more ideas for network growth

Signed-off-by: Nico Schottelius <nico@bento.schottelius.org>
remove unused defines

Signed-off-by: Nico Schottelius <nico@bento.schottelius.org>
use raise() like a good python programmer

Signed-off-by: Nico Schottelius <nico@bento.schottelius.org>