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Tracking Social Networking In Shakespeare Plays
An anonymous reader writes "By feeding PieSpy (an IRC bot used to visualise social networks) with the entire texts of Shakespeare plays, it became possible to produce drawings of the social networks present in his plays - it is now possible to visualize the relationships between the characters in his works, and see Shakespeare in an entirely new light."
feeding a program written in Shakespeare Programming Language to it? Should be real fun!
That is the question...
Based on the article and PieSpy site, it seems that PieSpy only finds the existence of a connection between members -- a symmetric relationship in which "A connects to B" implies "B connects to A". Yet human relationships tend to be asymmetric: "A likes B" does not imply that "B likes A" and "A controls B" certainly does not imply "B controls A".
A more powerful version of PieSpy would examine the text (and context) of who is connecting to whom. For example, the introduction of new words by some members of the network and the echoing of those words by others would help identify the directional flow of information in the network and help assess the level of control of the thread by some members over others. Analyzing the emotional content of words in threads could probably even let the software make approximate judgements of who likes/hates whom. Analyzing when some members leave IRC as a function of the joining of other members might also help detect asymmetric relationships.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
... the latest craze about social networks like Orkut or Friendster? I'm indifferent to the internet or the people on the internet so I highly doubt social networks on the net will ever be even slightly interesting for me, personally. But I really don't see what's worth the fuss about them, because they aren't exactly incorporating ground-breaking technologies, stunning visualizations nor original and efficient business plans. So while I don't doubt the fact these "social networks" are fun for those participating, I don't actually see anything about them that's worthy of a front page post on Slashdot...
Maybe a nice new topic on Slashdot called "The Internet Society" with stuff like *logs, social networks and everything else regarding the social aspects of the internet?
Hate me!
Not sure that's true. When I did English & English Lit. at school, I hated it. With a passion.
I read as little as possible, thought all the books must be rubbish.
Now I'm older, and I've reread some of the books we did (1984, Of Mice & Men, Royal Hunt of the Sun, various sharespeare, Chrysalids, Farenheit 451 etc).. and I'm finding that they're actually pretty good.
Perhaps you should try it? Get yourself a couple of Shakespeare DVDs (the Brannah ones are quite good), sit back, and enjoy. Then once you know the basis of the story you'll find that the text is rather less opaque.
Enjoy!
You must of had a pretty crappy teacher then. TV pretty much made me hate shakespear back in the day, but my highschool english teacher actually made it good. Macbeth kicks ass, and to you sir, I bite my thumb.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Great, the last thing I want is to have to ignore a friend request from Hamlet on Orkut. That guy is so whiney and needy.
Now if only I could think of a clever way to start emailing Juliet.
-Colin
.. why so many of Shakespeare's works are called comedies just because everyone doesn't die at the end. I saw the Merchant of Venice and there wasn't a single pie-fucking scene in it. I want my money back, dammit.
Before any kid is given a book of a Shakespeare play, they should go and see it performed.
And a note to english teachers - these are stories and are meant to entertain people - remember that when you teach it.
...only for Schiller plays because that's what's usually read in German classrooms. Basically, we created a chart for every play where all the characters were connected by four different types of arrows which were labeled "kills", "tries to kill", "fucks" and "tries to fuck". Ah, the memories...
frotz grue
Google cache
Program
http://www.jibble.org/files/PieSpy-0.2.2.zip
(Original link, only use if mine is down and YOU are going to mirror.)
This could have easily been done with any other author/book/etc. Lord of the Flies IMO would have been more fitting
Theorising, somewhat, but if this software was designed for IRC, it expects input roughly in the form "Name of speaker: words spoken".
Hence it needs plays rather than novels.
Funny you fention the MPAA. Piracy was rife even in the day of Shakespeare. He was regularly ripped off when 'pirates' would discretely write down the words to the play whilst watching and then open the same play up else where. It is still unclear whether some of the plays are originals or infact copies (usually with errors or missing scenes).