Is there such a thing as 'A Priori Design'? Is it possible that, just like numbers, design can not only be perfect, but perfect in every possible world? This is how I see it. Some designs, or innovations interpret nature in its ultimate form, reaching an apex of utility where it seems almost a priori; a design perfectly conceived and evolved to its inevitable conclusion. But how close can we get to 'a priori design'?

What caused slow adoption of USB 3.0, and its slickly-named USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps/10W+) successor? The press releases spoke of a new class of connectivity that could transfer xxGB of your favorite TV shows from one device to another in moments, not hours. The messaging struck hard at a lived experience where data transfers were just too slow. Consumers got the message. We waited with open arms. Why didn’t the industry deliver? Perhaps we had already figured out the 'Waiter's Corkscrew' of all connection types.

So I’m on this business trip to Europe. Having lived in Taiwan for a decade and a half I’m quite excited to return to ‘the continent’, as Brits used to say, and experience what cities like Berlin have to offer in terms of lifestyle. Upon leaving Hauptbahnhof I seek out a SIM card - connectivity being of vital importance to a tech media chap covering the delights of IFA 2012. The boss expects me to get the best subscriber contract a visitor can get in terms of overall bandwidth, but especially upload speeds so we can upload video on the hop throughout the week. So I’m looking for the best 4G SIM card I can lay my hands on... 

Karl Marx, the evil genius who invented Communism, centered most of his work around the idea that the folks who own the ‘means of production’ - the raw materials and the infrastructure around it - tend to do better in life than those who do not. But, isn’t that a somewhat simple observation? An obvious way to say that the most aggressive monkey, and probably the one with the biggest fists, gets the most bananas, tends to be popular with the lady monkeys...