The mix of font styles in the PSYCHE title strip on top really bothers me. Are there any typography experts in the house that can explain what concepts could be behind that choice?
Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
201–210 of 314 posts
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a fundamental law. Systems theory has the concepts of "gain margin" and "phase margin" -- how much you can amplify feedback or delay feedback, respectively, before your self-adjusting feedback mechanism fails to find equilibrium and turns into an oscillator. Even though most non-engineering systems don't fit the mathematical theory, the idea that only a finite amount of gain + delay is available, and that the t…
> It is a fundamental law . > Systems theory I'm confused. Is it a law or a theory? And no, it can't be both. Laws are proved. Theories are unproven.
You are confused, twofold:
"Systems Theory" in above refers to a field of study, not a name for the idea they were discussing.
And your assertion about Laws and theories is incorrect.
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#203I feel like a lot of conversations and articles recently speak to an inadequate understanding of risk, and planning for risk.
Risk is made up of at least 2 or 3 components: what is the probability something will happen? And, if it does happen, what is the impact and how will you mitigate that impact?
For example, you may believe that a change to a website you are deploying has a low probability of taking the website offline. If it is taken offline, it may cost £X per hour in lost revenue, but you’ll leave the old version running on a standby server, so it only takes a few minutes to switch back. That’s a much more thorough understanding to 1 aspect of risk than “this rollout is low risk”. Once you have that understanding, it’s reasonable to discuss how to reduce the probability of an outage (better testing?), as well as how to reduce the impact (staged rollout?) or to speed up the fix if it were to happen (practise?).
In COVID terms, we should be discussing the impact of decisions in the light of future pandemics. Could we invest now in reusable PPE, so that next time we don’t have a global rush on the disposable stuff? Do we need to educate the public more readily about reducing disease transmission to reduce the likelihood of a pandemic in the first place? I’m not a doctor, so I have no idea on the specifics, but the likelihood of any given pandemic will always be low, so what is the impact of the decision if there is one and does that impact need to be mitigated? (even if it is less efficient to do so...)
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#204This comment thread is making me realize we don't have a good word to distinguish between efficiency as in "we only have 7 hospital beds because that's all we need on 99% of each day" and efficiency as in "we replaced steps X,Y,Z with just step X', because we found that X' could accomplish everything that XYZ could accomplish but it's faster, more accurate, and cheaper". One makes a tradeoff by reducing overheads and…
> the other doesn't have any tradeoffs, it's just a better way of doing things based on novel techniques At least in the case of code, this isn't true. The variability comes in terms of change to the system, rather than the running of the system. i.e., if I simplify a process to be less modular and more monolithic, making it more efficient, that also makes it more purpose-built and less flexible. The "risk" increases…
IMO, it seems like there's always a tradeoff once we've restricted ourselves to interesting options, because those options are interesting because they're not obviously dominated by other options.
If we consider any possible solution, we can obviously imagine adding a completely spurious detail.
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#205Same-day delivery isn't efficiency; it's made possible by inefficiency, like using more delivery people and vehicles who cover inefficient routes, and using more warehouses closer to delivery areas. Actually we can't discuss efficiency without making it clear what parameter we are optimizing, at the cost of what (if any) other parameters. However, usually, if we reduce the time something takes not by cleverly elimina…
I agree. For me, the article absolutely did not deliver on what was said in the title. They declare efficiency as itself dangerous, where it is the narrow application of efficiency that really results in problens.
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite story about unintended consequences of process improvement is the Vienna Sausage Factory: https://medium.com/dangerous-kitchen/vienna-sausages-a-guy-n... Punch line - Sausages coming from a new modern factory didn't taste the same. The new, more efficient building removed a long transportation step where the partially finished sausages picked up flavors and scents coming from different parts of the factor…
I wasn't aware Vienna sausage had any flavor in the first place. In my view, Vienna sausage is in the same category of food as spam, baloney, and wonder bread: total garbage.
Wrong. Quality sausages are awesome. Btw. There exist high quality spams as well. Never seen one in USA though.
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the other doesn't have any tradeoffs, it's just a better way of doing things based on novel techniques At least in the case of code, this isn't true. The variability comes in terms of change to the system, rather than the running of the system. i.e., if I simplify a process to be less modular and more monolithic, making it more efficient, that also makes it more purpose-built and less flexible. The "risk" increases…
IMO, it seems like there's always a tradeoff once we've restricted ourselves to interesting options, because those options are interesting because they're not obviously dominated by other options. If we consider any possible solution, we can obviously imagine adding a completely spurious detail.
That's fair
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Fragile systems are often very successful for a long time because they ignore hidden risks and then collapse due to the unexpected. There's another interesting aspect to this in that things that are failures from some perspectives may not be from others. If stripping resiliency out of a company nets enough savings in the short term, it may still be profitable to the owners it even if it's long-term fatal. As a hypo…
Although I lean towards seeing killing the company as short-sighted, suppose you then invest that money back into a new venture. You have far more capital than you would have had you let the business remain healthy. This may give you even better value in the long-run (say 200 years) if you let this new venture live. But if you kill this venture too and invest its earnings into yet a third venture...
What number of companies still operate in the same form for several decades? A company dying isn't necessarily a negative. The assets don't get set on fire; the people working there don't disappear into a black hole. Investors might get fleeced, but overall the assets and people are used to others end, for which investors in these ends benefit. The worst outcome are those zombie companies that only exist for the sake of existing.
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#209This all sounds more like a preference than a fact.
Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't aware Vienna sausage had any flavor in the first place. In my view, Vienna sausage is in the same category of food as spam, baloney, and wonder bread: total garbage.
Wrong. Quality sausages are awesome. Btw. There exist high quality spams as well. Never seen one in USA though.
No, i mean the Vienna sausage brand. Of course there's amazing sausage