[FRIAM] law and order

[peter]

Right on Peggy / Ray glad you got the point

For your power users conversion project the model is

1. What are the Base - Peaking targets for replacement energy taking all 
factors into account and that includes usage
2. How does this affect the location transmission targets and how can 
this altered to match 1

3. Communicate between systems and put the rubber on the road

I have spent years in the power industry and the deep dark secret is 
that operation efficiency for the entire industry is


Production at power plant - 25 / 40 %
Transmission Line efficiency = 15 / 45%
Power distribution use off of main transmission to user = 10 / 30 %

Each one percent improvement nationwide relates to about  $25B

So if the plants, the transmission lines and the distribution system 
were smart like law and orders outlines ( which is already possible with 
todays technology ) think of the humongous possibilities especially if 
tax and financial incentives are included in the targets.


Here is a fun future outline http://www.ideapete.com/AATG.html that we 
are making into a promo movie to illustrate all the above, maybe we 
should talk


( : ( : pete

--

Peter Baston

*IDEAS*

/www.ideapete.com/ 







FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] law and order

[Parks, Raymond]

peggy miller wrote:
> I think you are on to something here and I may try to apply it to a
> couple groups I have been trying to form. One group is to work on
> getting a renewable energy power generation system going here in
> Missoula, Montana and the other is called High Ground Commmunities --
> getting 60 cities off fossil fuels in 10 years. So far, they aren't yet
> assembling.
>  
> But there are a couple ways to apply the complexity law and order info
> you provided:
> 1) To just tell the entire groups what is wanted and then leave them
> alone to hopefully orchestrate some version of that that makes the most
> sense; or
> 2) To assume that one's efforts to start something are the results of
> rules put out there, and one is part of the equation/formula of response
> that is occurring -- which would mean to just keep going, but not assume
> it will happen as one intends.

  The latter is closer to the open-source software process, which sounds
like what you're trying to achieve.  If my reading between your lines is
correct, you want these initiatives to happen but don't have the time
and resources to be the sole driver.  In that situation, you need to get
things started, gain a user-base, and then ride the wave.

-- 
Ray Parks   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Consilient Heuristician Voice:505-844-4024
ATA Department  Mobile:505-238-9359
http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax:505-844-9641
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] law and order

[peggy miller]

I think you are on to something here and I may try to apply it to a couple
groups I have been trying to form. One group is to work on getting a
renewable energy power generation system going here in Missoula, Montana and
the other is called High Ground Commmunities -- getting 60 cities off fossil
fuels in 10 years. So far, they aren't yet assembling.

But there are a couple ways to apply the complexity law and order info you
provided:
1) To just tell the entire groups what is wanted and then leave them alone
to hopefully orchestrate some version of that that makes the most sense; or
2) To assume that one's efforts to start something are the results of rules
put out there, and one is part of the equation/formula of response that is
occurring -- which would mean to just keep going, but not assume it will
happen as one intends.

Peggy Miller

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Law and Order - Enough fun stuff here to keep Owen and Steve awake at night

[peter]

Title: Peter Baston




printed in full because the site
is subscriber only but very pertinent to what we are all trying ( Or
not )  to do


Why complex systems do better without us

   06 August 2008 
   From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe
and get 4 free issues. 
  Mark Buchanan


 
Enlarge image

 
Enlarge
image
Smart traffic lights




 



WE HUMANS prefer
the tidy to the untidy, the ordered to the disordered. We like pristine
geometrical regularity, and eschew what is erratic and irregular. We
want predictability and, more than anything, we want control.
In
these confusing times, it might seem as if we have little power over
anything. Instead of letting it get us down, though, perhaps we should
take comfort from the work of Dirk Helbing,
a physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in
Zurich. Helbing has been studying the movement of tens of thousands of
cars on road networks; the workings of vast webs of interacting
machines on factory floors; and other systems, where the complexity of
what happens and why routinely defeats the human mind.
What
Helbing and others are finding is that our penchant for regularity and
control is seriously misguided. In many situations they are discovering
that it is better to give up some of our control and let systems find
their own solutions. Often the answers turn out to be unlike anything
our minds would imagine, yet the outcomes are far more efficient.
The
findings come as something of a relief to today's engineers, who are
increasingly dealing with problems too complicated for them to solve.
Take one of the earliest successes chalked up by machines allowed to
take control.
Back in 1992, General
Motors
were having trouble managing the automated painting of trucks at an
assembly plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Machines in 10 different paint
booths could paint trucks as they came off the line, but because the
trucks came off in an unpredictable order and the painting machines
needed sporadic maintenance and repair, finding an efficient assignment
of trucks to booths seemed impossible.
General
Motors' visionary engineer Dick Morley suggested letting the painting
machines find a schedule themselves. He set out some simple rules by
which the various machines would "bid" for newly available paint jobs,
trying their best to stay busy while taking account of the need for
maintenance and so on. The results were remarkable, if a little weird.
The system saved General Motors more than $1 million each year in paint
alone. Yet the line ran to a schedule that no one could predict, made
up on the fly by the machines themselves as they responded to emerging
needs.
Production processes generally
depend on so many inputs, parameters and factors that even small
changes in the set-up can lead to wildly different and unpredictable
consequences. That is why it is almost impossible to predict what will
happen in a new production line based on previous experience. "Managers
sometimes take performance in past set-ups and try to estimate what
will happen in a new setting by interpolation," says Helbing. "This
often gives very bad results."
To cope, he says,
engineers need a healthy respect for the complex unpredictability of
these systems and how natural human inclinations often lead to
undesirable outcomes. "You can't steer these things like you can a
bus," says Helbing. "You have to learn to use the system's own
self-organising tendencies to your advantage."
Helbing
has come to this view by an unusual path. Though he trained as a
physicist, he became fascinated in the early 1990s by parallels between
physics and human movements. "I was inspired by the similarity between
fluid flows and how people walk around obstacles," he recalls. For
nearly two decades, he and colleagues have been studying the
mathematics of collective human motion, which explains why Helbing now
holds a chair in sociology.
Social scientists
usually focus on the variability of human behaviour, which is hard to
predict. But Helbing argues that in many cases it isn't very important.
That's because circumstances often constrain peoples' options so much
that humans respond