ASCII art and plotting

From: McFadden, Mike <mmcfadden_at_cmh.edu>
Date: Wed May 24 15:43:04 2000

Using ASCII line art and a printer for plotting allows the human brain to
see patterns in large amounts of data. If I plot 3,000 points using a pen
plotter with 6 points to the inch I would end up with 40 feet of plot paper
with a fine wiggle line on it. If I used a printer, the paper was cheaper,
the plot was cruder, but your brain doesn't get lost in the fine detail but
sees an overall pattern. If you look at 100's of plots, the overall pattern
will become clear. This may be analogous to looking at a highway versus a
string to see the trend in points of data.

All of a sudden I just realize that if you looked at enough data maybe your
brain spontaneously creates patterns. Occasionally I looked at data after
consuming a "few" beers, there was lots of patterns then.
OT: OT:
Have you ever punched cards after a few beers? I seem to remember finding
occasional duplicate lines of code or code of the form:
100 IF(I) 100,100,100
you may recognize FORTRAN II.

Mike
"more patterns than brains"
Received on Wed May 24 2000 - 15:43:04 BST