in reply to Graph Theory, Perl, and the Six Degrees of Wikipedia

I enjoyed looking at how things get connected. Some queries were rather boring, just routing through shared dates (or, worse, years), like the first one below. Some were quite funny.

Shortest path from Great Wall of China to Larry Wall is 3 clicks:
Great Wall of China -> April 19 -> 1949 -> Larry Wall

Shortest path from Larry Wall to Great Wall of China is 3 clicks:
Larry Wall -> Christianity -> Attila the Hun -> Great Wall of China

Shortest path from Perl to Great Wall of China is 3 clicks:
Perl -> Bioinformatics -> Evolution -> Great Wall of China

Shortest path from Perl to Carnegie Hall is 3 clicks:
Perl -> American National Standards Institute -> New York City -> Carnegie Hall

Shortest path from Perl to Python is 3 clicks:
Perl -> C (programming language) -> Buffer overflow -> Python

Shortest path from Python to Perl is 2 clicks:
Python -> Monty Python -> Perl

Shortest path from Perl to Bowler hat is 3 clicks:
Perl -> Latin -> The Adventures of Tintin -> Bowler hat

Shortest path from Perl to Pineapple is 3 clicks:
Perl -> Golf -> Mexico -> Pineapple

Shortest path from Perl to Athlete's foot is 3 clicks:
Perl -> 1987 -> Dougie Poynter -> Athlete's foot

Shortest path from Perl to Potted meat is 5 clicks:
Perl -> APL (programming language) -> 1964 -> Hedda Hopper -> Treet -> Potted meat food product

Shortest path from Perl Monks to Potted meat is 5 clicks:
Perl Monks -> Slashdot -> South Park -> 58th Primetime Emmy Awards -> List of Camp Lazlo episodes -> Potted meat food product

I'll just let you enjoy that tableau without further comment, so you can enjoy your own interpretations of the results (of speculation at why I came up with those specific end-points).

- tye        

  • Comment on Re: Graph Theory, Perl, and the Six Degrees of Wikipedia (fun paths)

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Re^2: Graph Theory, Perl, and the Six Degrees of Wikipedia (fun paths)
by shmem (Chancellor) on May 28, 2008 at 07:48 UTC

    Oh yeah, great fun... and some paths are quite convincing:

    Shortest path from Perl to Kidney is 2 clicks:
    Perl > Camel > Kidney

    Shortest path from Perl to Spam is 3 clicks:
    Perl > BASIC > Bill Gates > Spam

    Shortest path from Perl to Onion is 3 clicks:
    Perl > Camel > Taboo food and drink > Onion

    Shortest path from Perl to Chaos is 3 clicks:
    Perl > Usenet > Duke University > Chaos

    --shmem

    _($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                                  /\_¯/(q    /
    ----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
    ");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}

      Hahaha

      Shortest path from Perlmonks to Conan the Barbarian: 4 clicks needed

      Perl Monks > Computer programming > Buffer overflow > OpenBSD > Conan the Barbarian

      LOL

      mwa

      perl to heaven Perl > Gospel of Matthew > Death and resurrection of Jesus > Heaven
Re^2: Graph Theory, Perl, and the Six Degrees of Wikipedia (fun paths)
by Gavin (Archbishop) on May 28, 2008 at 10:14 UTC

    Interesting

    Perl to Sex 2 clicks

    Perl -> Usenet -> Sex

    but Sex to Perl is 3

    Sex -> Hetrosexuality -> H2g2 -> Perl

    Strange easier going than coming!

Re^2: Graph Theory, Perl, and the Six Degrees of Wikipedia (fun paths)
by amarquis (Curate) on May 28, 2008 at 14:26 UTC

    Finding interesting paths not through dates or lists is difficult. It would be interesting to develop some heuristic for eliminating them (maybe links per volume?) and do so. I think, at least, it would increase the humor per attempt when searching between random things.