Network connects different diverse maps together by following a common blueprint. "A string of recent breath-taking discoveries has forced us to acknowledge that amazingly simple and far-reaching natural laws govern the structure and evolution of all the complex networks that surround us." (Barabasi, 2002) Everything are connected. We do not noticed that we are all connected in this small world. Webblog as an example of connecting everyone. From the book Linked by Albert Laszlo Barabasi, the example of Paul and the beginning of Christianity emphasize the idea of spreading knowledge as a network system. In comparison to the example of MafiaBoy, which utilizes internet as a network. Internet sure spreads faster than Paul walking pass all the communities he did; however, this raised my question: "would Paul succeed if he was using internet?"
Thinking about Paul and MafiaBoy reminded me of the legendary Traveling Salesman problem that was discussed by Steven Johnson in his Emergence book. (page 227-229) The problem is solved by Marco Dorigo from Free University of Brussel. By sending out an bunch of salesman and have them find their ways and leave ants-like pheromone behind, the route of the strongest pheromone would be the optimal shortest route. Ants? yes. Emergence system? definitely. How does this relate to Paul and MafiaBoy? Not because of the traveling issue that Paul might have faced (I would guess that Paul wanted to take the longer route to visit more communities), I think it's about the issue of distributed information. How do the network foster the idea of distributed information? What if the internet search algorithm uses the same method as the traveling salesman? Does the Alexa program designed for Amazon a mimic of the traveling salesman? I would like to see it that way. The Mafiaboy probably sent out a billion messages to a billion different machines and see which one responds so he can take control over. It's just like sending out ants or sending out salesmen.
