Fine, okay, Adam is goofing off at some party at billg's. That's okay, I'll
be in Redmond the rest of the week, although at UW during the daytime.
- Joe
"What I really fear is waking up and not being able to flush my
toilet because some server in Singapore is down."
- John Doyle, during a good talk about complexity, robustness, and
sensitivity - I recommend browsing
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/notes/notes.htm
<http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/notes/notes.htm> and in particular
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/notes/1.html
<http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/notes/1.html> :
[...]
Although we may wish that F1 [Formula 1 racing - joebar ] had allowed active
control, and allowed us to see the dramatic consequences in action, the F1
officials are not simply antitechnology. One important issue that the F1 ban
on active control wisely avoids is the consequences of not just having
faster cars, but ones that are responding automatically to each other and
their environment on time-scales much faster than driver's reaction times.
Allowing active control would ultimately result in the cars acting as a
highly interconnected network. The driver would become the limiting factor
and safety concerns would demand that they be eliminated in favor of a fully
automated system. The alternative would be for drivers to become mere
passengers in a system they had little control over and one that could fail
catastrophically due to unpredictable and "emergent" multi-vehicle
interactions. Perhaps unfortunately, society as a whole is much less prudent
than F1. We are proceeding to build complex systems of systems with many of
the dangers that F1 sought to avoid with a ban. It is impossible, and
probably undesirable, to try to stop this trend, but we need to take more
seriously the consequences.
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Barrera [mailto:joebar@MICROSOFT.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 1998 9:57 PM
To: fork@xent.ICS.uci.edu
Subject: ADAM RIFKIN, WHERE ARE YOU?
How come every time I'm in Redmond, Adam is nowhere to be
found?
Adam, I'm in 9S/1162, (425) 936-3837.
- Joe