It's not just airplanes: look at automobiles. We have Corinthian leather, 6-CD changers and cup holders, but otherwise, automobile technology (read:internal combustion gasoline engine) is about the same as it was 100 years ago.

Interestingly, Richard Dawkins writes that large, successful Darwinian adaptations seem to resist change. It would seem that technological adaptations do the same (e.g. Microsoft). I become increasingly convinced that there really are a small set of governing principles that operate in every successful large system...
Comments 7:28:41 PM    

"NEC researchers discovered that the degree of "rich get richer" or "winners take all" behavior varies in different categories and may be significantly less than previously thought."

The key is competitiveness: in very competitive scenarios (NEC looked at ecommerce sites) 'preferential attachment' resulted in distributions that were very close to power law. But, in less competitive environments, the distributions moved steadily away from power law. In fact, deviation from power-law distribution becomes an index for competitiveness. I wonder what the Weblog index looks like? The team also pointed out that 'preferential attachment' did not prevent the rapid rise of a new star (they cite Google)...
Comments 3:39:30 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures