Tech — Work — Ramblings

by Mike Kalvas

I see you're not using JavaScript (which is awesome!) on one of my pages that uses it to provide a better experience. If you see something not working right, please let me know. My site should work exactly the same without it apart from any exceptions noted here.

I use prism.min.js to do syntax highlighting. It clocks in at 23kb total in size. Since the majority of the writing I do involves coding, I personally find this to be a worthwhile trade off. If you choose to keep this disabled, rest assured, the code examples are still there, they just may have some extra whitespace and obviously no syntax highlighting.

I do no tracking at all and am a zealot about keeping my pages as small as possible. If you're reading a page of mine that transfers more than about 250kb over the wire (including my most gratuitous indulgence — fonts) I've messed up.

So, if you'd like to have a slightly richer experience, consider enabling javascript for my site and I promise your trust won't be misplaced.

202402241823 Boundaries don't exist in the real world

There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion — the questions we want to ask.¹

When you draw boundaries too narrowly, the system surprises you because it doesn't sufficiently account for the reality of the situation. Conversely, when you draw boundaries too broadly, you fail to find something sufficiently descriptive and useful for reasoning about a system. The lesson here is that boundaries are a useful fabrication whose delineation amounts to an art rather than a science.¹

Meadows, D. H., & Wright, D. (2011). Thinking in systems: A primer (Nachdr.) (pp. 95–99). Chelsea Green Pub. ↩ ↩²