THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 20, 1997 TAG: 9701170175
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THE GATEWAY
EXPLORING THE COMPUTER WORLD
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 64 lines
SO YOU'RE AT a cocktail party and someone suggests playing the game ``Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.''
And you smile.
Because lurking on your computer at home is your secret weapon.
A web site called ``The Oracle of Bacon,'' which can be reached at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/(tilde)bct7m/bacon.html
Designed by two doctoral candidates in computer science at the University of Virginia, the site allows users to type in the name of any actor or actress - dead or alive - and, with the click of a mouse, discover which movies are needed to link him or her to Kevin Bacon.
The site has been garnering rave reviews from national media, including a listing in Time Magazine as one of the top 10 Web sites for 1996.
It took Brett C. Tjaden and Glenn Scott Wasson, both completing their doctorates in computer science, about a week to design and program the site.
They modeled it after the party game invented by three Pennsylvania fraternity brothers in 1994.
They did it by transferring, or FTPing the Internet Movie Database (http://www.us.imdb.com). This massive database contains detailed information on thousands of films, including the most arcane, esoteric ones ever made.
When you call Tjaden, 27, and Wasson, 26, at their U.Va. office, the conversation goes like this:
``Hi, is Brett Tjaden in?''
And the person who answers the phone yells, ``Hey, is the Internet celebrity here?''
Since they put their site up last February, the two have been interviewed by newspapers like the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Tjaden appeared in a segment for the Discovery Channel's ``Cyberlife'' and, fulfilling one of his goals in developing the game, met Kevin Bacon and played the game with him.
For those who, on first try, think it's impossible to stump the computer, try, try again.
There are tens of thousands of actors who can't be linked to Bacon, Tjaden said. ``There are several movies where all the actors never did any other movies, so you can't get beyond them,'' he said.
The real challenge, Tjaden said, is reaching the highest level of Bacon numbers, which tell you how far away you are from Bacon.
For instance, Mel Gibson has a Bacon number of 2. Gibson was in ``Lethal Weapon 3'' with Joe Pesci, who was in ``JFK'' with Bacon.
The highest number is seven, Tjaden said. Twenty-one people have Bacon numbers of seven, all of them foreign actors or actresses.
The ``Oracle of Bacon'' site will tell you not only the Bacon number, but also the titles of the movies and the linking actors.
When he's not working on fun and games, Tjaden is completing his doctorate in computer security. His partner, Wasson, analyzes computer images from cameras or radar to develop vision for robot navigation.
And when they need a break, they play the Bacon game. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo courtesy of Brett Tjaden
Brett Tjaden, left, got to meet Kevin Bacon on a trip to Los Angeles
last year. This photo appears on the ``Oracle of Bacon'' Web site.