I found it quite common notion comming up in all kinds of things.  This is the self-similar structure of grains.  Each grain is a diminished picture of the whole thing. 

It seems to be optimal for many applications and it is a common law that systems with some other grain structure evolve in this direction.

Examples:
* in GlobalAndLocalTrust
* software (systems, programs, files, subroutines, code blocks)
* "desktop in window" metaphor
* tabs in browser

How does it refere to the work by Christopher Alexander?

*Update:* Seems like Tim Berners Lee has voiced this thought much better: [http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Fractal.html The Fractal nature of the Web]

*Update:* [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?FractalWiki FractalWiki](meatball), [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiFractality WikiFractality](meatball), [http://www.wikiservice.at/fractal/wikidev.cgi Fractal Wiki] project by Helmut Leitner.

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Recently I've been thinking that we need to make more distinction between two different ideas / interests :
* that things have a structure at different scales, and that
* some things are ''fractal'' or "scale-free" and have similar structure at different scales.

In some ways maybe networks with diverse structures emerging at the different scales are more interesting?

Think about RossMayfield's stuff on different scaled social networks ...

 
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See also http://www.nooranch.com/synaesmedia/wiki/wiki.cgi?OnGranularity -- PhilJones