DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers.

'It's Earth-shattering stuff,' says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the 'black box' phenomenon.

'We're very early on in the process of trying to figure out what's going on here. At the moment we're stabbing in the dark.' Dr Nelson's investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. Its aim is to detect whether all of humanity shares a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into without realising.

It's really valuable for any new product or service to reach the hyper-geek audience, who are particularly influential. And for them, the open API is a sign of good faith, a sign that your photos and your data are not going to be locked up in Flickr--even though we don't currently offer a feature to download your photos to your own computer (we will), you could develop one.

It makes a difference for us as a business that other businesses are interested in working with us because they can tell up front how much work it's going to be. Basically third-party apps fall into one of two categories, useful or cool, and some things are both. Useful would include uploaders for a bunch of different platforms, a screensaver that pulls in your contacts' most recent photos, and an application called 1001 for OS X that grabs the most recent photos from your contacts or specified tags, and it pulls from them like an RSS reader. And then there's a bunch of applications that are just cool, like one that takes photos tagged with different colors and arranges them into the shape of a rainbow.

It makes a difference for us as a business that other businesses are interested in working with us because they can tell up front how much work it's going to be. They can have their engineers look at the API and say, "This is what I want to do, how long do you think it's going to take?"

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Economists have not always found it easy to explain why self-interested people would freely share scarce, privately owned resources. Their understanding, though, is much clearer than it was 20 or 30 years ago: co-operation, especially when repeated, can breed reciprocity and trust, to the benefit of all. In the context of open source, much has been written about why people would share technical talent, giving away something that they also sell by holding a job in the information-technology industry. The reason often seems to be that writing open-source software increases the authors' prestige among their peers or gains them experience that might help them in the job market, not to mention that they also find it fun.

The question is, can sharing be used to supply more than just information? One of the most articulate proponents of the open-source approach, Yochai Benkler of Yale Law School, argues in a recent paper that sharing is emerging for certain physical, rivalrous goods and will probably increase due to advances in technology. Where open source was about sharing information by way of the internet, what is happening now, Mr Benkler notes, is the sharing of the tangible tools of technology themselves, like computing power and bandwidth. This is because they are widely distributed among individuals, and sold in such a way that there is inherent (and abundant) unused capacity.

You're too late! Most home consumers have all the software they will ever need, and most companies out there already have all the basic technologies they need to successfully compete.

SINGLE IDEA: The best way to succeed in the marketplace is to create software that fulfills a specific need. This may seem like an obvious point at first, but if you can not explain to the end user what the software does in a single sentence it is probably too complex. Your first task is to ask yourself, “What does my product do?”

COLLABORATE: Forget enterprise systems that do everything possible within your field. They’re too large, clumsy and require too much development time. Instead, create small discrete software that can collaborate seamlessly with the technology that the end users are currently using.

DISAPPEAR: No matter what kind of software you are creating, you have to simplify the interface. The greatest software in the world is useless if it is too complex to use. Decrease the interruption of the user experience by reducing the user interface to the point where only the essence is showing.

SIMPLIFY: Do I have to go through a course to work with your technology? If so, you are already out of the market. I don’t have time and I already have something similar which I’m used to.

RELEASE: Start creating and releasing your software now. Think prototypes, iterative releases and user base. Don’t spend your time on writing business plans, designing a website and choosing logos. The competition is moving a lot faster than you may think.

COMPLY: Find the relevant international standard in your marketplace and comply. This will enforce good architecture and keep your product on track when your customers will want it to integrate with their legacy software. You know they will want you to integrate.

1. There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls. It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.

2. Once you have a well-established online conversation space, with enough regulars to explain the local mores to newcomers, they’ll do a lot of the policing themselves.

3. You own the space. You host the conversation. You don’t own the community. Respect their needs. For instance, if you’re going away for a while, don’t shut down your comment area. Give them an open thread to play with, so they’ll still be there when you get back.

4. Message persistence rewards people who write good comments.

5. Over-specific rules are an invitation to people who get off on gaming the system.

6. Civil speech and impassioned speech are not opposed and mutually exclusive sets. Being interesting trumps any amount of conventional politeness.

7. Things to cherish: Your regulars. A sense of community. Real expertise. Genuine engagement with the subject under discussion. Outstanding performances. Helping others. Cooperation in maintenance of a good conversation. Taking the time to teach newbies the ropes.

8. Grant more lenience to participants who are only part-time jerks, as long as they’re valuable the rest of the time.

9. If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it’s important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There’s no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can’t. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.

10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they’ll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.

11. You can’t automate intelligence. In theory, systems like Slashdot’s ought to work better than they do. Maintaining a conversation is a task for human beings.

12. Disemvowelling works. Consider it.

13. If someone you’ve disemvowelled comes back and behaves, forgive and forget their earlier gaffes. You’re acting in the service of civility, not abstract justice.

Ons is hier.
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Ons het baie name, ons praat baie tale.
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Ons is die heelal bewus van homself, ons is die vlaag van ewolusie.
Ons is in elke kind se oë, ons trotseer die onbekende met opwinding en verwondering.
Ons is boodskappers van die toekoms, wat teenswoordig lewe.
Ons kom uit die stilte en ons praat ons waarheid.
Ons kan nie stilgemaak word nie want ons stem is in elkeen.
Ons het geen vyande nie, geen grense kan ons binne hou.
Ons respekteer die kringlope en uitinge van die natuur want ons is die natuur.
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Ons handel uit inspirasie, liefde en integriteit.
Ons verken, ons ontdek, ons voel en ons lag.
Ons bou 'n wêreld wat vir almal werk.
Ons strewe om ons lewens te lewe tot hul volste potensiaal.
Ons is onafhanklik, selfvoorsienend en verantwoordelik.
Ons behandel mekaar in vrede, met medelye en respek, ons verenig in broederskap.
Ons vier die ongeskondenheid in en rondom ons almal.
Ons dans op die ritme van die skepping.
Ons weef die drade van die nuwe tye.
Ons is die nuwe beskawing.

"The U.S. dollar is no longer -- in our opinion is no longer -- (seen) as a stable currency, and is devaluating all the time, and that's putting troubles all the time... So the real issue is how to change the regime from a U.S. dollar pegging ... to a more manageable ... reference ... say Euros, yen, dollars -- those kind of more diversified systems ... If you do this, in the beginning you have some kind of initial shock. You have to deal with some devaluation pressures."