I noted too that the article said "The British introduced the service
125 years ago after the city was flooded by workers from different
regions." So what qualifies it as a CAS if there was intelligent design
behind it?
Robert Cordingley
Tom Johnson wrote:
Yes, it is a feature story, but the content -- and context -- is also
a wonderful, almost-perfect example of humans developing/evolving
Complex Adaptive Systems.
Rai, Saritha. "In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver." __The New York
Times__ 29 May 2007. 29 May 2007 <
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>>.
"...In India, where many traditions are being rapidly overturned as a
result of globalization, the practice of eating a home-cooked meal for
lunch lives on. To achieve that in this sprawling urban amalgamation
of an estimated 25 million people, where long commutes by train and
bus are routine, Mumbai residents rely on an intricately organized,
labor-intensive operation that puts some automated high-tech systems
to shame. It manages to deliver tens of thousands of meals to
workplaces all over the city with near-clockwork precision. At the
heart of this unusual network is a chain of delivery men called
dabbawallas...."
"The service is at once simple and complex. A network of wallas picks
up the boxes from customers' homes or from people who cook lunches to
order, then delivers the meals to a local railway station. The boxes
are hand-sorted for delivery to different stations in central Mumbai,
and then re-sorted and carried to their destinations. After lunch, the
service reverses, and the empty boxes are delivered back home.
The secret of the system is in the colored codes painted on the side
of the boxes, which tell the dabbawallas where the food comes from and
which railway stations it must pass through on its way to a specific
office in a specific building in downtown Mumbai."
-tj
--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com <http://www.analyticjournalism.com>
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
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