This weeks reading by Duncan Watts looks at the idea of networking. Not just networking as we think of it today, but the science or mathematics behind it also.

Watts begins by looking at a major power outage that occurred throughout America in 1977. He states that it was identified that a major reason for the outage occurred because of a lack of understanding about the interdependencies that were present within the system.

He then continues to talk about individual behaviour and how it aggregates to collective behaviour then moves on to networks. Watts states that a network is nothing more than a collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion, but proceeds to declare a true definition of networks is too difficult to describe. He also examines how human interactions exist in a network and compares the rules that govern individual behaviour to that of a mob.

Watts also talks about how networks are not a new idea, they have been around since 1736 and were studying in a mathematical sense.

He proceeds to identify two key qualities that make up a network, interestingly Adrian also looks at these two points, the first being the concept that networks represent populations of individual components that are actually doing something, the second, that networks are constantly changing and evolving.

I also found it interesting how Watts talks about using human relationships to form a mathematical equation. Although by this point I am completely lost, this thought did intrigue me slightly.

Finally Watts looks at the concept of the ‘Small World Problem’ and the idea of ‘Six Degree’s of Separation’. Most people are familiar with this concept and it was interesting to read how Stanley Milgram originally conducted the experiment. I did think, that if someone tried to conduct this experiment today they would have serious issues as most of the letters would be thrown away, thinking it was some kind of spam mail.

Overall a very confusing read as it zig zagged all over the place. But I guess it was just all about different kinds of networks, which makes sense.

In this weeks round-up Ellen has a great summary of week 7’s symposium and looks at the idea’s discussed surrounding privacy. I think this is interesting considering my earlier post about U2 and their ‘gifted’ album, and also considering the huge privacy scandal that took place a few weeks back with Apple’s cloud. I really feel like Apple aren’t doing themselves many favours recently in regards to respecting the our privacy.

Rebecca looks into the reading by Barabasi which looks at a new approach to the concept of network media by comparing the way in which we network ourselves online and way in which we network in person.

Finally, Simone has once again outdone herself with a fantastically entertaining review of the symposium. Simone looked at the different definitions or interpretations of narcissism as identified by Betty and Adrian.

This week Apple ‘gifted’ U2’s new album to me.

Gee thanks. It’s honestly more of a hassle removing it from my library than it’s worth.

Here I was thinking nothing could kill my high spirits on Saturday night, chilling with my friends with my iPhone innocently playing my favourite tunes on shuffle, then I hear the whiny, monotoned voice of Sir Bono.

Reaching all new high’s of creepiness, Apple automatically updated my phone to include 11 U2 tracks from their newest album in an apparent publicity stunt that coincided with the release of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. Blah blah blah.

WE DON’T WANT YOUR SHIT MUSIC.

Apparently Apple just wanted to remind us that the majority of our personal devices are solely controlled by Apple, and consequentially the majority of our lives.

Cheers for the reminder Apple, you self important flogs.