title: What I'm Reading | 2016-07-17 - 2016-07-23
---

### [How Complex Systems Fail - Richard I. Cook](http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf)

1. The frequency of hazard exposure can sometimes be changed but the processes involved in the system are themselves intrinsically and irreducibly hazardous.

2. Overt catastrophic failure occurs when small, apparently innocuous failures join to create opportunity for a systemic accident.

3. Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated 'cause' of an accident. There are multiple contributors to accidents.

4. Practitioners and first line management actively adapt the system to maximize production and minimize accidents.

5. Safety is an emergent property of systems; it does not reside in a person, device or department of an organization or system.

### [The Relationship Between Clojure Functions, Symbols, Vars, and Namespaces - Aaron Lahey](https://8thlight.com/blog/aaron-lahey/2016/07/20/relationship-between-clojure-functions-symbols-vars-namespaces.html)

1. Internally, the language represents functions as any Java class that implements the clojure.lang.IFn interface.

2. Symbols in Clojure are just pieces of data. From an implementation perspective they're instances of clojure.lang.Symbol. They can be passed as function arguments or put into a collection just like a keyword or a string.

3. Namespaces (instances of clojure.lang.Namespace) are Java objects that provide mappings between unqualified symbols and vars, or aliases that are mappings between unqualified symbols and other namespaces.

### [Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All - Jane Meyer](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all)

1. Edward Kosner, the former editor and publisher of New York, where Schwartz worked as a writer at the time, says, "Tony created Trump. He's Dr. Frankenstein."

2. The problem was Trump's personality, which he considered pathologically impulsive and self-centered.

3. Trump was pleased by the mockup, but had one suggestion: "Please make my name much bigger."

4. "He didn't write the book," Trump told me. "I wrote the book. I wrote the book. It was my book. And it was a No. 1 best-seller, and one of the best-selling business books of all time. Some say it was the best-selling business book ever." (It is not.) Howard Kaminsky, the former Random House head, laughed and said, "Trump didn't write a postcard for us!"

5. If Trump is elected President, he warned, "the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows—that he couldn't care less about them."

### [What it's like to be black in Naperville, America - Brian Crooks](http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-being-black-naperville-america-st-0715-20160714-story.html)

1. What I'm trying to explain is that, in 31 years, I've seen three Black people in a position of authority. Think about what that does to the psyche of a growing young man.

2. When we say "Black Lives Matter," understand what that actually means. We aren't saying that ONLY Black lives matter. We're saying "Black lives matter TOO." For the entirety of the history of this country, Black lives have not mattered.

3. The deaths are bad enough. But having the feeling that nobody will ever actually be held accountable for the deaths is so much worse.

### [How the Internet Saved Turkey's Internet-Hating President - Zeynep Tufekci](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/opinion/how-the-internet-saved-turkeys-internet-hating-president.html)

1. In the confusing hours after the coup attempt began, the country had heard from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and even learned that he was alive — when he called a television station via FaceTime, an easy-to-use video chat app.

2. Despite Turkey's deep political and social divisions, every opposition party, too, immediately came out against the coup. Most did so by posting statements on Twitter.

3. The video link protected the government from charges that it was using fraud or doctoring — both common in the Turkish news media — to assure the public that the president was safe. A phone call would not have worked the same way.

4. The role of internet and press freedoms in defeating the coup presents a significant opportunity. Rather than further polarization and painting of all dissent as illegitimate, the government should embrace real reforms and reverse its censorship policies. The accusation that Turkey's democratic opposition had been merely seeking a return to the country's coup-ridden past has been buried by the example of a real coup attempt. A free press and open internet have proved essential to everyone — even those at the height of power.
