Slashdot Mirror
Web Page Entanglement
jason continues:
"By viewing the web through a tangle proxy, you can see the connections and associations left by those who surfed the web before you. By surfing the web using tangle, you also leave behind connections and associations for others who will surf in the future.
When you exit one page and enter another (by clicking a link or performing a search), a two-way link is created between the pages. As users surf through a particular page over time, tangle keeps track of popular ways to get to the page and popular places to go next. These entry and exit links are displayed at the top of each page, sorted by popularity.
Clicking on one of these entry/exit links tells tangle that you think the link is relevant and useful (like a vote for the link) and increases the link's popularity. In other words, if a user thinks of something relevant while reading a page and performs a search for it from that page, tangle gauges how others react to that association over time.
tangle is similar in some ways to the closed-loop hypertext system Everything2, though tangle works for the web at large.
We have several tangle proxies up and running. The tangle proxy software is also available for download.
A note for the paranoid:
Though tangle keeps track of web usage patterns, the focus is not on tracking the habits of individual users, but on tracking the trends of an entire community of users. tangle is GPL'd open source [source here], so you can see for yourself: clicking a link through a tangle proxy simply bumps up the links popularity---user IP addresses are completely ignored."
Responstimes are close to a minute right now on the linked proxy. How would it stack up, if you ran a local entanglement proxy? Would response times still be high, due to negotiations with other nodes?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
You should be using this (http://zip.cse.ucsc.edu:8080/request?inform_about _proxy=&link_from_page_title=&link_from_page_url=h ttp://slashdot.org/&link_to_page_url=http://www.gn u.org/ for those who don't trust me) link instead so the referrer will be Slashdot, so the referrer will be correct.
--j
Ok, for the end-user it looks modified, but please remember that the end-user him/herself has chosen to read pages through entangle .. hopefully they'll be aware of their own actions and realizing that they're reading pages through entangle.
.. and its not the browser who modifies the content, its the proxy .. i'm not sure if the proxy uses any special headers, but if it does, you may block your site for non-modified entangles .. But then again, why would you do that? It would only limit the audience and the usability of your own page.
I believe we'll probably see quite a few entangle communities on the net, where you probably just start your own entangle community with your friends or your co-workers.
mats
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
Mods, this isn't redundant, it's true... and old news since Everything2 is already around.
Of course the problem they've experienced on Everything2 is that some cool or sexy sounding link is irresistible to click on, causing these links to rise to the top regardless of their relevance. Thus, it decreases the usefulness of the "entanglement".
Sex memes really are the most pernicious out there... can you honestly tell me you could resist clicking on "The Screensavers - Nude Episode"? The cost (clicking) to possible benefit (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) ratio is just too small not to expend the click.
Pop-up hell might increase cost, thereby disciplining hormonal clickers, but even then. The Onion used to have an ad called "Naked Scottish Weathergirls" -- one of the most clicked on on the web. It led to a messageboard eventually where people posted digitized women in Scotland -- so many people must have arrived there and posted messages asking about the naked women it was unreal.
f*ckit I'll login. You acuse dubious9 of karma whoring. Then you completely dismiss his idea and you don't expect him to respond. Dumbass.
You refute his idea: Ok, fair enough, there does appear to be a certain amount of similarities between the two aproaches(on a cursery glance mind you). But that doesn't make the "ant" metaphor any weaker. And by admitting the similarities it does appear to invalidate your 100% unrelated claim
Ok, now you have a problem with him not explicity telling you a connection between the, now verified "Ant" aproach to the traveling salesman problem, and the topic at hand. I hope you don't have a problem with him responding to this. Afterall this is an entirely new complaint on your part.
All in all, I'd have to say you are the one doing the trolling, mosch.
To all others, excuse me for going offtopic but posts like these infuriate me.
I am typing this in my French cybercafe, which has 10 linux terminals on a broadband connection and an ageing Minitel (1200/75 baud, 9" monochrome screen, Cornflakes packet keyboard...). Scary thing is, to find a specific (and reliable) bit of information, it is often faster to use the Minitel. One of the main reasons is that the Minitel is structured in a way that is relatively intuitive for most people.
Tracking which paths people follow is very clever, but I can't help thinking that it would be better if website designers put more effort into their navigation aids, link pages, and - gasp - maybe listened to their visitors a bit more.
The real genius of the Minitel is that it got thin client technology into millions of French homes long before anyone in France or the USA had heard of the Internet, because it is as easy to use as a telephone. The Internet has a long way to go on that score, and I don't think being able to see how everyone else gets lost is going to help in this respect.
Virtually serving coffee