1. In Professor Downey's article he talks a lot about the interactions between different "networks" and their boundaries. Is the analogy he's making capable of being brought into agreement with the idea of boundary conditions in chaotic systems in general? (Sorry, I used to be a physicist.)

2. Regarding Williams 1974: Even though he refutes technological determinism about halfway though the article, it seems he still clings (at least loosely) to it through the very end and indicates the "movement" towards television was inevitable. Was it cheap receivers that made the demand for programming increase? Or was the demand for cheap receivers the result of a steady increase in the amount and quality of the programming? Aren't we really just witnessing a breakdown of traditional notions of geography, where the physical radius of the "circle of information we consider interesting" has widened to encompass the whole globe?

3. Not so much a question -- but I'd really like to further discuss the idea of "global brains" and emergent intelligence. Is the increasing interconnectedness of our computers giving them emergent properties above and beyond the purposes for which they were programmed? Or is it us who are in fact increasing our own connectedness and thereby creating emergent intelligences from our group interactions?