Tag Archives: time

Things I Learned this Week

Among the things I learned this week:
* Betteridge’s Law of Headlines states that if a headline ends with a question mark, the answer is no. (Courtesy: Matt Levine/Money Stuff)

* The absolute deliciousness of wild-caught Alaskan salmon overnighted to your doorstep. (Courtesy: DK)

* A thousandth-of-a-second in men’s world-class swimming is equal to about two centimeters of distance traveled. The swimming governing body (FINA) allows three centimeters of variation among pool lanes. It seems picking a shorter lane could yield significant results, although FINA uses hundredth-of-a-second times to mitigate this. (Courtesy: Tim Burke/Deadspin)

Things I Learned this Week

Among the things I learned this week:
* Disney has an adult fashion line, Disney Couture. The line was established in 2006. (Courtesy: Rediff)

* Trend Micro now positions itself as a cloud specialist. (Courtesy: eWeek)

* Clocks don’t make many appearances in Bollywood films. (Courtesy The New Yorker)

* My car’s clock handles Leap Year dates but not daylight savings. (Courtesy: Personal experience)

* Funeral music is neither depressing nor uplifting, the two emotions I expected when starting a two-disc set titled Funeral Music. (Courtesy: V/A Funeral Music (EMI Classics))

Wikipedia Headings as a Cross-Temporal Data Set

Many Wikpedia entries contain headings and sub-headings that have temporal connotations. Due to the 2.0 and cross-temporal character of Wikipedia, these headings and sub-headings are ripe for data mining. The question I have is what can we learn from these type of datasets about how humans understand time.

Yeah, yeah, time is a social construct. So is everything. The point is to understand that social construct and how it is constructed. Wikipedia offers a great way of doing so, because the temporal markers are adjusted as extra-Wikipedia time marches. In other words, even as we grow older at a “constant” rate, the temporal markers for a Wikipedia adjust and re-adjust. For example, the Wikipedia article about Wiley has several headings include:
* 1997-2003: Early Years
* 2004-2010: Solo Success
* 2011-present: Recent Work

It’s not difficult to imagine how these three breakdowns of the temporal landscape of his career has evolved since his debut (i.e., it is unlikely that these headings appeared as soon as he made it). So how do these headings evolve over time and what events lead us to impose such periods?

I don’t have an answer, but I sure would like the answer.