Ethan's Saga

{Ethan survives many challenges and sails beyond Miðgarðr }

Ethan's Saga
~

Excerpt from a fragment of Ethan’s Saga,
discovered in Rjivik Ford, Iceland

"… beard grew long and the feasting hall silent. And so did he sail through many long-wearying trials to come to the throne of Óðinn. He who was Ethæn SoftHands; who slew Jack of the Box on the Isle of Misfit Toys and raided the sacred monastery at Cheddar."

I've finally finished my final project. There are probably a few things to change but for the most part I think it’s done. It was very challenging and I ran out of steam at the end. The things I learned from this project include:

• DreamWeaver 8 will not always preserve the formatting of a Word document. Your best option is to paste the text as “text with structure plus full formatting,” but sometimes that doesn’t even work right.
• Don’t decide to change the font of your project after you have already completed half of it. My project adoptee was very helpful and suggested I change the font from Times New Roman (TNR) to Ariel, preserving the TNR font for my document examples. I thought this was a good suggestion, but it became a real headache to implement because DreamWeaver 8 is buggy!
• Make backups. I lost everything I had done on my JavaScript navigation menu at one point when I accidentally saved it as the mainFrame and vice versa – and then continued steaming ahead without realizing what I had done. The whole code got so convoluted that I gave up and had to revert to a backup from several days past.
• Do not try and learn something new that involves a lot of non-related research. Before this class I had never published anything on the Internet. I had a lot to learn. The problem with my project was that it not only involved a lot of new skill acquisition but also a lot of content research which took away from the amount of time I could spend on the technological aspects of the project. If I could do this project over I would choose a light subject which required little research beyond the technological skills required to complete it.
• Don’t plan on finishing it over the Holidays. By the time the Thanksgiving week came around I had about 80% of the research done and 50% of it implemented. I was counting on finishing it over Thanksgiving. This turned out to be really hard as I had unexpected company and dropped my eye-glasses in the toilet, so things really got crunched at the end.
• Writing Disclaimers is fun. The best part of my project was disclaiming any responsibility for it, especially its hideous appearance.

In the Land of Morder, Where the RFIDs Lie

{Ethan destroys the one Ring before Sauron Googles its location}

One RFID to find them, And in the darkness bind them
~

An excerpt from the lost chapter of Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring:

And the minion entered the chamber and approached Saruman the Wise. “Look, my lord, into the seeing-stone. Do you remember how, with the addition of a typing station, we used it to Google your lost sock -- the sock being hidden behind your vanity mirror? What if we used the Internet to find the coveted Ring?” And Saruman looked down upon the creature: “Don’t be a fool! Google a physical object, have you gone loony! I swear, we found the sock by the smell.”

When Frodo was entrusted with the one Ring and reluctantly set out on a quest to destroy it, he faced many dangers. Thankfully, those dangers did not include object hyperlinking, the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things is the interconnection of objects and devices to database networks, made possible by the development of cost-effective Radio-frequency identification (RFID). An RFID tag “is an object that can be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification using radiowaves.” In his book Ambient Findability, Peter Morville discusses this futuristic interconnection of everyday objects and findability devices. According to Morville, “[w]e are talking about an Internet of Things without precedence in human history. Products, possessions, pets, and people all rendered into findable objects: cataloged, searchable and locatable in space and time” (Morville 2005, 82).

The technology upon which these concepts are based is still developing -- one commentator has theorized widespread availability may be thirty years away – but this does not prevent Morville (2005, 84) from imagining plausible, everyday scenarios: “[l]et me Google my own Bookcase. Show me all the books my friends own and where they are located… Does anybody in the neighborhood have this book? Where are they right now?” Just as Morville envisions the use of RFIDs to locate the real-time location of a book, so would it be possible to Google a lost and much-desired Ring.

-------Source-------

Morville, Peter. 2005. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Publishing.

Fool on Morville on Semantic Web

{What shall Ethan do? Love, and be silent.}

The Fool on Morville on the Semantic Web
~

Act II, Sc. V
[At Cornwall Castle, a Hall therein.]

Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.

Lear: Alas: the giftor dispossessed.

Fool: How know nuncle! Dost thou knowest, nuncle, that in Ambient Findability, Peter Morville includes a discussion of the Semantic Web. Morville’s discussion principally revolves around what he terms the “snarky crossfire” between Semantic Web proponents, led by Tim Berners-Lee, and “loosely joined swarms of bloggers and social software advocates” (Morville 2005, 121). Morville (2005, 121) traces the roots of this disagreement to an article written by Tim Berners-Lee and others in which it was argued that the “Semantic Web will ‘bring structure to the meaningful content of Web pages, creating an environment where software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users.’” In reaction to this article, Weinberger argued that the Semantic Web would disappoint, as “‘normalization of metadata works real well in confined applications where the payoff is high, control is centralized, and discipline can be enforced. In other words: not the Web’” (Morville 2005, 123). Weinberger’s critical comments were followed by Shirky who “described the Semantic Web as a shared world-view embedded in metadata and ‘political philosophy masquerading as code’” (Morville 2005, 124). The combative tenure of this discussion did not continue, Morville (2005, 124) notes thankfully, as other individuals “seized the opportunity to use the Semantic Web as a boundary object to build shared understanding.” These “boundary spanners,” as Morivlle (2005, 124) calls them, “showed that whil most of the lofty goals espoused [by Berners-Lee et al] are unrealistic, much of the work on triple storage, trust metrics, semantic disambiguation, and ontology exchange may prove worthwhile.”

Kent: Aye, tis a kingdom to be lost!

[Exuent.

------------------

Fool’s Work Cited

Morville, Peter. 2005. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Publishing.

Converse’s Semantic Web Disease

{Ethan diagnoses you}

Converse’s Semantic Web Disease
(presented by Ethan!)
~

In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville includes a discussion of the Semantic Web. In this discussion, Morville (2005, 123) quotes Tim Converse on the symptoms of a potentially fatal illness, “The Semanic Web Disease”:

------------

“It starts with a scratchy throat, and (if not treated promptly) progresses to a full-blown belief that content creators everywhere will work together in harmony, and speak with one (meta-) voice. In its origins (in particular, the belief that if we understand what a name/symbol/tag means, then program will too), it may be related to certain disorders of the AI family. The afflicted are often unaware of its progress, since when applied to small, cohesive communities of technically informed, well-meaning individuals… the beliefs actually make some sense…. So do yourself a favor, and ask your doctor about the free (Semantic Web Disease) screen when you get your next mental checkup.”

------------

Quoted in:
Morville, Peter. 2005. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Publishing.

Robin Hood Confirmed as World’s First MetroSexual

{Ethan robs the rich to pay for his personal beauty products}

"Robin Hood, Ye Olde Tyme Metrosexual:
‘Out with the Merry Men Again are We?,’"
~

Released through AP WireService
November 10, 2007

At the annual Conference for Medieval History and Medicine held in Devonshire, UK, a panel of six Medievalists confirmed that the historical personage dubbed “Robin Hood” was, in fact, the first recorded instance of a metrosexual. The Oxford Dictionary defines a metrosexual as a “[a] man (esp. a heterosexual man) whose lifestyle, spending habits and concern for personal appearance are likened to those considered typical of a fashionable, urban, homosexual man.” The concept is also defined at wikipedia.

In a conference paper entitled “Robin Hood, Ye Olde Tyme Metrosexual: ‘Out with the Merry Men Again are We?,’” Panilst Thomas Thistlewythe noted the characteristics of Robin Hood which lent to the metrosexual designation. According to Thistlewythe, “Robin is commonly seen in tight pantaloons, which he keeps in immaculate shape. Considering the environmental conditions in which Robin lived, and the athletic requirements of being a brigand, one must be truly dedicated to one’s appearance to keep personal garments in such pristine condition.” During the panel presentation, Thistlewythe presented a bulleted list of Robin Hood's metrosexual tendencies:

• Routinely wears tights
• Makes a conscious effort to always be seen smiling
• Hangs out with a band dubbed “Robin’s Merry Men”
• Likes to dress up in costumes
• Prefers to go by the formal appellation “Prince of Good Fellows!”
• Professes love for Maid Marian, but never seems to commit – a charge to which Thistlewythe added, “Holding back are we?”

User Smarts not Only Problem with Youtube Tagging

{Ethan finds you with single-worded tags}

User Smarts not Only Problem with Youtube Tagging
~

Of course, one of the funniest things about Youtube is the tags users apply to their videos. In fact, this phenomenon (bad Youtube tags) was the subject of a Tony award winning play “An Extremely Elongated Nose-stick is Speechless,” written by P. Nocchio. It is interesting to note, however, that the poor choice of tags used to describe Youtube videos is not purely a product of Youtube users. The inanity in Youtube tags is traceable in part to Youtube’s tagging system.

Youtube describes tags as “keywords that describe videos.” As an example, Youtube provides the following scenario: “a surfing video might be tagged with ‘surfing,’ ‘water,’ and ‘waves.’” According to Youtube, “[u]sers who enjoy watching surfing videos can then search for any of those terms and that video will show up in their search results.” You will notice, however, that you cannot tag a surfing video with multiple word tags. As a result, users cannot tag a George Bush blooper as “George Bush” or better yet “Bush, George W.” This was, of course, the example that P. Nocchio utilized so deftly in his play -- the lines being haughtily spoken by A Medium-Sized Nasal Protuberance.

So, if Youtube wants to truly implement effective free tagging, the website should allow for multiple-worded tags. Of course, it is conceivable that Youtube users might not exactly understand this powerful new feature, tagging a George Bush video as “really funny” instead of just “funny.”

When Ethan was Archon at Athens

{Ethan closes the open drains and makes the bath houses findable}

When Ethan was Archon at Athens
~

Below is a fragment of a classical Greek inscription found at the Attic city of Delomos. The fragment details the city’s efforts to make all municipal websites optimized for findability, based on the suggestions of the scholar Peter Morville (2005, 19).

Side B
By the vote of all citizens [it] is hereby / declared the following. All citizen postings / to the municipal website of Delomos will / abide by the elected-upon rules. / This requires that [each] poster:

v “Determine the most common keywords and phrases… that users from your target audience are entering into search engines.”

v “Include those keywords and phrases in your visible body text, navigation links, page headers and titles, metadata tags, and alternative test for graphic images.”

v “Proceed cautiously… when considering the use of drop-down menus, image maps, frames, dynamic URLs, JavaScript, DHTML, Flash, and other coding approaches that may prevent a search engine speedier from crawling your pages.”

v “Create direct links from your home page, site map, and navigation system to important destination pages in order to increase their page popularity ranking.”

v “Use RSS feeds with ample backlinks to your site’s target destinations to encourage subscriptions and visits and to boost organic search rankings.”

v “Reduce HTML code bloat and overall file size by embracing Web standards to ensure accessibility and improve keyword density.”

This law was decided [on the] eighth / day of the war against Argos, when Ethan / was Archon at Athens.

~

The Archon’s work cited:

Morville, Peter. 2005. Ambient findability: Libraries at the crossroads of ubiquitous computing and the Internet. Online 29(6): 16-21.