The Cybernetic State
2012/02/10
“The Cybernetic State” is a book written by Javier Livas and is available as PDF on request from the author. From the preface:
The emergence of a cybernetic State is now a real possibility, and most likely inevitable in the near future. This book sketches this information age organization and the cybernetic management principles on which it is based. As we shall see, many of its features are already present in embrionary form in the modern democratic State.
The description of the cybernetic State relies on the Viable System Model (VSM) developed by professor Stafford Beer and explained in several of his books. This model originates from control theory and the cybernetics of the human nervous system, and has been adopted and validated by management science. In this book the VSM is used to show the nature of the State.
The enormous explanatory power of this cybernetic map will show that Economics, Law, and Political Science, which have mostly been studied separately, actually refer to three different aspects of the same phenomena, namely the State. In this sense, the book attempts a synthesis of ideas that were born disconnected and remained so for a long time. Helpful insights about the evolution of economic, legal and political theory are a byproduct.
[via CYBCOM]
“Naturally”
2012/01/29
In the fourth edition of the bat book I read:
Naturally, such a recovery should never be necessary if your machine is properly backed up, and if you keep your source files under some form of revision control, such as rcs(1).
Upon reading the passage, my memory triggered and brought to my attention again cvi, a handy little tool by Sotiris Tsimbonis just for this purpose.
Naturally.
The sysadmin paradox
2012/01/10
The sysadmin paradox, n.:
The fact that when your system administrator is constantly running behind problems is perceived to be working and being productive, as opposed to being perceived as idle while managing a working infrastructure.
Our aim is to eliminate ourselves from the management of the system, to be considered as “not needed” because the system has no problems, therefore we do not work enough. Luckily, whenever (if) this happens, new more complex requirements emerge and the circle continues.
staying up late
2011/12/31
engineering student
When the image popped in my timeline, I was immediately reminded of Bob Lucky‘s May 1998 essay about Electrical Engineering:
“Electrical engineering will be in danger of shrinking into a neutron star of infinite weight and importance, but invisible to the known universe.”
Others fear that CS might not be far behind. And systems administration, even in its DevOps morph is not far behind too. So while the artist (anybody knows who the artist is?) drew that with engineering students in mind, the image reflects the situation for more.
Happy 2012 to you all.
professional myopia
2011/12/25
professional myopia, n.:
The belief that our stuff is so neat that we do not have to sell it at all.
This definition belongs to Gene Woolsey.
How many system administrators are there?
2011/12/16
This is the first time I saw a cool usage for Wolfram Alpha:
How many system administrators are there, 2011/12/16
→ How many system administrators are there?
Posted on sage-members by Paul Orwig.
on management
2011/12/13
“a contract, hence an agreement, between superior and subordinate. The subordinate agrees to make his actions serve his supervisor’s intent in terms of what is to be accomplished, while the superior agrees to give his subordinate wide freedom to exercise his imagination and initiative in terms of how intent is to be realized.”
John Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, slide 76.
Bureaucracies and information flow (take 2)
2011/12/01
Actually just a few observations others have made, but observations I live within everyday:
The Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
With the first group exibiting oligarchic behavior, dysergy follows. I will add an exception to Pournelle’s Law: IT people are devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself, yet as a perceived “cost center” they get eliminated too. Interestingly, this happens because as observed by the Shirky Principle:
Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
IT people do not easily accept the fact that part of their work is to make themselves redundant and by objecting to that (and therefore by maintaining their own internal bureaucracy) they get eliminated while fighting interdepartmental wars that have nothing to do with the organization’s mission. The rest of the departments understand the lesson IT took only after their time comes too.
I had heard Shirky’s Principle years ago (pre 2000) stated by me supervisor at the time in a different way:
A bureaucracy’s first objective is to maintain itself. Then to fulfill the reason it was created for.
Lost in translation. I think I’m going to find myself a Permit A 38 now.
Update 2011/12/21: Peter Drucker writes:
People are so convinced they are doing the right things and so committed to their cause that they come to see the institution as an end in itself. But that’s a bureaucracy
(part 1)
Management wants a rabbit…
2011/11/23
“You may have to tell your higher-ups “you’re asking me to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but you never gave me one to put in there”. (And, ideally, use that as justification to buy some rabbits, so you’re ready the next time it happens.)”
[via]
“consultants will say anything”
2011/09/18
“the one thing government seldom gets is honest advice from consultants. Let’s face it, many consultants will say anything they have to in order to be called back.”
Gene Woolsey, from Real World Operations Research.
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