Sunday, October 27, 2013


While reading 'The wiki and the Blog' by D. Calvin Andrus, I felt it heartening to note that the total '
intelligence-decision-implementation' cycle time can be as short as 15 minutes. This swiftness is
more relevant when national security is best protected if the nation operates more quickly than
those who would do harm to the nation. This swiftness is also essential in this era when the
circumstances to which we respond develop more quickly. I also found it interesting that the only
way to meet the continuously unpredictable challenges ahead of us is to match them with
continuously unpredictable changes of our own.

It sounds somewhat funny while Shannon showing how to transmit correct messages in noisy
channels holds that the noise in the channel is information in and of itself and thus can be used to
transmit messages. Shannon further holds that there is meaning in the noise.

As a part of the reading, Adam Smith's description of how individuals in pursuing their economic self
interest create a market for goods and services is also very interesting. It is noteworthy that this
market has an invisible hand that decides which goods and services survive over time and which do
not. It is 'invisible' in the sense that no individual or group of individuals decides what the market
should produce or consume. It just 'happens' of the aggregated actions of large number of individuals.
The individuals are only trying to make their own lives better. Out of their collective and self
organized behavior, market behavior emerges.

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