TextArc: The Tool That Wasn't

TextArc, which I've encountered before in a bibliography class, is one of those tools that makes you go "gee Whiz, now that I've got all this computing power, I can do amazing things with those stodgy old books."

But I'm not sure I understand fully what these amazing things are, or how best to use them. Part of this is my issue with running this incredibly memory intensive program; the first five times I tried it crashed my browser. I finally got the Alice in Wonderland to work, but I never did get The Three Muskateers to do so. I didn't realize there was a sound component until I read down the main page -- mostly because I browse with the sound off in my office, so as not to annoy my office-mates when I'm too lazy to dig out my headphones.

My ultimate problem with TextArc functionally boils down to a lack of imagination. I'm sure that if I were to study a text, and then run it through the program (on a much faster computer than mine), I would be able to see the patterns that should be showing up. Currently it looks like a really neato-screen saver, along the lines of Electric Sheep and I'm not sure I'm getting the logic behind what it's doing. I would be interested in a "guided tour" of the TextArc program; I found that I got more out of the Still Images section than running the program itself, because it came with more indepth explanations and didn't kick you out for accidentally clicking on something.

Upshot: I can see where this tool would be useful for a critical examination of a well-known text once one had time to learn how to use the features. My automatic reaction, when attempting to explore anew online feature, is to randomly click on things that look interesting. I suppose this is similar to babies putting everything they find in their mouthes to see what it tastes like, but it usually works. It is not, however, useful behavior for exploring TextArc, and as a result (well, plus the 5-minute-plus load times and the five-or-so crashes) left me feeling rather frustrated. My final reaction: Gee Whiz, I feel incompetent.