This is a very interesting piece. It is a description of a typical plane flight, but with an emphasis on the technologies involved, much in the way science fiction typically does. It really highlights how science fiction can just be a style of writing, and not a genre in of itself. This point has previously been argued for Asimov's Bailey and Olivaw Robot series, which are detective novels written in the science fiction style.
The NYT published an editorial today on how information available to hedge funds by virtue of their being involved with trading loan derivatives may effectively mean some kind of insider trading.
Insider trading is interesting because the definition of who is an insider has everything to do with game theory. On one hand, you want people to capitalize on information so that there is incentive to spread the information faster, resulting in higher efficiency. On the other hand, if few enough people know something to begin with, it becomes profitable to withhold that information and release it in a disruptive manner such as to reap maximum profit.
I am planning a course for MIT's IAP period next year. The course will be about patterns that keep coming up over and over again in the physical sciences.
The ideas that I have come up with so far will be on a page of the same name on this blog.
Update: Have given up on the course, think that a website would be a better use of time.