23:13, Tuesday 31 Dec., 2002 Link

"'No, no. No crime,' said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. 'Only one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have already had experience of such.'" -- The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

From The Complete Sherlock Holmes, which is available to read online, all 1000+ old-school paper pages of it, totally free.

This year, it's been a small world and getting smaller. Aggregating individuality. Abstracting complexity into tipping points and critical states. Clustering and power laws. Social response approximations. Bloody psychohistory almost. Next year, let's not do that. Let's be overwhelmed by the bigness of it all, the maximal complexity of the thisness. Wallow in it. Start arguments we can't win with people we don't share this groupthink vocabulary with. Be earnestly wrong. Oh yes. We can bring this to some kind of new year's resolution all right.