Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

It is cool, but be warned - Java is required.

That is a hoot! Thanks for the fun find!

In the discipline of archaeology, seriations are built using "battleship curves."

Seriation is a relative dating technique that considers the relative frequency of types of artifacts whose dates of use or manufacture are known. The basic assumption underlying seriation is that the popularity of culturally produced items [such as clay pipes or obelisk gravestone markers in America] varies through time, with a frequency pattern that has been called the "battleship curve." An item is introduced, it grows in popularity, then its use begins to wane as it is replaced by another form. Certain types of artifacts are sensitive to change and particularly useful as temporal markers.

James Deetz. Invitation to Archaeology. The Natural History Press, 1967.

David Hurst Thomas. Archaeology. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1979.

its a concept from Buddhism and Hinduism that relates to my work as an artist.. but alas.. Viveka was not in the data base!!! Do you feel my pain?

The other thing that doesn't make any sense to me.. Why would I want to compare names alphabetically? I mean maybe I'd want to compare.. frequency of occurrence between Biblical names or something? You know what I mean?

Though maybe not of that has to do with the visualization of it.. But then I think, aren't there more interesting ways of visualizing things? Like groovy 3D blah blah blah.. bells and whistles? Am I just a greedy aesthetatician for thinking such things?