Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’m going to be making design changes to my blog (the one at Meme Hazard) over the next few weeks. Apologies in advance for the mess and inevitable breakdowns. For those of you reading this syndicated on Facebook, LJ or elsewhere, this is probably irrelevant. Please go about your normal business :)

Notes from one of the closing plenaries at the 27th System Dynamics Conference: Are advice adhered to? “Populist” versus “activist” or “systems analyst” advice by Erling Moxnes Hypothetically, imagine you’re a reindeer herder. Weird, I know, but this research is from Norway. You’ve got, say, 1850 reindeer on your island. Reindeer eat lichen, which grows… Read More »

This will be my last journal style post on the conference; I’ve got two detailed write-ups of the “Closing Challenges” presentations to post separately, and at some point, I’ve got some reflections on the conference as a whole, and in general on what one can get out of a conference, but they’ll wait till later.… Read More »

I’m splitting Day 3 in two, as there were three presentations later in the day in addition to the regular papers. They’ll take at least another hour to write up, and right now, I want to sleep. Here’s the papers, three on insurgencies, one on biology: The Role of Influence Operations in a Counterinsurgency Battle… Read More »

I saw six presentations today, three of which were interesting enough to write about: Simulating Pollution from Urban Stormwater in Project Twin Streams Catchment, Auckland, New Zealand by Ines Winz, Gary Brierley As far as I’m aware, the author of this paper was the only other person from NZ at the conference, though I haven’t… Read More »

The day begun with a keynote by Dennis Meadows on his ‘Limits to Growth’ work. I came away the following ideas: There’s a distinction between global problems and universal problems. Global problems affect everyone and cannot be solved without cooperation from everyone, whereas universal problems affect everyone but can be solved by local groups. Some… Read More »

Sunday was the PhD colloquium. It was smaller than the full conference has been, but there were still about 50-100 people in attendance. In the morning, there were several presentations, 3 of which I unfortunately missed due to my late arrival the night before, followed by a luncheon. Then, in the afternoon, there was a… Read More »

So, I’m at the 27th International System Dynamics Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the moment and, like any wannabe writer with a blog, I’m going to make an attempt at live blogging it. My flights were nice and comfortable, though the second one, from Phoenix to Albuquerque was seriously delayed. At first, this was… Read More »

Yesterday was very strange. Do you ever have those days where you just can’t get anything done? Where all of the things you know are important just seem silly and pointless? Where a Herculean effort is required even to force yourself to put your laundry away? Of course you do. Everyone has bad days. If… Read More »

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and if that’s not worth celebrating, I really don’t know what is. Lots of people are celebrating, of course. Here’s a few sites worth checking out: “Remembering Apollo 11“, a photo set from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture feature. NASA’s official 40th anniversary page,… Read More »