Discussion forum - Visualizing Information

I don't see a discussion forum on the wiki, so I'll just discuss it here. :)

Random thoughts as I listen to the lecture -

For those of us with our own personal, legally registered stalkers, all of these tracking functions are not a good thing. I have as many of mine turned off as I can. It's all in your perspective, based on your experience.

As far as tracking other, non-sapient beings, I'm all for it. I have RFD tags on my kid's phones, my husband's keys, etc., just because I got tired of the endless searches and hysteria over them being lost. The books at my sister's library have RFD tags. My cats are microchipped. (Microchipping doesn't track them, although you can get that feature for animals, but it does give them a unique identifier number.) I microchipped my cats because a. I had to to transport one of them across country borders; and 2. I volunteered at the local humane society for several years, and let me tell you, one black cat looks like all the other black cats!

My favorite tracking website is the U.S. postal service. Did you know that if you use Priority Mail (which is a flat-rate service with a weight limit of 70 pounds), not only does the USPS provide free tracking information, but, they will come and pick it up from your house? I run a home-based internet basis, so this is AWESOME! I can put in the tracking number from any package I send and tell the buyer exactly where it is.

Another site I love is OCLC's Virtual International Authority Foundation's site. This is an attempt by OCLC to gain authority control over every form of a work or author, in every language. For example if you type in "Mark Twain" and selecte the field "Personal Names", ten search headings come up, with the results in at least three different language scripts. Included in the headings are his birth name (Samuel Clemens Langhorne), his pseudonyms (including the disputed Quintus Curtius Snodgrass), and a book written in 1982 by his purported spirit, or ghost, via an Ouija board and with the corporeal help of Robert Leichtman. Further investigation into the search results showed at least 20 different variations of Twain's last name in different ethnic scripts, along with a visual matrix connecting these different representations. (I am happy to report, however, that said matrix did not list the spirit realm.) I like this site because it shows a very comprehensive list, or visual matrix, of the author and all of his pseudonyms; and, it shows the relationship between them. Fascinating.