For some dumb reason, I decided to study biology right up to the end of year 12. I had a proven track record at being awful at it, but I soldiered on, worried that I might revisit my childhood dream of being a marine biologist and need a science pre-requisite for university. So if studying biology taught me anything, it’s that I while I’m awful at science exam, I can appreciate a clear, formulaic and scientific book extract.

This course has been about going beyond the regular, the boring and the easy to understand. It has focused on broadening horizons and making a lot of people confused. And while I appreciate reading and learning about new ways of thinking and doing, I also appreciate a bit of good old science. Science writers, or science text book writers, know how to make complicated and congested ideas and thoughts make sense. Barabasi’s writings on the 80/20 rule, Pareto and water molecules made sense; even when I thought he’d maybe lost track a little and none of this related to networked media.

In his introduction to the reading, Adrian mentions that the notion of links, nodes and hub is why you probably shouldn’t talk about people behind their backs, even if you think you’re safe. I was recently telling a girl at work about something another person I know said. My work friend is 6 years older than me, from the other side of the city and goes to a different university, and yet she knew the person I was talking about through her boyfriend. Luckily my work friend and I had the same views about the person in question, but I was still a little shaken.

I think that the 80/20 rule, while maybe not known in name to many people, is quite common knowledge. We know that there is a chance two seemingly separate people are connected to each other, but we choose to ignore it. How often do people use the phrase ‘it’s a small world’ when they run into someone that they’ve known for years, with similar interests, possibly even in the same city as they’ve both lived in their whole lives? We are just like H2O molecules, sometimes sticking together, and sometimes bouncing off each other, but remaining in the same small container, destined to one day, in all probability, meet again.