atlas(t)

flame warriors

a taxonomy of the personalities that make your blog comments section a living hell.

Mike Reed's "Flame Warriors".

What's with the taxonomizing of personalities? Ooo! I've got another one! See tomorrow!

taxonomy of discount salesmen

what is it with bloggers and snarky taxonomies?

Here, for your delectation, a taxonomy of discount salesmen:

Mr. Hover Unlike his counterparts in the mainstream electronics world, Mr. Hover (aka Closeupensis lingeranosis) doesn't hang around because he wants to flip you upwards from the Pioneer PDP-4360HD to the more expensive PRO1130HD. Far from it—he's probably only seen a TV set that awesome at a sports bar, and he's never paused to consider the gaseous properties that make such sets tick. The reason he's breathing down your neck is because a couple of kids who looked a lot like you ripped off his store last week, doing a distract-and-dash scam with an armful of GPX CD players. If you want him to unlock the glass case that holds all the camcorder batteries, you're gonna have to make nice and compliment his cubic zirconia necklace, which mysteriously has a pendant reading "JUICY".

The Nephew This guy's family owns the store, so he's hip to the latest fell-off-a-truck shipment they got in. The one directive he's gotten from above is to get rid of the schwag fast, even if it means selling it far below the marked price. The Nephew will actually come up to you while you're looking at, say, a boombox and try to downsell you—"We've got a special on these slightly damaged Memorex MP3207s! Yeah, it'll play your Credence tapes, no problem. How much you wanna give me?"

gawker's taxonomies of the publishing world

only of interest to those in the publishing industry and those, like me, who wannabe ... oh, and New Yorkers who think they're urbane, but anyhoo, here's Gawker's taxonomy of literary agents.

Also, of editors.

And, of course, a very brief taxonomy of bad blurbing.

map of visual iconography

i've been meaning to post this for awhile, but haven't gotten around to it. Some of you may recognize it as the map of visual iconography Scott McCloud uses in Understanding Comics to show the range of iconic abstraction to photographic representation (horizontal axis) and the range of "pure" abstraction to representation (vertical axis).

But I went to a meeting of geowankers last week or so and somebody mentioned this map, reminding me that I should post about it. There's not that much to say about it, though. The map itself is becoming iconic. You can see it, and an explanation, here on McCloud's website.

While revisiting McCloud's site for this post, I saw that he and his family are taking advantage of the release of his new book Making Comics and resulting inevitable book tour to tour all fifty states. It's gonna take 'em nearly a year, and they're gonna blog about it.

To bring this whole thing back to mapping, here are the maps of McCloud's planned tour, because you just can't not map when you're planning your trip. Looks like he won't make it out to California until next year. I'll be waiting.

Plus, I can't wait until I have a long-suffering wife and kids so that I can buy a mobile home and take them on a year-long tour of the country. We're off to look for America!

east art map

history is not given. It has to be constructed.

Or so say the people behind East Art Map - A (Re)Construction of the History of Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe

The project ... was initiated in 2001 by the Slovenian artist group Irwin. The "East Art Map" (EAM) aims at critically (re)constructing the history of art in Eastern Europe between 1945 and the present beyond ex-Socialist 'official' chronicles, national legend formation and fragmented information present in the West. The concept reads: "Every single move by an artist in Western European civilization is documented. Did you know there is no such thing in Eastern Europe? [...] This was so for decades, but it doesn't have to be like this anymore. We are planning to transform the legends and stories of the underground into a legal art history. [...] History is not given. It has to be constructed."

The map is the cube shown above, a very simple design which allows a complex variety of cross references to be revealed. On the top surface you may choose "movements", which will take you to a version of the cube striped by major art movements, or "map", which will take you to the version of the cube you see above, with eastern European countries on the left facet and eras on the right facet. You cross reference by clicking on your choice on one facet, then clicking on your choice on the other. A list of artists answering to your selected description (frex: Albanian artists 1997-2004), each name being a link, appears in a panel to the right of the map. Choose an artist and you'll be taken to an image and text.

My only real complaint about this extremely cool project is that the map, the images and the texts are too small. The map itself is only about 150 pixels wide, with the response to the right of the map about 250 pixels. The whole thing could be twice as big without overkill. Sadly, the modest dimensions add slightly to the impression of modesty in eastern European artistic accomplishments, an impression that runs directly counter to the site's intentions. The tininess is not inviting and doesn't do justice to the images of artwork.

But as an educational or reference tool this design can't be beat. I wish there were more things out there like this. Plus, you can add your own entries, if'n you want.

how defining pluto impacts our worldview

a neat article this week in The Washington Post by Shankar Vedantam on why it matters how Pluto is defined.

Whether or not it is rational, human beings do care intensely about definitions. Some of our most contentious public debates are about definitions. Is the conflict raging in Iraq a civil war? In the abortion debate over when life begins, what exactly do we mean by life?

Definitions and categories are the handles by which we grasp the world. If we change the handles, we change how we see the world.

Peter Lipton, a University of Cambridge philosopher of science, argues that science itself is a composite of external reality and human interpretation of that reality. This is why, after a paradigm shift such as the redefinition of a planet, reality itself can feel different. Whether we say the solar system has eight planets or nine or 12 makes no difference to the solar system, but it makes an enormous difference to us.

Much of the business of science, in fact, has to do with the construction and demolition of categories.

Indeed. Consider how much time was spent (in the previous post) mapping science---i.e. making up representations of how sciences are to be categorized. How arcane! How abstract! How geeky! Yet:

definitions are markers for group identity, said Barbara King, a biological anthropologist at the College of William and Mary who studies social behavior in primates. Wanting to see the world a particular way is an extension of our innate tendency to form groups, coalitions and tribes.

For a Democrat who thinks the war in Iraq is a mistake, for example, it makes sense to define the ongoing carnage as a civil war. For a Republican who thinks the war is justified, it makes sense to define the internal conflict as a hurdle that can be overcome. Arguing about the definition of a civil war, therefore, is an effective (and ostensibly high-minded) shortcut to arguing about politics.

But what in the world does eight planets or nine have to do with group identity and social behavior? Knowledge, King said, is also wrapped up in social experience. King's 12-year-old daughter, for example, is upset that Pluto is no longer a planet, partly because one of her cherished memories is of a trip to Flagstaff, Ariz., where the family went to see the place where an astronomer discovered Pluto. Questioning the importance of Pluto implicitly undermines the importance of that family trip.

It seems a weak argument, but if you look at the comment threads of bloggers debating the issue, you'll find a lot of emotional arguments ... hell, if you look at the scientists voting on the issue you'll find a lot of emotional, sentimental, and nostalgic arguments. And why not? If it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter, and no one should be categorizing at all.

places and spaces: mapping science

André Skupin's In Terms of Geography, which organizes the overlapping topic areas covered in contemporary critical geography using the metaphor of a topographical map.

one of the exhibitions I knew about before my New York visit, and one that I most looked forward to seeing, was Places and Spaces: Mapping Science, a physical exhibition with a more extensive online component, examining how traditional mapping techniques may be used to define the contemporary fields of science.

Today, the word "science" encompasses myriad arenas of physical and abstract inquiry. This unique exhibition, at the Healy Hall in midtown Manhattan, uses innovative mapping techniques to physically show what and where science is today, how different branches of science relate to each other and where different branches of study are heading, where cutting edge science is erupting as archipelagos in the oceans of the yet unknown - and - how it all relates back to the physical centers of research. The world of science is turned into a navigable landscape.

I was very excited but ended up disappointed.

The exhibition consisted of printed out images (even the matting was printed). No original documents. It would have been more exciting to see these images online in high resolution. Unfortunately the online component is also disappointing because the images are so small that you can't view them in any detail. It would have been better if they had spent the money they spent on printing buying more server space and putting really large, high res, detailed images up online. Then, if they had to have on site exhibitions, they could have built kiosks, or projectors. Otherwise, just distributed CD-ROMs.

This would have been more appropriate to the topic: virtual or metaphorical space. Ideal space. Something could have been made out of the exhibition being virtual and drawing the viewer's attention to the "space" they were entering and to the possibility of external linkage.

That said, the content of the exhibition is very exciting. It was well curated: a good collection of pieces illustrating an interesting idea. The exhibition was divided into: historical maps of geographic space, historical maps of ideas, and then maps of science. There was a very beautiful (but difficult to read) light installation at the end of two maps, one a more typical topical map like the others, and one that showed the geographic locations of article citations to show the geographic spread of ideas. I won't get into further detail on the maps themselves. All the exhibited maps, plus more examples, are available on their website, although you'll get a better view of the exhibited ones if you check out the physical exhibition.

I found it interesting that most of the maps seemed to operate on the principle of organizing topics according to citation importance, as determined by how often an article or study is referred to. This is also reminiscent of the internet, where hit count (quantity) is often more important than the quality of the reference. There's not much information about how this is done, so we can't know if any of these references are perhaps negative: scientists ganging up to laugh at a silly or universally repudiated idea. Maybe a work is cited because it has no influence at all. Scientists can be a clique as much as anyone else.

This traces the influence of formally ratified ideas but not of any other types of influence. It also makes the taxonomy of science entirely self-referential---even subordinating real world application to articles discussing real world application.

It would be thrilling to create a taxonomy/map of science based on topic areas and connections provided by the man in the street. Each person would create a map and then the maps would be morphed together to make a consensus idea of the world of science. Since it's all perception anyway, it wouldn't be a Fool's World Map where the makers just take a few of the most ridiculous misperceptions they can find and use those. If done scientifically (i.e. with a proper sample) this would be just as legitimate, and in some ways more so, than the maps created by the scientists themselves.

Because the most fascinating part of all this is that these maps, which create powerful consensus in how science is to be taxonomized, also create a sense that "science" is an actual physical place that can be mapped, whose contours can be revealed; that the landscape of science is somehow fixed and knowable, even though everyone provides the meaningless caveat that it is not. There is, of course, no such terrain, and science (like science fiction) will always be exactly what we mean when we point to it, and no more.

I had an argument with a friend about the legitimacy of Chinese herbalism. (He's white, male, pushing 40 and hysterical about scientism.) The faith he put into the scientific method was as astounding as the contempt he had for anything that did not employ it. The fact that, for example, a certain ointment has healed burns for a thousand years, and has been tested in a variety of ways over that time, got no traction with him. Only clinical trials (whatever those are, he couldn't say) could determine whether a medicine could truly heal.

Ultimately, as interesting as it is, what this exhibition does is help cement (or at least reveal) this magical thinking about western science as a hard physical location, a physical destination that you actually can reach, and one that renders all other such supposed destinations fantasy. Ironically, it was in thinking about this that I articulated for the first time, for myself, that "science" is rather a culturally determined set of precepts and prescriptions---and proscriptions---more like an ethical system than the final definition of reality.

The exhibition ends August 31st so get yourself down there if you're in New York. And don't forget to check out the online exhibition, which is more comprehensive.

pluto planet controversy

in trying to retaxonomize Pluto as either a planet, or a "minor planet", or an "ice dwarf planet", or a somethin' else, apparently the International Astronomical Union have (again) ruffled geeky feathers.

Roughly 3,000 astronomers and scientists are meeting in Prague this week for the union and are expected to determine whether Pluto is a planet under newly defined terms.

The planet, which was first discovered in 1930 and is the farthest away from the sun, is considerably smaller than the other eight planets in our solar system.

By defining exactly what a planet is, scientists could be forced to downgrade Pluto's status and promote 14 other bodies.

Science fiction writers John Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld engage in some disagreement, in which Scott wins the maturity award, but John wins the I-got-my-daughter-to-manipulate-a-puppet-Cthulu-into-eating-my-opponent award. Plus, Scott explains his side of the debate rather handily.

collecting vs. birdwatching

is anyone at all surprised that this biologist, who has classified more than 50 new species, also has a kink for maps?

Blair Hedges, characterized as "an avid collector of Renaissance prints as well as animals", is in the news because he has invented a controversial new way to date antique prints more accurately. This effort arose from his desire to date his own antique map collection.

For Hedges, (the maps he collects) aren't an investment, but a deeply felt extension of his work. He collects maps of the Caribbean, where he hunts for rare animals. And he collects images of early voyagers and inventors, who shared his quest for knowledge.

"It's part science, part history," he says.

Yet some of the history was incomplete.

Indeed.

Hedges speculated that the line breaks caused by cracking in wood blocks would increase over time, and the darkness of a print made from a copper plate would decrease over time. So he developed a method of measuring these by comparing the line breaks or darkness of several prints made from the same blocks or plates.

Loosely speaking, Hedges is using the same statistical approach with old prints that he applies to his study of genetic mutations.

You could, easily enough, say that all of the humanities, including the arts and literature, are an attempt to define our world in categorical terms. And you'd be right, in a way. But mapping/charting and taxonomies are specifically about defining ideas visually, using both verbal and spatial relations. Timelines are another way of doing this. You can address all these areas (geography, biology, history) without the maps and legends. It takes a certain type of desire, a certain mindset---maybe even a certain personality---to so avidly want to map and categorize things.

Hedges seems to be one of these personalities, for whom the map (or chart, or spectrum analysis, or taxonomy) flows through his understanding of life: a jumping off point, and a home base.

I woud contrast Hedges' seeming impulse to bring his necessarily extensive experience of the world back to the chart, with Phoebe Snetsinger's (and other birders') impulse to take the items on the chart and turn each into an experience. Snetsinger's triumphal story follows familiar lines: she received a death sentence by way of a terminal cancer diagnosis and so decided to indulge her passion for birding (or birdwatching.) 18 years and 8500 species later, she died, not of cancer, but of a bus accident in Madagascar, after having survived a war, a gang rape, and many other "adventures".

You can read about her in her posthumous memoir Birding on Borrowed Time, but that's not the point. I understand this impulse even less than the categorizing impulse that I share, but it appears to me to be the reverse of the impulse to categorize: the impulse to take existing categorizations and make them real by seeing examples of them for yourself.

The shock and excitement of Snetsinger's story for the rest of us is that her experiences/adventures don't deter her (and the gang rape makes it into every description of her trials and tribulations: sensational!) She is quoted as verbally shrugging them off by saying they make good stories. The accompanying adventures aren't the point of her travels; seeing the birds is. But the accompanying adventures are what make the bird-seeing interesting for the rest of us, who aren't obsessed with birds. They're what make the excitement of finally seeing in the flesh a bird you've only ever read about, real and present to the armchair observer. For her, seeing that item on a chart sitting in a tree, or waddling across a road, makes the world real.

Not to get all self-help on you, but for those of you containment/charting/definitions/map geeks like me who are looking for a little more balance in your life, maybe taking a page (not the whole gang-rape-die-of-bus-accident book, just a page) from Snetsinger would be a start. Here's my birdwatching book; I think I'll plan to turn some of these items into reality next year. Anyone wanna come with?

odonymy taxonomy

yes, great minds do think alike!

Michelle Manafy at E Content, writes a readable essay arguing in favor of the organic, intuitive, and historically meaningful "user-generated" tagging as opposed to "an orderly top-down taxonomy". And she does this by comparing idiosyncratic street names to numbered and lettered grids.

When I think about these approaches, I can get lost in esoteric historical facts, but ultimately, the point of all this street naming is to help us get from point A to point B. Okay, naming them A and B is certainly clearer, but it isn't terribly intuitive. If I want to pick pumpkins at Angevine farm, I take a right onto Angevine Road off Route 341. Sure, you could argue that if and when the Angevines succumb to the perils of factory farming, the road will lose its meaning as it is overrun with development houses, but somehow I believe that the impact of its populist name will remain for decades after the Angevines host their last hayride.

Such is the appeal of user-generated tagging. Certainly, an orderly top-down taxonomy will be clearer and more accurate, but while it makes navigation neat, it can be imposing and unwelcoming. For those of us who have never, say, studied etymology, a taxonomy is not second nature.

I've been neglecting taxonomy (Greek for "arrangement method") in favor of mapping and geography, but this essay points to one of the many reasons why I think the subject areas are related. I'll address this soon, promise.