Each line on my map contains elements that share a characteristic. Sometimes these correspond directly to regions of the periodic table, so the alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, transition metals, post-transition metals, metalloids and non-metals, halogens, noble gases, actinoids and lanthanoids are all there (see the jargon buster below).
As well as these there are characteristics that aren't immediately apparent from periodic tables, for example liquids (at room temperature and slightly above) have their own line, and there are lines for gases and elements with no stable isotopes (ie they are radioactive).
I also threw in a smattering of history: elements that are manmade get a line of their own, as do those that were first made in a lab before being discovered in nature.
The result is a disaster - you can't really tell anything from this. Compare this w/ the periodic table of elements below, which is clear, concise, and brilliant. In Mark Lorch's words
The periodic table is an awesome piece of information organisation. By following one cardinal rule – all elements appear in order of their atomic number – and then carefully restricting the number of elements in each row (or period), clear patterns emerge.
For example, the first column (or group) contains the alkali metals. These are all soft, shiny and highly reactive (remember chemistrylessons where the teacher dropped sodium or even potassium into water). The opposite end of the table couldn't be more different. It contains the noble gases, which are all inert and unreactive
But the really amazing thing about the table, created in 1869 by Dmitri Mendeleev, is that, without fail, it is totally inclusive. Every element ever discovered or synthesised has its place setting at the table. So when Mendeleev compiled the first draft he was able to predict the existence of, then unknown, elements by the obvious gaps in the table. That is why all the periodic table imitations will always be vastly inferior (with the possible exception of the periodic table of irrational nonsense).
The nice thing about garbage-collection is that it is makes memory management absolutely transparent to you Of course, the above is true right up to the point when it stops being transparent, at which point it does a phase change from nice to clusterf**k of biblical proportions . There are entire posts, books, and suicide notes that have been written about this, and I have no great desire to add to them, save with the minor comment that paranoia about garbage-collection is still justified , albeit only in the edge-cases for most people. That said, I'll give you that Erlang GC is in many ways much, much better positioned in this regard than, oh, Java, but it still rears up and bites you in the butt when you least expect it. ( More information about Erlang's GC vis-a-vis Java here , and Jesper's truly excellent description of Erlang's GC here ). A story from the past should serve to illustrate this. Once upon a time, in a magical land far far away - well, Her
Spotted this one just outside the Ravindra Kalakshetra in Bangalore . Its called the Cannonball Tree , but is - technically (i.e., in Latin, if thats your metier) - Couroupita Guianensis , or ನಾಗಲಿಂಗ ಪುಷ್ಪಾ in Kannada. The fruits look like Cannonballs (well, d-uh), and the flowers are really quite amazing, and pretty ludicrously distinctive...
From Jason Davies , we have El Patron de Los Primos , probably one of the coolest prime number visualizer that I've seen. For every Natural number, he draws a periodic curve that intersects at that number and each of its multiples. Needless to say, prime numbers are touched by only two curves (itself and 1 ). You can scroll to the right, and move up the prime food change. (The image above is a screen grab. Go here to see the actual thing)
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