I spent Thanskgiving and the day after relaxing in my own peculiar way--by mining the Wikileaks 9/11 pager data.
Here are some early results:
I started by pulling out all the email addresses from the pages and storing them in their own table, with keys to their original page. I also pulled the unique pager numbers from the pages. What I got was a bipartite directed graph with one side being emails and the other being pagers, with messages functioning as edges. Using Django, Graphviz, Cinelerra and a bunch of other tools, I was able to make a video of the graph as it lights up on each relevant page.
The positions of the glowballs, and other information coming from SCREM, can be relayed to a little Nokia N800 palmtop over the WiFi connection.
Tracking is still a little rough, and, as I mention in the video, I think the IR cams are grabbing the N800 a little bit, so we'll need to keep it outside of the area--at least until the tracker is a bit more solid. Still, it should be a handy way to bring in another interface--and other participants--inside SMALLab. In fact, I gave the N800 to James in the office, and he could watch the movements of the balls through the wall.
