A door is open or it is closed. A person is employed or they are not. An application has been approved or it has been rejected. These are the categories institutions prefer, and the preference is not irrational. Binary outcomes are tractable.
[Read more]The agent sold my house for the price I wanted within the time frame I requested. What more need I say?
I said this, and meant it literally, and posted it as a review. It was the complete account. The agent had been given a task. The task had been performed to the specified standard within the specified conditions. Nothing had gone wrong. Nothing required qualification. The review described the event accurately and stopped.
Most reviews do not stop.
[Read more]A system, in its formal definition, is a set of interacting components that function together as a unified whole to achieve a specific purpose. The definition is straightforward. The components are interdependent—if one part fails, the whole is affected.
[Read more]Dr. Fenella Vorpel identifies something precise when she distinguishes between transmission and communication. The message leaves. The message arrives. Something happens in between that is not the message. What arrives is not what departed.
[Read more]Trust, when it works, is a localised thing. You extend it to a specific person, in a specific context, for reasons accumulated through observation and experience.
It is bounded by what you know—about the person, about the situation, about the systems through which the trust operates.
[Read more]I bought a strip of bias binding.
Bias binding reinforces a seam. That is what it is for. It is a length of folded fabric, cut on the diagonal to finish an edge or strengthen a join. It has one function. It either performs that function or it doesn’t. Mine arrived, I used it, it performed as expected. The transaction was complete.
Two weeks later I received an email.
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