16 May 2009

I Think I've Been Insulted

2057.I love it when someone links to something clever I've done on this blog, but sometimes one wonders ...

I found, in examining my inbound traffic, I got a link from a blog referring my Periodic Table Of Oregon. And it was from a German blog, auf Deutsch! Nifty.

Although, when I fed it into Babelfish (I was lazy) I detected the writer was not all that thrilled about what I had wrought. Here's the last 'graf, as x-lated:

Therefore all are neither useful nor necessary straight periodic systems appearing in the Internet, but simply only sense-free arrangements after an outdated sample.

Here's the whole entry. I'm not sure if my feelings are supposed to be hurt here, or something. For what it's worth, I see to be in a sort of rogue's gallery, which isn't such a bad thing I suppose, since I'm in company along with the Periodic Table of Type, which is a cleverness I only wish I could bring off.

The nub of the fellow's gist seems to be that the Periodic Table of the Elements is an inappropriate lens to be looking at pop culture (and allied things) with. Either that, or he wants a pizza and the Emmentaler cheese has gone off, and his Volkswagen is full of eels.

Ah, well. Can't please 'em all. Don't know art but do know what we like, and all that.

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1 comment:

Hans-Joerg Schulz said...

Deutsching around? *GRIN* Yeah, I've listed your Periodic Table of Oregon on my blog Alt+Druck as one of the many examples of Periodic Tables (PT) that seem to pop up like an army of Jack-in-the-Boxes lately. My point is, that the PT is not a universal design pattern, but has been tailored to a single and very specific purpose: organizing the chemical elements. Form follows function and not the other way around!

If you see your PT of Oregon as a piece of art, I could maybe agree with your arguments. But for serious use, a PT is just ill fit. A good example is the PT of Visualization Methods which has even been published in a serious scientific article and which also has been nicely deconstructed by visualization guru Stephen Few.

So, that's my point -- but I can easily see that my intention may have been garbled by BabelFish. ;-) Ok, I've to go and take care of the eels in my Volkswagen... *GRIN*