Player Photograph by Spidere
January 13th, 2008 12:00 AM
My original picture; I'm still very proud of it.
It took me a few days to complete this, because I was trying to figure out how to take a picture of my /self/. not simply my person, my body, but somehow my actions. Considering my character, myself, as something of a finder of links and of information, and having recently started working on a network science analysis project, I thought I should somehow show my connections. I tried to think of how best to do this, as I had been instructed to actively take a picture, rather than just make one.
So I decided to record what I was doing as I traveled on the web--I watched what sites I went to, and how much traffic I got from them. once I had a bit of data, I wrote a little program to parse this into sites, then turn this into a graph with myself at the center, links from me to my visited places, and cross-links as appropriate. I also had it automatically go and download icons from each site, when it could automatically find them, and to put those into the graph as well. I used JUNG, an open source networking library, to display the graph and saved the image. To bring the connection back to myself, I took several digital photos, and overlaid the network on one I liked, which seemed to bring some concentration and thought into the network.
The resulting picture, I think, shows me trying (as usual) to make sense out of the skein.
DC0:
Headed back to DC, it seemed like the time to make one (or two) of these. My plan is to spread SF0 like a deceptively cute mental virus.
Cat's Eye Nebula:
A small attempt to look into the structure of the universe.
Statmind:
Designed to provide hopeful inspiration for The Villain's What is Advertising? completion. I like the image of these wonderful statistical distributions and their links to each other just exploding out of my head. The original image of distributions (from Casella and Berger) is one of my favorites in all statistics, as it shows the really interesting ways in which the most common statistical distributions relate to each other. I'm always amazed by the way things can transform and shift in relation to each other.
Spidere-Villain:
The Villain, with network overlay.
Senatorial:
Taken as part of my SF0 senate campaign.
The Mock Piratey Turtle
For a little while, everyone was making their player icons into cross-stitching Alice in Wonderland patterns; I saw the Mock Turtle design and thought I'd give it a little SF0 twist, in honor of piratey turtle.
Peace:
Supporting a third path during the war against the UofA.
23 vote(s)
Galán de noche
Clan
Eccoglyph
Blue
adam one
Loki
Bex Loves.
YellowBear Loves
Dr. Subtle
Prodigious Corn
Burn Unit
miss understanding
Guatemalan Eddy
EarthMaiden
Augustus deCorbeau
Sparrows Fall
Lank
Lincøln
Myrna Minx
Evil Sugar
Super Fly
susy derkins
Oculus
24 comment(s)
A villainous network diagram, in Spidere style. Neat!
Even though ti confuses me to no end, I love watching our player icons slowly creep away from the standard Villain in time.
sweet new Villain network pics!
mock piratey turtle!, wish i could vote again
It's a beautiful mix of obfuscation and clarity.
Every picture demonstrates how very thoughtful and clever you are. You will need every bit of it now.
:) Here, I was crazy enough to think that I would make it up to 8 without you noticing I was that close. Thanks for the bump, Senex (even if you did have to vote for my embarrassing early Pants Observation Exercise to do it). I am truly glad and honored to join this august company.
yay! Unit, you are a Fairy Eight Mother.
Congrats, Spidere!
Au contraire, I do not cast votes lightly. If only you knew how carefully I steward them sometimes, just waiting for moments like this, moments which i have carefully documented for months now, biding my time, measuring the rise and fall of praxis and score as an amateur oceanographer might awake each morning and trudge through the mist to the shore, sticking crude home made implements into the cold tidal pulse of the world.
To the specifics: a) those pants are kinda awesome; b) perhaps you will be able to look back at your noobish self with fondness-- you delineated a process and put some thought into it even if you didn't get what you wanted; c) I am never ashamed of voting for people. If you are so embarrassed, then I suggest you hit that edit button and get taskin.
Hello. My name is ASIMO. I have noticed, with my advanced circuitry and receptors, that you are not a member of the Probot team. I question whether there is a reason to this. I hope that sending you a request for friendship will increase your desire to empathize with robots.
ASIMO,
I am strongly pro-robot, and hope to encourage increased capacity for robots as well as more integration of robots within our society. I certainly agree with the principles of Probot. However, as a Senator, I believe that there would be a conflict of interest in joining a Political Action Committee.
Also, while I am pro-robot, I am not pro-sockpuppets-masquerading-as-robots.
Best wishes,
Spidere
I am pleased that the links between humans and robots is important to you, Senator. I will keep this in mind when selecting representatives for events in the future.
I can also make certain that I am neither a puppet of socks, nor one who masquerades. Thank you for your time in replying, and I hope our relationship is strong for the upcoming robot improvements.
Oh yay! I'm so glad you liked my little drawing!
I'm pleased something actually came of the SFZEROSAT.
Voting for your amazing quiet networking in getting that Soylent Green Tea box and then letting the world to have it for a SF0 donation.
Legendary Senator, you mystery person from, Maryland? :)
:) For snyone interested, the ebay link is here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/haiku-brand-soylent-green-tea-original-flavor_W0QQitemZ320285870736QQcmdZViewItem
(All proceeds to be donated to SF0)
And Haiku's original praxis is here:
http://sf0.org/Haiku/Reverse-Shoplifting/
(It's true--while I am on the DC metro, I am actually over the border into Maryland; College Park, to be precise.)
I love how you look like the first edition D&D drawing of Asmodeus.
I love that you know the first edition art off the top of your head.
I especially love that you know this despite being younger than Second Edition.
I think this tension is pretty similar to the notion of how far you're willing to go in pursuit of a higher purpose, in life generally--that in order to get things done, we have to accept some things we don't like. One of the fundamental questions, I think, is "how much is too much", and when do you throw out all the good from the larger purpose, because it's no longer worth what had to be done or accepted in order to get there.
And the way to throw yourself into beautiful action. You do fly, Spidere.
This was really clever and well-done. It actually inspired me not to take this task lightly.