text/html 2008-12-15T15:25:40+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/essays:valujet592?rev=1229354740&do=diff [The following piece is transcribed verbatim from “A Demon of Our Own Design”, by Richard Bookstaber. It's one example of complexity with feedback loops which make systems chaotic. Systems like this that are “tightly coupled” and have no slack in them become unpredictably vulnerable to catastrophe. Think space shuttles, Three Mile Island and market crashes everywhere. This example is a very good one because it also illustrates a crucial point. When a system is so complex and so tightly c… text/html 2008-12-13T20:23:04+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/quotes:index?rev=1229199784&do=diff I used to categorise these, but it's a horrible many-to-many problem which just doesn't map to any web page structure I can think of. So they're officially organised into a hodge-podge now. I'll try to avoid duplications, let me know if you find any. text/html 2008-12-09T12:20:50+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/logs:2008?rev=1228825250&do=diff 020081209 - Work/Life Balance? Work/Life Balance Work/life balance is wrong, horribly horribly wrong. If your work is so terrible you need to balance it with other things in your life then perhaps you should change your work and fix the problem there? Work balance plus life balance equals work and life balance. Whereas balancing your work with the rest of your life is like trying to balance a see saw with an elephant on it by adding an elephant to the other end. Pretty quickly the whole damn t… text/html 2008-12-08T11:20:05+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/epistles:index?rev=1228735205&do=diff In reverse chronological order. The earlier ones seem lost, or are at least too much effort to recover. Given how bad I remember the writing being that's probably for the best... * The Eleventh (020081207) * The Tenth Epistle (020080824) * The Ninth Epistle (020080614) * The Eighth Epistle (020080311) * The Seventh Epistle (020071216) * The Sixth Epistle (020070924) * A Fifth Epistle (020070406) * A Fourth Epistle (~0200611) * A Third Epistle (~0200609) * A second eloquent … text/html 2008-12-08T11:19:52+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/epistles:011?rev=1228735192&do=diff ############################ A CHRISTMAS UPDATE ############################ This might be the first update email that you get from me. I send them out once every few months to keep everyone everywhere in the loop. Sometimes they're long and rambly, other times they're short and confusing. Hopefully this one is neither. So where did I leave you last time? I think I'd just got back from the Balkans. Since then there has been: one Michaelmas, two trips, three supervisors, a few youtube videos, l… text/html 2008-12-06T18:38:50+00:00 Christo Fogelberg http://syntilect.com/cgf/epistles:010?rev=1228588730&do=diff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ###################### GOING DISTINGUISHED ###################### Speedos really don't suit old men, especially not if they're sun-burnt. That's the most important thing I learnt while on holiday, and it is quite important, because I'm going grey. I think it's a combination of the car crash (heh, I can blame everything on that), not enough sleep and too much talcum power. I don't really mind though, because in a few years it'll make me look many th…