Fascinating. I've sometimes wondered what a Livejournal friends map would look like. Ok, so I imagined it as a three-dimensional spider web, but this is just as cool. Wonder what theferrett's map looks like...
Does it cost anything to get? I wasn't sure, since the button said "order your mindmap today" or something, and there doesn't seem to be any info anywhere that says whether it's free or not. Just curious, is all.
According to this, the colors are simple representations of a similar group of people.
The brackets are simply the names that have their own LJ mind maps.
The biggest names around you aren't necessarily your best friends. Rather, they represent the friends who are most connected with your friends, and as such are a likely representation of who you are as a whole. Let's take my LJ mindmap as an example.
Obviously, Ferrett-sensei and Mrs. Ferrett are my two biggest connections. Well, if you take a closer look at my Mindmap, you'll notice that I have (not so) randomly friended quite a few people from the Cleveland area. This is my connection to justbeast and grailquestion. Scat Hed Obsidian, Blerg Eat Kitty, and Yuki Onna combine with rollick, moocowrich, correspondguy, cornelldancer, and scarletdemon to form a network of LJ people who mostly read each other (8!, or 8 factorial is a large number of separate friending decisions). My outliers, the people I have one connection to, are mostly people who I have met in real life and don't use their LJ often, hence their position on my LJ mindmap.
Also, there are groupings. Many of my LJ friends in the eleanor727 to thucyditron to wldntulk2knwwho triangle are from my time at the University of Tulsa or some other college connection. The major difficulty in of LJ Mindmap is that the connecting lines just get confusing after awhile. It needs to be put into 3D vectors, though the programming behind that would be monstrous, as you can well imagine. Just use some spatial skills to picture the 2D representation and you'll be able to see the associations of clusters. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty cool representation of "interconnectedness".
Okay, after looking at your profile, I think I can explain your confusion. LJ Mindmap not only considers if they're on your friends list, but it also considers if you're on their friends list (wow, I just thought too much about the they're/their thing).
Let's go back to the Scat Hed Obsidian, Blerg Eat Kitty, and Yuki Onna combining with rollick, moocowrich, correspondguy, cornelldancer, and scarletdemon to form a network of LJ people who mostly read each other. The reason they're so close to me is because not only do they read me, and I read them, but we all read each other (well, not everyone of us but most of us).
Let's make it a simpler number game, assigning the letters A-F to a group of six people. A reads B, B reads A, A reads C, C reads A, B reads C, C reads B. So, 3 people all read each other, making it 3! or 3*2*1=6 separate friending decisions. Now let's say the rest of the friending tree is A reads D, D reads A, A reads E, A reads F, F reads B.
If we were to look at A's LJ Mindmap, we would see B in the most prominent position. Why? Well, while A, B, and C all read each other, F also reads B, therefore forging another connection. E would be the outlier with only one connection.
So, let's take it back to my own LJ mindmap. People who are mutual friends with you that are in common with my own are blergeatkitty, fitfool, yndy, and zoethe. Of those, only blergeatkitty and zoethe are "power" friends in my LJ mindmap. I don't have the time to show it in spreadsheet form, but if you looked at my big names you would see that most of them read each other.
For LJ Mind Map purposes, think of friending as a huge decision tree. The more connections there are, the bigger the name. The fact that I'm on Ferrett-sensei's friendslist has brought me a lot of random connections, probably more than I am aware of.
Heh, I didn't know your math skills were that leet. I had another girl on my flist not understand what factorial or even binary meant when I tried to explain this.
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Date: 2007-04-28 02:54 pm (UTC)Does it cost anything to get? I wasn't sure, since the button said "order your mindmap today" or something, and there doesn't seem to be any info anywhere that says whether it's free or not. Just curious, is all.
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Date: 2007-04-28 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-28 10:27 pm (UTC)but your's is pretty!
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Date: 2007-04-29 02:29 am (UTC)The brackets are simply the names that have their own LJ mind maps.
The biggest names around you aren't necessarily your best friends. Rather, they represent the friends who are most connected with your friends, and as such are a likely representation of who you are as a whole. Let's take my LJ mindmap as an example.
Obviously, Ferrett-sensei and Mrs. Ferrett are my two biggest connections. Well, if you take a closer look at my Mindmap, you'll notice that I have (not so) randomly friended quite a few people from the Cleveland area. This is my connection to justbeast and grailquestion. Scat Hed Obsidian, Blerg Eat Kitty, and Yuki Onna combine with rollick, moocowrich, correspondguy, cornelldancer, and scarletdemon to form a network of LJ people who mostly read each other (8!, or 8 factorial is a large number of separate friending decisions). My outliers, the people I have one connection to, are mostly people who I have met in real life and don't use their LJ often, hence their position on my LJ mindmap.
Also, there are groupings. Many of my LJ friends in the eleanor727 to thucyditron to wldntulk2knwwho triangle are from my time at the University of Tulsa or some other college connection. The major difficulty in of LJ Mindmap is that the connecting lines just get confusing after awhile. It needs to be put into 3D vectors, though the programming behind that would be monstrous, as you can well imagine. Just use some spatial skills to picture the 2D representation and you'll be able to see the associations of clusters. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty cool representation of "interconnectedness".
no subject
Date: 2007-04-29 03:38 am (UTC)Okay... but a number of the people you mentioned are on my FL as well... and yet, I lie in a relatively innocuous position on your map
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Date: 2007-04-29 04:41 am (UTC)Let's go back to the Scat Hed Obsidian, Blerg Eat Kitty, and Yuki Onna combining with rollick, moocowrich, correspondguy, cornelldancer, and scarletdemon to form a network of LJ people who mostly read each other. The reason they're so close to me is because not only do they read me, and I read them, but we all read each other (well, not everyone of us but most of us).
Let's make it a simpler number game, assigning the letters A-F to a group of six people. A reads B, B reads A, A reads C, C reads A, B reads C, C reads B. So, 3 people all read each other, making it 3! or 3*2*1=6 separate friending decisions. Now let's say the rest of the friending tree is A reads D, D reads A, A reads E, A reads F, F reads B.
If we were to look at A's LJ Mindmap, we would see B in the most prominent position. Why? Well, while A, B, and C all read each other, F also reads B, therefore forging another connection. E would be the outlier with only one connection.
So, let's take it back to my own LJ mindmap. People who are mutual friends with you that are in common with my own are blergeatkitty, fitfool, yndy, and zoethe. Of those, only blergeatkitty and zoethe are "power" friends in my LJ mindmap. I don't have the time to show it in spreadsheet form, but if you looked at my big names you would see that most of them read each other.
For LJ Mind Map purposes, think of friending as a huge decision tree. The more connections there are, the bigger the name. The fact that I'm on Ferrett-sensei's friendslist has brought me a lot of random connections, probably more than I am aware of.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 04:42 am (UTC)sadly, I would've understood much faster if you'd said "they have the n-1 factorial relationship" :P
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Date: 2007-04-30 05:44 am (UTC)