Sam Ruby’s entry Knot Theory really gets at the essence of what he finds interesting. And I’m right there in my own taste and interests. I’ve always admired his “intertwingly” address, though I believe it comes from Ted Nelson’s quote:

“Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged, people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can’t. Everything is deeply intertwingled.”

Though I agree with Ted Nelson so far as it goes as a theory of reality, I start to disagree with it as a design stance. The resolution is not to make things only hierarchical, categorized, or sequential, but rather to decide when and where to arrange them in these ways. Therein is the art of placement and composing of systems.