Photo Credit: AP Photo

Sigh.

Arthur C. Clarke has died.

Yet another writer from the greatest era of Science Fiction is gone. Want to know how I feel about it? Go pick up Harlan Ellison’s short story collection -  "Angry Candy" - and read Harlan’s introduction.

Good bye Sir Clarke, you are missed.

I’m such a fan of anything that serves it’s purpose exceptionally…

Beyond the cuteness of the little wiener dog chasing the ball, check out the awesome action on the tennis-ball-throwing robot. It knows when a ball is in place, draws the shot and fires. The dog ain’t bad either. He knows how to get the ball in ‘just so’ and will even take it out if it’s not right (notice that the robot resets as soon as the ball is removed). Maybe it’s just me cuz I have dogs, but this little robot solves its challenge beautifully.

So, it’s no secret that I’m a number and visualization geek. I mean you have been here before right?

Well, I also happen to have a 1st (British!) Edition translation of Homer’s Odyssey by T.E. Shaw . It’s just the most prized of the 4 or so translations I have (not to mention the Odyssey in its original ancient Greek). So, I’m a history geek too (Shhh, don’t tell anyone).

To my delight, I found this combination of visualization and Greek mythology. It’s the genaeology of the Greek Gods in an interactive Network Diagram. Ok, I think it’s a network diagram, but the folks at Spicynodes say it’s a "sophisticated radial mapping technology" - which doesn’t seem to match what I know so maybe it’s a hybrid of some kind or I’m just ignorant.

Here’s a screen grab of the starting point…

 It’s definitely fun to explore the Gods’ family tree. There are some quibbles that I could raise - more like constructive criticisms.

I wish that the descriptions at the bottom of the map were highlighted a little more - even if only briefly. I’m not a fan of the navigation wheel that appears on the central node when you roll over it so I’d rather have the bottom navigation be a little more visually important.

Even though it probably has little data value, it’d be a lot more fun if, when you searched for a God (or Goddess), the visualization ‘zoomed’ through the tree to your selection a la Google Earth. Frankly with a little thought into the speed of the zoom and some appropriate pausing, you could probably do a fairly decent job of showing a God’s direct line of descent.

Ok, on the mythology side … Greek mythology is complex and most Gods have at least one genesis story…it’s hard to show that in the visualization so the authors rightly include tidbits of that complexity in the descriptions. BUT, it bothers me that for Aphrodite they list Ouranos (The Sky) as her father. This is technically true as she sprang from the sea foam created when the -uh- remains of his castration were cast out over the sea, but ummm, Zeus did the work so shouldn’t he get at least half credit? (Nitpicky - I know, I know).

I also think that it would be great if the Web Exhibit folks would provide links to additional reading/details on each God/Goddess and ancient Greece in general for folks who stumble upon this (literally) and want to learn more. Hey, I started out on Bulfinch’s Mythology waaaaay back in the day.

What do you think? Is this a good visualization? A good use of visualization tools? What do you love or hate about it? What would you change?

Both images (the screenshot and the Temple of Zeus) are used with permission under creative commons licenses:

Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported - Web Exhibit

Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic - Feuillu