Some include feats of miniaturisation, such as the interconnections on microprocessors or memory chips, which are now being made with features 130nm wide.
Interconnections between networks have improved too.But perhaps the most surprising factor is the role of reality television and in particular, "American Idol", a talent show in which viewers phone in to vote for competing singers.
Discourage the banks, and far from seeing FDI and equity finance rise, you may see them fall, again leaving the borrowing countries worse off.One risk is that in trying too hard to discourage one kind of capital, governments may inadvertently discourage others tooOn the whole, though, the evidence on these interconnections is encouraging.
Diagonal wiring also reduces the number of interconnections (or vias) made between layers by up to 30%.
When drafted in 1988, the ITU's regulations covering cross-border telecommunications contained no reference to the internet which, at the time, was a rudimentary set of network interconnections used by researchers in America, where the technology was invented.
It has produced demonstration chips that marry low-k dielectrics to copper interconnections.
A recent report by the Office of Financial Research, an arm of the US Treasury, contained a warning that asset managers which provide "consulting or pricing services to other asset managers [are] creating interconnections and dependencies that increase their importance in financial markets".
Spain generates large amounts of solar and wind power, but can export little to France given poor grid interconnections.
The horror at the World Trade Centre exposed the dark side of global interconnections: the ease with which the West's enemies and their resources can move around the world.
The ensuing bust was made more dangerous because of the second weakness: the complex interconnections of securitised finance meant that no one understood what assets were worth or who owed what.
A rule of thumb for spotting future disaster is how far those weaknesses a debt surge, ill-understood interconnections and uncertainty about a safety net are repeated.The overhaul of financial regulation since 2008 has made most progress on the first two.
