Perth Tuesday 19 April 2005
Still in Perth. Intended to go back to keller earlier, but the crappy train timetable and my inability to book ahead have conspired to keep me here.
Have been gobbling up Jo’s book “Emergence” by Steven Johnson, which tackles self organising systems which seemingly have no “control centre” telling them what to do, and yet which still manage to be remarkably complex. Ant colonies and cities are two of his examples. Johnson talks about the computer game Sim City, of which you are the mayor, and you have to choose where to build housing, commercial, and industrial zones, and apportion funding from taxes to police and fire brigades and the upkeep of transportation services.
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