Saturday, Debtember 11, 1999
Mapping the Corporate Sea
Create a new map or globe of the world that shows multinational corporate borders, vectors and free trade zones instead of national boundaries. Map must make it into a grade-school geography textbook, or globes must be sent to several elementary schools nation-wide; either event must be reported upon extensively in the mainstream press.
The MAPS project at ®™art
An intriging project to be sure. Just defining what it means for a corporation to have a “border” will be difficult, much less the other parts of the project. The free trade zones is a bit easier and will probably follow traditional national borders.
But if one is created, I wouldn't mind having a copy. I have R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Map, and an upside-down map (where Antartica is on top, North America on the bottom).
Reorg
I was keeping (and probably will for the time being, keep) each day's entry in a single file, with internal links to each part. I went through and fixed them so they're unique across all the files, not just withing a single file.
I also have several goals that aren't easy to realize given the traditional file-based view that traditional websites use.
But as others, as well as I (with my Electric King James Bible), have shown, that doesn't need to be the case.
So for the past few hours I've been re-organizing the pages. I have a directory for the year, a directory for each month, and a directory for each day. Within each daily directory I have a file for each section, as well as any other anciliary materials (such as images and what not). Basically, using the Unix filesystem as a database (shut up Mark). I'll have to come up with a URL scheme to isolate the backend processing here, but that shouldn't be that hard.
Basically, this will be an extention of the work I did for the King James Bible. And what I do here will probably help me work out a method to deal with storing and referencing other materials, like Shakespearean plays.
Shut up, Mark
I hate databases. Have ever since I took the disasterous database course at FAU. But I like working on operating systems.
As Mark likes to point out, a filesystem is just a special case of a database.
To say that I ignore that is an understatement.
Shut up, Mark!
2b|~2b
Some more ramblings on Hypertext.
The work I did on the King James Bible was partly a result of wanting to reference a portion of a much larger work. After I was done with that, my eye then turned towards Shakespeare. It'd be nice to say something like:
http://literature.conman.org/Shakespeare/Hamlet.III.i.56-64
And get:
To be, or not to be,—that is the question:—
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wisht. To die,—to sleep;—
Ah, but the problem with Shakespeare, or rather, with the notation used to reference part of his plays, deals with what constitutes a countable line:
MARCELLUS.
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
Enter GHOST
BERNARDO.
In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
BERNARDO.
Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO.
Most like:—it harrows me with fear and wonder.
Hamlet, I.i.40-44
It's basically lines that are spoken that are counted. So line 40 is actually “Pease, break thee off; look, where it comes again!” It's not the line that says MARCELLUS.
Makes for an interesting project.
