Irregular Ideas

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January 2023
December 2022
Garbage in, garbage out
“If you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” The members of parliament asking such a question clearly don’t understand…
Humans out of the loop
Sitting beside the crossroads of technology and humanity, watching it all go by
A clockwork butterfly
Sitting beside the crossroads of technology and humanity, watching it all go by
November 2022
Copy and paste
Copy and paste is probably the most impactful productivity tool in the modern workplace. This simple, elegant solution has prevented millions of hours…
1
The soft power of civil society
The North Wind and the Sun had a difference of opinion. The North Wind boasted of great strength. But the Sun argued that there was power in gentleness…
Perpetual motion machines
Bhāskara II was a smart man. He has been called the greatest mathematician of medieval India. Also known as Bhāskarāchārya, he reached an understanding…
1
How complex systems succeed
Dr. Richard Cook was a system safety researcher. He researched and wrote about how complex systems fail. The kinds of systems he looked at were things…
October 2022
Be more fox
Can you explain why the world is the way it is? How things like the economy works? What things affect how your life turns out? No? Not surprising…
Down with dogmatism
There was once a old farmer who had spent many years tending his crops. One day, his horse broke the fence and ran away. The neighbouring farmers said…
1
Growth at all costs
Human population is expected to reach 8 billion later this year. Or it might have already happened. It’s hard to keep up. Two hundred years ago there…
© 2023 Roger Swannell
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