The Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is one example of a complex adaptive system.

So this is an interesting thing.

I had two classes this quarter at Northwestern University, and they both had similar, but seperate objectives.

• First, it was a project to highlight my interactive graphic design skills.
• Secondly, it was a project to highlight my interactive storytelling skills.

Ok, so with the approval of the instructors for both classes, I created this microsite on the subject of complex adaptive systems.

Complex adaptive systems are one way to model lots and lots of different kinds of things that happen in the universe, at a variety of scales.  CAS models are used to understand everything from immune system responses to macroeconomic fluctuations, to sociological phenomena.

So why not take a look at it?  Features include:

• Fully object-oriented complex adaptive system simulator, coded from scratch in Flash CS4 (Actionscript 3).
• Introductory movie with all kinds of appropriated images from the creative commons and Prelinger archives
• Links to lots of complex systems resources, including a full programming framework to create your own multi-agent modeling schemes.

Understanding complex adaptive systems.

Media theorist and author of many influential books on advertising, corporate influence on culture, and too many more to name, weighs in on the future of the publishing business on Publishers’s Weekly.  Conclusion: The publishing business’s woes are short-term; good things are coming:

Behind the bad news, there is much to look forward to. Our industry has for too long favored those skilled at negotiating the corporate ladder and punished those who simply publish great books. Now that publishing has revealed itself to be a bad growth industry, it is free to rebuild itself as the vibrant, scaled and sustainable business the reading public can support.

via Soapbox: Well Be Back – 8/24/2009 – Publishers Weekly.

This reflects, quite consisely, what I think about health care reform in the US:

All of us put our money into a big pot, and when you have medical expenses, you take some money out of the big pot.

That—in 25 words—is everything you need to know about health-care insurance.

This is no different from the Golden Rule, originally formulated by Rabbi Hillel, who added, “The rest is commentary.”

To read some of the aforementioned commentary, please read the whole article by Ira Rosofsky at Psychology Today’s website.

This came my way via @Frauenfelder.

See, this is how the professionals do it.