CarnivorePE
Carnivore is a visually based packet-sniffer. It takes all the information that your computer sends and receives and interprets it into animations or just plain data. It seems to be just limited to what your computer is connecting to - other computers, servers, and modems, which I assume is an more general way of saying "the internet." It animates every connection with a line and a pulse in graphics to show you when the connection is occurring.
Visually, the program is quite interesting. I like the idea of showing connections when they happen, and where they go, and I think it would make for a great capstone if we could incorporate something like that into our project. Unfortunately, all that data that would tell us when connections are occurring and where is just not available, especially for the whole internet. The amount of server permissions and company permissions we'd have to get would be beyond comprehension. But, the pulsing graphics and lines forming is still a good concept to use in our project, it just would not have the meaning that it would in Carnivore.
However, if we wanted to scale our project down to fit servers and connections just within the University, then it might be possible to get data like that, and perhaps build a new sort of interface for network diagnostics. However, that would be severely deviating from our original idea, and it's a bit late in the semester to do that.
Since the next couple of links are just an add-ons to Carnivore, I'll include them in this post.
Fuel
This is the Carnivore concept, except with stars that grow and collapse instead of pulsing circles. The only way I could think of this animation concept applying to our project would be if we had the user go to a solar system, and the solar system would be constantly updating - that is, the program would be constantly scanning the web pages in the domain, looking for the minute changes and displaying them accordingly.
If we would want something like that to work, however, we'd have to put the burden of the webpage scanning on the user side rather than the server, which I don't think would be a very popular idea.
Guernica
Another client which views your traffic and connections as a sort of post-apocalyptic world where planes fly around crazily and buildings are formed and destroyed. It might be fun to consider doing the art style of this project into a particular genre, like cyberpunk or steampunk... definitely something to consider.
12.16.2007
Links For Me: Rivalry (Economics)
Rivalry (Economics)
A brief Wikipedia article describing a type of economic concept. Rivalrous goods are goods that cannot be consumed by more than one user at a time, but can be reused. I suppose this is supposed to fit with our concept of someone "owning" a planet in the game, by laying claim to it and controlling all it's resources, but also having the capability to be taken over by someone else.
It also goes into the opposite of rival goods, which is non-rival... something that can be enjoyed by many people at the same time. The idea that was brought up in presentations of planets forming get-together chat rooms probably fits with this concept, but I think kind of goes against the idea of exploration and finding those out-of-the-way places that Jasper and I are trying to bring across. Sites like Facebook and MySpace encourage you to go where all your friends are - when have you ever seen these sites encourage you to find people that hardly relate to you at all and figure them out?
I think social networking is great and all, but it doesn't really require you to step very far from your comfort zone, and it sorts of builds the expectation that every site should follow the same rules. Hopefully we can break out of this mentality of clustering together and encourage people to spread out a lot more.
A brief Wikipedia article describing a type of economic concept. Rivalrous goods are goods that cannot be consumed by more than one user at a time, but can be reused. I suppose this is supposed to fit with our concept of someone "owning" a planet in the game, by laying claim to it and controlling all it's resources, but also having the capability to be taken over by someone else.
It also goes into the opposite of rival goods, which is non-rival... something that can be enjoyed by many people at the same time. The idea that was brought up in presentations of planets forming get-together chat rooms probably fits with this concept, but I think kind of goes against the idea of exploration and finding those out-of-the-way places that Jasper and I are trying to bring across. Sites like Facebook and MySpace encourage you to go where all your friends are - when have you ever seen these sites encourage you to find people that hardly relate to you at all and figure them out?
I think social networking is great and all, but it doesn't really require you to step very far from your comfort zone, and it sorts of builds the expectation that every site should follow the same rules. Hopefully we can break out of this mentality of clustering together and encourage people to spread out a lot more.
Links For Me: Is Cyberspace Really a Space?
So, since I've been absolutely horrid in using this blog to document my progress, I decided that the rest of my postcount can be dedicated towards disseminating all the links that have been sent to me via del.icio.us, and settle for accumulating all the work Jasper and I have done in one page.
So, on to where I last left off.
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Is Cyberspace Really a Space?
This article mostly talks about how to make the concept of cyberspace appealing to a reader or viewer - rather than boring them with details of the technical aspect of the internet and data transfers, or going in depth to the point that people wouldn't even understand it anymore, it simply says that a simple metaphor will help make it interesting. Like, as the example used, in Neuromancer, a cyber "space," where various aspects of the underlying technologies manifest themselves as physical objects.
This pertains to the concept of our project in that we are trying to make the internet into a "space" - space as we actually know it. Data is manifested as physical planets and objects, distances between planets and solar systems depend on interconnectivity, and some of the underlying things like IPs determine space ports and other connections.
One of the things the author expresses concern about is the "distance" of a cyber "space." That making things actually have a distance and require time to get to takes away some of the magic of the near-instantaneous connections of the internet. I think our project addresses a concern like this by making space travel near instantaneous as well. Sure, we could make you sit through a minute of stars zipping past in order for the user to reach a "distant" planet - one that doesn't really relate to other pages all that much - but then I feel that would detract users from actually going to planets such as that, and users would then only stick to the common planets, the one close to each other, and not feel like they should be branching out.
All in all, this article touches on a lot of what we're trying to do with this project, which is make the internet into something people will want to understand and explore, because we've done all the legwork of making it understandable to the user.
So, on to where I last left off.
------------------------
Is Cyberspace Really a Space?
This article mostly talks about how to make the concept of cyberspace appealing to a reader or viewer - rather than boring them with details of the technical aspect of the internet and data transfers, or going in depth to the point that people wouldn't even understand it anymore, it simply says that a simple metaphor will help make it interesting. Like, as the example used, in Neuromancer, a cyber "space," where various aspects of the underlying technologies manifest themselves as physical objects.
This pertains to the concept of our project in that we are trying to make the internet into a "space" - space as we actually know it. Data is manifested as physical planets and objects, distances between planets and solar systems depend on interconnectivity, and some of the underlying things like IPs determine space ports and other connections.
One of the things the author expresses concern about is the "distance" of a cyber "space." That making things actually have a distance and require time to get to takes away some of the magic of the near-instantaneous connections of the internet. I think our project addresses a concern like this by making space travel near instantaneous as well. Sure, we could make you sit through a minute of stars zipping past in order for the user to reach a "distant" planet - one that doesn't really relate to other pages all that much - but then I feel that would detract users from actually going to planets such as that, and users would then only stick to the common planets, the one close to each other, and not feel like they should be branching out.
All in all, this article touches on a lot of what we're trying to do with this project, which is make the internet into something people will want to understand and explore, because we've done all the legwork of making it understandable to the user.
11.08.2007
Assignment: Computer-Free Capstone
Since my capstone relies on computers on both ends, I decided to turn to another form of communication between people - telephones.
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The Interphrase Project
The telephone. A device that lets you pick up and talk to someone across the country as if they were in the next room. Through a complicated series of wires, stations and junctions, people can talk to anyone that they please - provided the person picks up the phone, of course. People are no longer isolated by the delay of writing letters and waiting for a response, or limited to the only sort of emotions you can put on paper. Relationships can stay close between friends and family when you can talk to them as if it were face to face. But, how close are you to the people you know?
Interphrase is a new project that lets you track how many calls you receive from a particular person, and the duration of each. By dialing in and signing up for our service, we begin monitoring your phone usage, and a monthly diagram is sent right to your home. Set up in an easy-to-understand format, like planets in the sky, people you call most often and the longest will be prominently featured, while those who you only call once or twice will be more indistinct. By observing this diagram, we hope that you will get a clearer picture of how the telephone has affected the relationships with the people you know.
Call us toll-free at 1-800-IPP-HOME to sign up!
------------------------------
The Interphrase Project
The telephone. A device that lets you pick up and talk to someone across the country as if they were in the next room. Through a complicated series of wires, stations and junctions, people can talk to anyone that they please - provided the person picks up the phone, of course. People are no longer isolated by the delay of writing letters and waiting for a response, or limited to the only sort of emotions you can put on paper. Relationships can stay close between friends and family when you can talk to them as if it were face to face. But, how close are you to the people you know?
Interphrase is a new project that lets you track how many calls you receive from a particular person, and the duration of each. By dialing in and signing up for our service, we begin monitoring your phone usage, and a monthly diagram is sent right to your home. Set up in an easy-to-understand format, like planets in the sky, people you call most often and the longest will be prominently featured, while those who you only call once or twice will be more indistinct. By observing this diagram, we hope that you will get a clearer picture of how the telephone has affected the relationships with the people you know.
Call us toll-free at 1-800-IPP-HOME to sign up!
11.06.2007
Notes: Universal Motion
Another important aspect to this game is making stuff move. So, in order to make it believable motion and satisfy my perfectionist urges, here's the notes I've taken on the relative motions of the Universe.
Motion
First, the relationship between the planet and it's moon. The moon orbits around the planet - clear enough. It is also "tidally locked" to a planet, which means the same face is always showing to the planet, with a few exceptions. This is also less the case the further a moon is away from the planet. Which means the moon spins on it's axis the opposite of what the Earth spins on, to keep the same face pointed towards the planet. This face is also the "heavier" side of the moon, which leaves interesting possibilities in our project as to the link between planets and moons.
Now, the motion of planets. The planets of the solar system work as follows:
Mercury:
~0.4x the size of Earth
orbits once every 88 days (47.87 km/s)
rotates once every 59 days (10.892 km/h)
Venus:
~0.9x the size of Earth
orbits once every 225 days (35.02 km/s)
rotates once every 243 days (6.52 km/h)
Mars:
~0.5x the size of the Earth
orbits once every 687 days (24.077 km/s)
rotates once every 24 hours and 40 minutes (868.22 km/h)
Jupiter:
~11x the size of Earth
orbits once every 4335 days (13.07 km/s)
rotates once every 10 hours (45,300 km/h)
Saturn:
~9x the size of Earth
orbits once every 10823 days (9.69 km/s)
rotates once every 10 hours and 32 minutes (35,500 km/h)
Uranus:
~4x the size of Earth
orbits once every 30799 days (6.81 km/s)
rotates once every 17 hours and 14 minutes (9,320 km/h)
Neptune:
~3.8x the size of Earth
orbits once every 60373 days (5.43 km/s)
rotates once every 16 hours and 6 minutes (9,660 km/h)
So, aside from the obvious conclusion that the further the planet is away from the Sun, the longer it takes to orbit, there are a few other observations. Planets tend to get bigger the further away they are from the Sun, although size seems to be mostly determined by their composition. And, planet rotate faster the further away they get from the Sun - due to lesser gravity or the size they achieve, I'm not sure.
Will this affect how we organize our websites? With the example of Slashdot being a Sun, could it mean that it's closest planet will end up the size of Jupiter? Or should we compress it down somehow, much like gravity compresses down planets, or would tampering with the fact that the size of a web page determines the size of the planets cripple the educational aspect somehow?
Source: Various Wikipedia articles.
Motion
First, the relationship between the planet and it's moon. The moon orbits around the planet - clear enough. It is also "tidally locked" to a planet, which means the same face is always showing to the planet, with a few exceptions. This is also less the case the further a moon is away from the planet. Which means the moon spins on it's axis the opposite of what the Earth spins on, to keep the same face pointed towards the planet. This face is also the "heavier" side of the moon, which leaves interesting possibilities in our project as to the link between planets and moons.
Now, the motion of planets. The planets of the solar system work as follows:
Mercury:
~0.4x the size of Earth
orbits once every 88 days (47.87 km/s)
rotates once every 59 days (10.892 km/h)
Venus:
~0.9x the size of Earth
orbits once every 225 days (35.02 km/s)
rotates once every 243 days (6.52 km/h)
Mars:
~0.5x the size of the Earth
orbits once every 687 days (24.077 km/s)
rotates once every 24 hours and 40 minutes (868.22 km/h)
Jupiter:
~11x the size of Earth
orbits once every 4335 days (13.07 km/s)
rotates once every 10 hours (45,300 km/h)
Saturn:
~9x the size of Earth
orbits once every 10823 days (9.69 km/s)
rotates once every 10 hours and 32 minutes (35,500 km/h)
Uranus:
~4x the size of Earth
orbits once every 30799 days (6.81 km/s)
rotates once every 17 hours and 14 minutes (9,320 km/h)
Neptune:
~3.8x the size of Earth
orbits once every 60373 days (5.43 km/s)
rotates once every 16 hours and 6 minutes (9,660 km/h)
So, aside from the obvious conclusion that the further the planet is away from the Sun, the longer it takes to orbit, there are a few other observations. Planets tend to get bigger the further away they are from the Sun, although size seems to be mostly determined by their composition. And, planet rotate faster the further away they get from the Sun - due to lesser gravity or the size they achieve, I'm not sure.
Will this affect how we organize our websites? With the example of Slashdot being a Sun, could it mean that it's closest planet will end up the size of Jupiter? Or should we compress it down somehow, much like gravity compresses down planets, or would tampering with the fact that the size of a web page determines the size of the planets cripple the educational aspect somehow?
Source: Various Wikipedia articles.
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