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  • General

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  • Nick's Moodle playground: Spiders and their webs

    I was interested in Emma's exploration of biological metaphor to understand networks, and specifically the image of a web. We all know that spiders make webs to catch prey, but I think there's room to explore this metaphor further. This Moodle playground is an attempt to gather the thoughts of other IDEL students as a way to carry out that exploration.

    spider web banner

    Image credit: Typical orb, by Chen Pan Liao, 2011 (CC Attribution-Share Alike)

  • Biology

    I stopped studying biology at school when I was 16. This is partly due to the English education system, which at that time meant that you narrow down to 3 A-Levels (pre-university courses). I chose Philosophy, English Language and Media Studies, and never again studied a STEM subject in a formal setting [sobs].

    So I have scant knowledge of spider webs, and wondered if anyone else on the course could help us understand how the world wide web is and isn't like a spider web.

    To kick things off, here's a question: Is the circular web (with a spider waiting at the centre) more or less common than webs with no centre?

    I find this interesting, because a recognisable pictogram of a spider web would almost certainly take a circular/hexagonal (etc.) form.

    See: https://thenounproject.com/search/?q=web

    A web with a central point is different to a web without a central point. My understanding is that Tim Berners-Lee thought of the web as something without a centre. Google and Facebook, on the other hand, might prefer to see themselves at the centre of the web.

    Please write any comments in the wiki.

  • Different perspectives

    A spider sees a web differently to a fly. For a spider, the web is an intricate piece of work that leads to food. For a fly, the web represents certain death. A spider uses the web, a fly is trapped in it.

    Further afield, someone cleaning their house sees cobwebs as dirt that needs to be removed. For a photographer, a web covered with dew is surefire hit on Instragram.

    What other perspectives might there be of physical spider webs?

    Does this tell us anything about the metaphorical application of this idea to computer networks?

    Post your thoughts in the forum.

  • Anything else

    If all this talk of spiders, webs, networks and education has made you think of something else, please add to the forum.