Thursday, February 16, 2012
Good advice Yasiv Dangles Possibilities in Front of You
Posted by Nicki Wood on Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 5:58 AM
Most algorithm talk is over my head, but I like to look at pictures, so algorithm visualizations work for me.
Yasiv turns your Amazon search into a web of pictures, along with a list. The screen fills with items you can see, much more interesting than a listing of entries.
I typed in the title of a cookbook I authored, The All New Square Foot Gardening Cookbook (Cool Springs Press, 2009) and Yasiv came alive with a tangle of tomes that unwound themselves gradually into a design that reflected their connection to the original title, and to each other. It's like opening a drawer full of electrical cords and watching them spring out.
Each item is clickable, with a full description to help you see why Good Bug, Bad Bug might be related to the square-foot gardening cookbook.
Typing in 660 Curries, Raghavan Iyer's immense volume, gives a triple web: one part comprises Indian cookbooks, another strand is curry cookbooks from other ethnicities and countries. A third connects to the main web by a single book: an Indian slow-cooker book, and comprises only slow-cooker cookbooks.
Books are cool and all, but searching for small kitchen gadgets is more fun. The "silicone whisk" visualization bounces out like the contents of the gadget drawer leaping into space, or a bowl of spaghetti dumped on the floor.
Yasiv, which may be an acronym for "yet another similar items visualization," is a participant in the Amazon LLC Services Associate program.
