Thoughts about sausages
Jun. 12th, 2004 05:41 pmWhat a strange idea, this sausage meme. "Who has the longest?", it asks. Normally the idea is to be *close* to the originator. Like the "follow me" thing. Those who come after you are your followers, so the closer you are to the originator, the less people you have who you follow. (If it actually meant anything, of course...) Similarly with the vampire and the zombie things. Surely it's better to be a second-generation vampire than a seventh?
Now, of course, when you have more than just a tree - say we were to consider all LJ friends - and are considering the actual graph distance, then it's kind of neat to be far away. Like, using the whole "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing, surely it's neater to be William Rufus Shafter and have a Bacon number of 8 than to be any old actor with a Bacon number of just 2 or 3... (though infinity isn't especially great - it's too common).
Of course then once you start considering such things you can start thinking about overall connectedness and who is overall the most and least connected, but that's really getting away from the point I was originally making.
What *was* the point I was originally making? Ah yes... that generally, when you just have a (rooted) tree which is some subgraph of some much larger graph (sausage to LJ friends, followers to AIM buddies), generally the emphasis is on minimizing the distance to the root, not maximizing it. So the sausage meme is very strange. Wait, I already did make that point - I mean, what more is there really to say about it? I could go and repeat myself some more, but I think I'll spare you.
-Sniffnoy
--
I dreamt that I got carried away by a giant squirrel. Does that make me
a nut?
Now, of course, when you have more than just a tree - say we were to consider all LJ friends - and are considering the actual graph distance, then it's kind of neat to be far away. Like, using the whole "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing, surely it's neater to be William Rufus Shafter and have a Bacon number of 8 than to be any old actor with a Bacon number of just 2 or 3... (though infinity isn't especially great - it's too common).
Of course then once you start considering such things you can start thinking about overall connectedness and who is overall the most and least connected, but that's really getting away from the point I was originally making.
What *was* the point I was originally making? Ah yes... that generally, when you just have a (rooted) tree which is some subgraph of some much larger graph (sausage to LJ friends, followers to AIM buddies), generally the emphasis is on minimizing the distance to the root, not maximizing it. So the sausage meme is very strange. Wait, I already did make that point - I mean, what more is there really to say about it? I could go and repeat myself some more, but I think I'll spare you.
-Sniffnoy
--
I dreamt that I got carried away by a giant squirrel. Does that make me
a nut?
