Great complex systems thinking diagram

Go check out this website called Idiagram: The Art of Insight and Action specifically this page which not only shows a great diagram of complex systems thinking but also the impressive way to blend java-script with graphics to present a freeform user driven diagram.

I found this great website via the Anecdote blog entry

Have Fun

Paul

Design or Evolve?

Here is an interesting couple of articles from Steve Jurvetson about weighting up the benefits of designing your algorithms or letting them evolve. Read the comments as well as they are pretty good.

1. The Dichotomy of Design and Evolution


2. Recapitulation in Nested Evolutionary Dynamics

More work is required in using Bayesian reasoning on evolved algorithms, essentially using the power of Bayesian to determine the set of information which you don't know and continuing working on whittling that set down.
Directed evolution would potentially help as well, dependent on understanding to the point of exhausion what your assumptions are in setting the direction or guidelines or rules (framework)

Have Fun

Paul

Howto: copy of a production mysql database using mysqlhotcopy backup

Do you need to see what the data was like yesterday, last week in your tables?

Here are the steps to create a copy of a mysql database on the same machine, with no downtime.

Assumption: You have made backups using mysqlhotcopy and are using myisam tables.
Caveat: Make sure you copy the backup into the new directory, otherwise you will nuke the current database. You have been warned.

1. Create a new directory in your mysql data directory (/var/lib/mysql): mkdir new_db
2. Copy the backup you want into that new directory: cp /backup_dir/current_db/* new_db/
3. Log into mysql and create the new database: CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS new_db;
4. If any tables have been created since the backup you will have to create them in new_db, using this command: CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXIST new_db.table_name like current_db.table_name;
5. Check/Validate all the tables in new_db are ok using command: CHECK TABLE new_db.table_name;

You can use this method to create a copy to check for changes between now and the last backup, this might be for recovery reasons or audit reasons.

The reason I created this post was that I spent at least 30 minutes looking using google for a solution to this and whilst there were plenty articles about backups, nothing mentioned making a copy locally, on the same system.

Have Fun

Paul

How inflation happens or What inflation is

So what is inflation, how does inflation happen?

It is not increasing prices, that is the effect of the cause.

The cause is an increase in the amount of money in the system.

If you think of prices as ratios eg. a kilo bag of potatoes cost a certain number of dollars.

Prices are signals, signals of demand and supply.

Recently Australian bananas have been really expensive due to a couple of reasons

1. Cyclone destroyed a large growing region in North Queensland.
2. Imports are restricted due to quarantine requirements.

Hence the supply was restricted by demand remained the same, so what happens to the price? the ratio? it increases, so it took more dollars to buy the limited bananas.

OK, so what is inflation, and what does banana prices have to do with the increase in prices of a whole swag of goods and services. Prices are still ratios so something has happened to either the supply of goods and services, or the supply of money on the other hand.

There is a increase in the money in the system (monetary inflation) which is causes the same or fewer goods to increase in price.

Where is this money coming from? it is happening because there is a demand for money which the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is supplying to maintain its monetary policy (the interest rate).

Australia doesn't live in a closed world, we are affected by other countries demand for our goods as well. Hence when China, Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US want our commodities they will bid the price up, sending the signal that supply is restricted. This leads to a long chain of price signaling all the way through the supply chain.

Why is there such as demand for money at the moment. The RBA has had to increase the interest rate again to try and dampen the demand. See this statement.

This is rational behaviour from investors and everyone, if you believe that prices are going to be higher in the future then the goods and services are cheaper now then in the future...
The money you have now is going to be worth less in the future, so you exchange for something else.

If the price signal mechanism is constrained due to regulation, monopolies, or the supply is inelastic, eg. it takes 5-10 years to get a mine going, it takes 10 years to be a good doctor.
Then the rational thing to do is to demand as much money now to buy any goods and services which are available now or borrow to build to satisfy that demand. This is arbitration at its best.

I have said this in the past, the RBA is acting like an overbearing nanny! It believes it can calm down the arbitration process by making money more expensive. They are looking into the future and predicting some of the current demand is transient (caused by other arbitrators) and there will be a massive over-investment in supply.

Why is it rational to take as much money as you can get and buy goods or services?
Why is it rational to get rid of any money you get as quickly as possible?

Steps for being rational:

1. I download this spreadsheet from the RBA
2. I add some percentage changes over the last year for M1 (Currency and Currency in the bank) raw money.
   
3. If I start at Jan 2006, I see that last year M1 increased by 6.95%!!
4. Interest rates are 5.50%!!
5. That is a negative interest rate! You leave the money in the bank and you will get nothing, worse you will have something which is potentially worth less at the end of the year.
   

More recently the month over month percentage have been crazy!
If you check in May 2006 year over year M1 increased by 8.98%!!

Have Fun

Paul