I just love it when a theory comes together (no, not my theory, I'm not that clever).
A pattern of network(s), be it mathematical, sexual, social, internet... WHATEVER, all look the same. http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=4&id=mg17423384.700 (sorry, secure hyperlink so you'll have to copy and paste) This article aptly titled "The World's a Net" from New Scientist last year is where I first heard of the Barabásian theory, but have since seen it in presentations of others in various forms. The memes are flying! Ben Fry from MIT has also been exploring the same patterns through how people use a website and visualising complex data structures inherent within the human genome.
This BBC NEWS article on Solar Storms made me think... if the sun has these big solar storms and spews hot gasses toward the earth every now and again... does this affect our weather? I mean, surely if it can knock out satellite neworks, its got to be responsible for a bit of a hot day? Or Year? P'raps it doesn't work like that. But if it does, maybe we're blaming the greenhouse effect for something that a solar tempest is responsible for. Prolly not... I'm sure the scientists would've thought of that one.
An article in the newspaper this morning featured Space Elevators. Sounds far-fetched, but apparently nanotube technology is almost at a stage where it's feasable to make one of these things - a gigantic elevator into space. Reading it reminded me of Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age, which is a great read about a time where nanotechnology is the norm. A girl is given a book which teaches her about herself, her society and how to overcome both. Totally egrossing.
Researching a little on that has made me aware of a partiality to CyberPunk as a genre. It started with Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back which was the first movie I ever saw. I left after 5 minutes because R2D2 is pretty scary to a 5 year old kid. Blade Runner is a slightly grittier, punkier film and a favourite of a generation. A kind of modern noir, it left me with a wanting for more which was not satisfied until recent years in films like Gattica and novels like Spares by Michael Marshall Smith (whoa, that one's a trip - mind bendingly horrific and compelling) and Jurrassic Park by Michael Crichton (in a more popularist vein).
So the future is dreamt in the head of novellists. The space elevator concept is a century old and was made popular by Arthur C Clarke in his novel The Fountains of Paradise (1979). Now they have an annual conference about it. If this is so and the heads of novellists such as Stephenson, Marshall-Smith and Crichton are anything to go by, we're in for a wild ride.
