Wed 19 Jul 2006
Site News and a Google mapping of subversive literature readers
Posted by Matt under Google , Society , Web , Site News[3] Comments
Although I have read that the first rule of blogging is not to apologize for infrequent posting, I’ll do it anyway. With helping my fiance plan our wedding (10 days away!!!), the Tour De France, and the height of my racing season all coming together, plus a 9-5 work week, GIS and Archaeology has suffered. I guess it is good to give the blogosphere a small break from the controversial and tantalizing subjects of artifacts and computers 
Posting will be back to previous standards in the near future.
And now, something completely different…
Having nothing to do with archaeology, I found this post/tutorial very interesting. From back in January (I think it made the rounds back then) Tom at Applefritter.com posted his technique for data mining Amazon.com wishlists to find the address of people asking for potentially “dangerous” literature. In his very interesting and cheeky post, Tom outlines a involved methodology to extract all 260,000 wishlists and ultimately create a Google Map of reader locations (for his post, he extrapolated the address locations to town centers).
If not just for the information on federal data mining and Tom’s take on it, this post is very intriguing. Following his technical methodology, Tom seems to be somewhat of a scripting MacGyver; quite impressive.
For an interesting diversion, check it out!