the opine has moved to coreycanada.com

In the new issue of Wired, Kevin Kelly provides an interesting observation that the Internet has now hit approximate computational equivalence to a single human brain. The nifty little animated info-graphic is worth the look. 

Each time a person clicks on a search result or creates a link to a Web page, the One Machine is being programmed. Each new link wires up a subroutine, creates a loop, and unleashes a cascade of impulses. As waves of links surge around the world, they resemble the thought patterns of a very large brain. 

The One Machine contains a million times more transistors than you have neurons in your head. And, unlike your brain, it’s growing at a rate that outpaces Moore’s law. By 2040, the planetary computer will attain as much processing power as all 7 billion human brains on Earth.

The full article is here and Chris Anderson’s take on the subject is at The Long Tail. 

Via directly psfk. In recent years, we’ve witnessed many examples of internet fueled fame. From Corey Kennedy to Perez Hilton, Tila Tequila, to Ze Frank, they all jumped from obscurity to a kind of niche fame (with some going on to mainstream celebrity). What’s the formula for this meteoric success, and is it based on talent, or is it all just hype? Rex Sorgatz explores the issue and discovers microfame is attainable if you follow the rules:

It’s easy to be cynical about this new class of celebrity. The lines between empowerment and self-promotion, between sharing and oversharing, between community and cliques, can be blurry. You can judge for yourself whether the following microcelebs represent naked ambition, talent justly discovered, or genius marketing. The point is that renown is no longer the exclusive province of a select few. Nano-celebrity is there for the taking, if you really want it.

Full story: New York Magazine: “The Microfame Game and The New Rules of Internet Celebrity”