Organizing a model: Bookmarks
The models shown here to date are quite small, and easy to navigate on a single PC screen— especially with judicious use of the Zoom “magnifying glasses” on the control bar. But Minsky can support enormous models which are far too large to take in on just one screen.
One such example is the model of the pandemic, developed by Minsky evangelist Tyrone Keynes (do subscribe to his YouTube Channel Modelling with Minsky). This is a “SEIRD” model, where the acronym stands for “ Susceptible Exposed Infected Recovered or Dead ”. Most such models of a pandemic have just those five system states, or at most ten, because it is impossible to keep up with interactions between so many system states using the flowchart paradigm. Minsky’s Godley Tables makes it straightforward, but the problem then becomes navigating such a large model.
Figure 40: Tyrone Keynes's 25-state pandemic model
Bookmarks—which store both a location and the zoom level for the canvas—are our solution. Clicking on a Bookmark changes the view of the model so that the bookmark is at the top left-hand corner of the screen, and the zoom level is set so that the desired subset of the model fits within the screen itself. Figure 41 shows the Dashboard bookmark for this model; it is designed to enable policymakers to try out various policies in an artificial society before trying them on the real one. At this scale, you can easily alter some settings—banning international travel for example—and see its impact on the spread of the pandemic.
Figure 41: The Dashboard Bookmark for Tyrone Keynes's Pandemic Model
Bookmarks can be created in two ways:
- By scrolling until the top left-hand corner shows the part of the model you wish to display, and the Zoom level is set so that the bottom right-hand corner encapsulates the region you wish to display, and then choosing “Bookmark this position” from the Bookmarks menu; and
- By creating a Note, and checking the “Bookmark?” Checkbox. A Bookmark will be created using the Short Description text of the Note, and the text typed into the text box will display on screen.
