21:39, Sunday 9 Mar., 2003 Link

Three articles:

• World of Ends. Easy-to-read, and good, nature of the internet piece. (Pretty spot on. My concern is the concept doesn't mesh well with the way most people understand, and this article doesn't bridge the metaphor sets. But it will convince the people who are almost there and that's getting the message out to a lot more people, one of whom quite possibly being the ideal translator.)
• The Pentagon's New Map, military strategy in terms of the two identified geopolitical types: the highly-connected Functional Core (the globalised West; the world's strongly connected component) versus the Non-Integrating Gap (disconnected; that bit not pulled into equilibrium by Le Chatelier's Principle). Interesting paradigm.
• Tom Coates' take on where these two ideas meet. Insightful, and there are some excellent comments.

Is there a world for the study of the behaviour of abstract machines?