Been reading a really long, dry book about the fundamentals of software architecture. In the book, the authors suggest there are 2 laws of Software Architecture: a. Every decision is a trade-off. b. If you haven’t found the trade-off, skill issue; keep looking. It’s about why, not how. I’m starting to think that they only re-discovered what economists consider opportunity cost and why repair costs factor into GDP but aren’t true economic advance.

So I’ve been on a kick to sort out how I might come close to self-reliant when it comes to: Purifying water for drinking Maintain communications Keep useful information around Exist without MDs or DMDs and the first three of those are hard enough without the fourth, which I have no solution for; at least nothing to speak of. I know ways to handle water, for biological threats, iodine. For chemical or mineral threats things get trickier, like maybe gathering materials and activating charcoal for a filter, using detergent or stockpiling filters, etc.

I’ve been meaning to write this down for a long time and the other day I looked for the phrase and couldn’t find it elucidated in a satisfying way. I want to declare a law (a useless truism but a law kinda): Mandatory-use software (i.e. CRM, ERP, etc.) is always as poor as it can be maintained; however optional use software is always the very best. Maybe not useless, this could be a guide when deciding where to work.