June 2006
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Day June 1, 2006

Entries 2 Total

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means

Jun 1, ’06 8:42 PM

Very enjoyable and thought-provoking book. Step by step examination of the emergent network theory behind the popular "six degrees of separation" that we now take as a truism – by the person who seems to have made many of the major advances. The first 50 pages are a quick read, and I nodded along thinking "yeah, I get this", only to have the next 200 pages show how this was an overly simple view and take us through to a more current, complex understanding. Well-written if very dense. There are dozens of pages of detailed notes at the end – showing the academic foundations – but it also meant that the end came rather quicker than I’d expected! Worth a read if you’ve got beyond the pop-science re-treads of network theory, but you’re not actually enough of a mathematician to be hanging with the researchers :)

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The Bus Uncle – Wikipedia

Jun 1, ’06 11:52 AM


Thanks to Antony, our ‘man on the ground’ in HK, I’ve just caught up with the global phenomenon that is "Bus Uncle". This wikipedia article shows WP at its best: rapid, considered, analytical and giving an excellent cultural view – I can but point you at it and step back. The wonderful aspects of this are the way the "meme" (pur-lease) has spread so quickly and the immense enthusiasm of the parodists and spoofers: there are fake movie posters, spin-offs, catch-phrases… You know we’re in a digital world and that Steve Job’s cry that we’re all now media producers is true when you check out the footnotes to the story: here is one of the spin-offs:

Music: Eagles’ ‘Hotel California‘ in ”’Uncle Bus”’ and Crazy Frog Remix (Featuring William Hung)

Thanks Antony!

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