Jim’s Brain Online

Posted by Jim at December 7th, 2004

I tend to like stories with big, mythic underpinnings. I like Utukki quite a lot.

Written by Krista and Michelle (I don’t know their last names…), Utukki imagines that the gods and heroes of Babylonian mythology once existed and that even now a few still survive. More to the point, some are mysteriously connected to some American high school students (an inexplicably large number of online comics feature high school students, what’s up with that?).

I’d like to say more, but if I do, I’ll probably end up blowing the tension for most of the first part of the story. Here’s what I can say: I like the fact that it’s not yet entirely clear who the “villain” is. So far, the characters are just acting like they are people with independent interests and (mostly) understandable motivations.

I like the art. It’s in a generally manga-ish style (though that’s not what I like about it). The style of the art is neither an attraction nor liability for me, but, art communicates what it needs to. I have no trouble following what’s going on–something that can’t always be said for some comics I’ve seen that probably have technically better art.

The only thing I can really complain about with the comic is the inconsistency of updates. It used to update regularly, but hasn’t in a while. The authors have an excuse. Krista (according to her live journal) has in the course of the last year: moved in to take care of sick parents, assisted her sister in dealing with some unpleasant issues, lost and gained a job, and has recently gotten engaged to be married to someone with 2 kids (making her a stepmom).

A comic would be lower on my list than any of those things. It sounds like Krista fully intends to work on it again, but not immediately.

I’d recommend that people read it anyway.

Posted by Jim at December 5th, 2004

I’ve been interested in data mining for a while now. Basically, data mining uses statistical techniques to see patterns in the data you’ve collected in your data warehouse. Of course, you don’t just use statistics. You can also use artificial neural networks and other interesting techniques.

Who uses data mining? Large organizations, mostly. Hospitals use it to understand what treatments have the best effect (for the least money?). Large companies use it to predict what products they need in stock (if we get an order for product X, we get an order for product Y 5 weeks later). The federal government is probably trying to use it to predict who is likely to become a terrorist…

It’s an interesting topic. As such, it’s inevitable that there’s an open source based program to do it. Orange uses python, C++ and QT to create a graphical program for analyzing statistics. I like it a lot and hope to find a way to use it.

Posted by Jim at December 1st, 2004

Comments and trackbacks are part of what makes writing a blog interesting. It’s just nice to know that someone else read what you wrote and cared enough to respond.

This makes it doubly annoying when someone decides to up their google ranking by filling your site with references to drugs, gambling and pornography, using comments and trackbacks to do it.

I don’t plan to turn them off, but I don’t much enjoy having to delete upwards of 30 comments in the past 2 days. I’m lucky in that MT-blacklist did catch them all, but I still had to permanently remove them myself–which is as it should be. A program that deleted them without giving me the option of approving them would probably remove comments I wanted as well.

Despite knowing that I should probably feel charitable even towards spammers, rage and frustration dominate my thoughts about them.

I think about how cool it would be if they experienced a shock for each comment spam. Perhaps more appropriately, I think back to an article on Slashdot. A spammer gave an interview and talked about his new home. Some readers figured out where he lived and signed him up for hundreds of magazines and infinite junk mail. He got angry and threatened to sue, but, so far as I know, no one ever went to court.

It’s a pleasant fantasy, but, I doubt I’d be able to do the same. Still, whoever it is deserves to experience the results of their actions. It can’t happen soon enough.