tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26709089212048551952024-02-28T15:42:02.910-08:00Raise high the roofbeam, Carpenters!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.comBlogger312125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-30921988093143983092016-01-31T16:30:00.002-08:002016-01-31T16:30:31.378-08:00#toqueville #fomo"Before [the American' stretches an almost boundless continent and it is as though, already afraid of losing his place, he is in such a hurry not to arrive too late." -- Democracy in AmericaAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-38496148308783311742016-01-29T19:06:00.001-08:002016-01-29T19:06:51.510-08:00Fact: How A Failed Colony In Panama Led To The Formation of the United KingdomRapacious, profit-seeking, bloody, Europe conquered the world with sail and gun. History is filled with the brutal successes of the European Imperialist project: the Dutch East India Company sewed up the lucrative spice trade of South East Asia; the British East India company began a process of conquest that would end with the entire Indian subcontinent under British control; Napoleon, at the head of the French army, proverbially shot the nose off Egypt's Sphinx; at the height of European Imperialism, most of the globe was claimed by some power or another.<br />
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But European supremacy was never inevitable. Indeed, most imperial adventures failed. There was the much-lamented British South Sea Company. Its promising prospectus to colonize the South Seas became one the first big stock market bubbles and nearly brought down the rickety British government. France's Mississippi Company, pushed by the financial Svengali John Law, left many of Paris' rich and famous poor and destitute. But perhaps the most quixotic of them all was the Darien Company of Scotland.<br />
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In the late 17th century Scottish entrepreneurs wanted to get into the imperial game for themselves: they would colonize the thin strip of land along what is now the Panama Canal in order to make money by hauling goods from one coast to the other, from Pacific to Atlantic and back again. This would save ships months that would otherwise be spent making the treacherous iceberg-filled passage south along the southern tip of South America. But the scheme was born under a bad sign. The land claimed by the Darien Scheme was not only already populated by Native Americans, it was claimed by another European Power--Spain, was an ally of the newly installed English and Scottish King William III. English commercial interests weren't happy with the scheme either--what did they want with an upstart competitor? This left the Scots adrift on their own. But the Scots doubled down on the plan--estimates are that a quarter to half of all Scottish wealth became tied up in the Darien scheme.<br />
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But once the scheme actually got off the ground, it was plagued with problems. The first fleet of settlement--some 1,200 people--sailed across the ocean and dutifully set up a fort and a city, New Edinburgh, right in the Darien isthmus. But the colony's crops of corn and yam failed, and malaria and dysentery steadily ate away at the ranks of settlers. Things got so bad that the only thing the Darien colonists could eat were the giant turtles padding around the coast. Then the settlers became too weak to hunt the giant turtles, and instead they just starved. After 8 months, the colony was abandoned. The ships returned home--with only 300 survivors.<br />
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But news of the failure didn't return home quick enough to prevent a new batch of about 1000 settlers, who lingered at New Edinburgh long enough to face Spanish siege, disease, and hunger before they too went home, in defeat and disgrace. Only a few hundred of the original 2500 colonists survived.<br />
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The area is mostly uninhabited today.<br />
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Because so much of Scottish wealth had been tied up in the scheme, this left many Scots destitute--and is one reason some historians say that in 1707 the Scots joined the English in the Act of Union creating the new political entity of Great Britain.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-3447037826825680462016-01-22T07:29:00.000-08:002016-01-22T07:29:23.367-08:00Fact: Thomas Jefferson's GrandchildrenFounding father Thomas Jefferson was a lot of things: red-haired, bookish, founder of the University of Virginia, revolutionary wunderkind, patron saint of the Democratic Party, architect, and author of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence with it's all-too-often-quoted boilerplate of "all men created equal" and their vaunted "pursuit of Happiness." Thomas Jefferson is pretty complicated. Of course all the American political saints are complicated. Franklin seems more Voltaire than Washington--like some 18th century philosophe stumbled onto the set of a war movie and did his best not to smirk while delivering his lines. Washington stands a strange cipher of virtue: the only thing you can be certain about is that he was an important, powerful man, and knew himself to be as much. Hamilton is equal parts martyr and New York City capitalist. If he'd be alive today he'd be reviled like Rahm Emanuel or envied like an Uber engineer. But despite all that, Jefferson has perhaps the most fraught historical legacy.<br />
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This is because of his relationship with Sally Hemings, his slave, the mother of his children, his wife's half sister, a relationship that was for a long time <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%E2%80%93Hemings_controversy" target="_blank">controversial</a>, disputed, denigrated, a relationship which brings to light a lot of the complexities of America's tortured history of racial discrimination. His wife, Martha, died at 33 and made Jefferson promise not to marry again because she could not bear to have another woman raise her children. But Jefferson had also inherited more than a hundred slaves from his father-in-law. Amongst those slaves was Martha's half-sister, Sally Hemings.<br />
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Hemings and Jefferson had six children. Four survived. They were 7/8s European, and were freed by Jefferson on reaching adulthood. Three of them went on to pass as white. Jefferson's son Eston Hemings moved to Madison, Wisconsin, changed his named to Eston Jefferson and his children and grandchildren entered the white community, claiming some vague relation to some side of the Jefferson family tree. Madison Hemings, on the other hand, remained black, and his <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/sally-hemingss-children-madison-hemings" target="_blank">descendants</a> considered themselves black. One set of brothers and sisters branched to live out their lives on either side of America's brutal color line.<br />
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For more, check out BackStory's <a href="http://backstoryradio.org/shows/color-lines/" target="_blank">history of Racial Passing in America</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-59380112797273112852016-01-15T15:39:00.000-08:002016-01-15T15:39:00.026-08:00Fact: On CluesA clue. The minor thing out of place that hints at the truth. The bloody knife. The misplaced handkerchief. The purloined document. The great historian Carlo Ginzburg <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/~ereading/Ginzburg%20Clues.pdf" target="_blank">argued</a> that the job of the humanist and the detective were identical: both looked for clues that could reveal the unknown. Both don't necessarily look at the big details--instead they rifle through the trivial stuff in the background, trying to find a critical clue: a telling cough, an inconvenient allergy to almonds, a whorl of an ear in a renaissance painting, misplaced laughter, a dream about mysterious machinery, massive, but silent.<div>
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So what is a clue, anyway? It was originally spelled clew and first referred to a "globular body" (thus the OED.) From there it evolved to mean a ball of thread. This was used in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In this myth Theseus, that Grecian Captain America, stumbled into the confusingly twisty Labyrinth to slay the dreaded Minotaur. Theseus' admirer Adriane gave him a ball of thread--a clue--with which to find his way out of the labyrinth. As Chaucer had it (in the first recorded use of the word in 1385): "By a clewe of twyn as he hath gon The same weye he may returne a-non ffolwynge alwey the thred as he hath come." Or as we would have it, he traced the ball of twine back to where he had come.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/0/4/11901-2577-13286-1-marvel-triple-action.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/0/4/11901-2577-13286-1-marvel-triple-action.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="219" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Theseus' modern counterpart, fighting his ancient foe.</td></tr>
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From there, the clew became a metaphor: the small hint that gets us out of a proverbial labyrinth. In 1605, an M. Drayton gave us this pithy one-liner: "Loosing the clew which led vs safely in, [We] Are lost within this Labyrinth of lust." Which sounds like a pretty fun Labyrinth to be lost in. The OED mentions the uses of other Labyrinths: mazes of life, of governmental departments, of obscurities. Regardless, the original metaphor of a ball of twine and Labyrinth was eventually lost and 'clue' just became a thing which helped us figure out a mystery. Its first use like this was in 1665, when a K Digby gives us this: "Seeking in the movements of the heavenly bodies for a clue to the accidents of life." A worthy place to look for a clue indeed.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-45819310229211568432016-01-14T11:52:00.002-08:002016-01-14T11:52:28.729-08:00Facts: About the History of CoffeeI still can't get my head around the fact that coffee was discovered so late. It was discovered in the Ethiopia sometime in the 14th century (although the exact date is uncertain) and only really hit Europe in the late 16th century. I imagine the generations upon generations of humans who toiled through the dim stupor of life, suffering because they lacked the cup of coffee they couldn't know they needed. Think of what Homer might have written if he'd been able to pound back an espresso shot! Think of the extra plays we might have enjoyed if Shakespeare had enjoyed a French Press. Think of all the extra math Copernicus might have done if he'd been able to order an Americano from his corner cafe!<br />
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So why did it take so long to discover coffee? The traditional story is that an Ethiopian goat herder named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaldi" target="_blank">Kaldi</a> discovered coffee when he spied his goats acting pleasantly jumpy after eating coffee berries from some mountain bush. Another story says that a Sufi sage saw birds eating coffee and flying with particular vigor.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://assets.londonremembers.com/images/big/49268.jpg?1319393263" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://assets.londonremembers.com/images/big/49268.jpg?1319393263" style="-webkit-user-select: none;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Site of the first London coffeehouse, honored by a plaque.</td></tr>
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The first coffee house in England was opened in 1652 in London at the sign of the Turk's head. Some contemporaries thought that the dish was unchristian, would spur rebellion, and lead to epidemics of male impotence. One writer called it a devil's drink "that witches tipple out of dead men's skulls." Although the impotence and occult qualities of the drink are pretty hard to understand, the rebellion part of the critique was not all that fanciful. At the time Britain was being ruled by a Republican government which had recently decapitated the rightful king. Besides, you couldn't toast the health to the king with a cup of coffee the same way you could with a jug of beer.<br />
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But a lot of people loved coffee, giving it all sorts of magical properties. Some used it as a emetic--shoving it down the throat with a whalebone stick to induce vomiting. (It worked!) But most simply drank it, discovering that it made conversation easier, and that you could talk for longer over that "wakeful drink" than over mugs of beer.<br />
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The early coffeehouse was a perpetual fair of learning, discussion, selling, buying, arguments, and fun. Robert Hooke, the first demonstrator of the Royal Society, dissected a porpoise in Garraway's Coffeehouse in the 1660s to prove that the animal was a fish. (He was wrong.) Other coffeehouses catered to businessmen. Lloyd's of London, the insurance market, began as Lloyd's coffeehouse. Still others catered to fops and other fashionable young men who'd smoke, gamble, drink coffee and stay out too late.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-44708035994733639412016-01-13T07:44:00.000-08:002016-01-14T09:18:36.427-08:00Fact: Towards a History of BeardsBeards are so popular these days that scientists have proclaimed a moment '<a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/4/20130958" target="_blank">peak beard</a>.' They argue that having a beard is more attractive to women when the majority of men are clean shaven. (In the elegant language of science, beards are a "negative frequency-dependent sexual selection trait.") Because the proportion of bearded gentlemen increases daily, we will soon hit the point when the majority of men are bearded and so having a beard is no longer attractive. Stock up on razors, guys.<br />
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This idea of 'peak beardliness' got me thinking about the history of beards. The thing about beards, of course, is that they only exist because we shave them off. But why do we shave off beards more frequently than other facial or bodily hair? What does the beard mean? Is it a symbol of sophistication or barbarism? Why is having a beard so closely related to philosophers? I remember back in college all of my philosophy major friends sported beards. Me, the lone English major of the lot, went clean shaven.</div>
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I'm nowhere close to figuring out answers to these questions. Instead I will offer some scattered facts.</div>
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For the ancient Egyptians, kings and queens alike wore a <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/50076/why-did-egyptian-pharaohs-wear-false-beards" target="_blank">false metal beard </a>called a postiche to connect them to the gods. The hieroglyphic for the divine is a seated man--wearing a false beard.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.touregypt.net/images/touregypt/beard6.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Egyptian False Beard</td></tr>
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The ancient Greeks talked about their 'beardless boys'--to grow some stubble was a right of passage separating the boy and the man. In Homer, touching the beard is a sign of entreaty. Supposedly Alexander was the first clean-shaven monarch: a clean face was more militarily expedient (someone could grab hold of a warrior by his whiskers), and the fashion spread from him. The Latins rarely sported beards: the Grecophile Emperor Hadrian shocked contemporaries by letting his beard grow out in the Greek, philosophical manner.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://alabamabymorning.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/bust_hadrian_musei_capitolini_mc817.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="255" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emperor Hadrian, the first bearded Emperor</td></tr>
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Beards might symbolize the sophistication of the Greeks or of the philosophy major, but they could also be a sign of barbarism. The Lombards who took over Northern Italy in the 6th century were named for their long beards. (<i>Longo bardi</i> = long beards.) And our own cultural image of the pitiless viking would not be complete without a flowing full beard. (Isn't there some storyline in the <a href="http://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html" target="_blank">Marvel comic Thor</a> about why that normally bearded Norse god goes around as clean shaven as an accountant?)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyofl3J-aX8h1UG2OBErXLgqdOdnIwg083YNbJP-gG3c8KG8PKnJOogt1QiddC5aGnl-LnGnyhjdjcpLC7LpMbaCP2airJYuoSjSBXagDfvkeSR5DzClDEwFXnR0zB6OLmbMmzW5_LEfg/s320/Thor+First+Appearance+Jack+Kirby+Stan+Lee+Thor+the+Mighty+and+the+Stone+Men+from+Saturn+Marvel+Comics+Journey+into+Mystery+83.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beardless Thor</td></tr>
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Jumping ahead to the 18th century, we continue to see beardiness as a symbol marking the boundaries of a culture. In Peter the Great's time, a big beard was a symbol of Russianess. Peter, in his efforts to push the country to more European lines, instituted a beard tax, going so far as to forcibly shave people who sported a beard in front of him. This did not go over well with the bearded boyars, who paid their taxes, and retained their beards after Peter's death.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="mw-mmv-final-image" crossorigin="anonymous" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Beard_token.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Token showing that the owner had paid his beard tax</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-23436162157357949922016-01-12T08:21:00.000-08:002016-01-12T08:21:02.527-08:00Fact: the Bell-Ringing Riot of 1881<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKkY4QOgr2n_L6Mhj4KcElVFLu9WTSYPjBVHl1lHPhFXcRYViZlGMEPGHdj_jCAxvpYw80gu5Wb6nrZ98ctXrk9Liw05wIN1_EKMmMWzyIRaeuWuSfu90UdAuZ6aU1m5onVteyHbs1Jk/s1600/antique-print-blue-bells-of-ireland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKkY4QOgr2n_L6Mhj4KcElVFLu9WTSYPjBVHl1lHPhFXcRYViZlGMEPGHdj_jCAxvpYw80gu5Wb6nrZ98ctXrk9Liw05wIN1_EKMmMWzyIRaeuWuSfu90UdAuZ6aU1m5onVteyHbs1Jk/s320/antique-print-blue-bells-of-ireland.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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England is an island fond of its bells. Since the 17th century groups with names like the College Youths and the London Scholars have clambered up church towers to the bells, not to make music, but to ring a set of particular permutations called 'changes'. Sometimes they'd drink while they were on the job--a 'peal' of 5040 changes could take upwards of three hours to ring, and it was hard, laborious, thirsty work that much deserved a beer.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pDaUFt_GEEA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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That the ringing took place in the church tower was often the most religious thing about English bell ringing. Bell ringing societies were more likely to give a peal in honor of someone's birthday or a horse race than to usher in divine service. This all changed in the 1850s when church reformers tried to reconnect the bell tower and the church. The buildings were literally connected after all. They wanted bell ringing to be associated with church functions. And they wanted the bell ringers to quit drinking while they were on the job.<br />
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This sometimes did not go over well with the bell ringers, who, like many of us, were fond of their beer.<br />
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In 1881, for example, a rector in Devon wanted to stop the bell ringers from ringing throughout the local Revel Week--a weeklong orgy of drunken popular culture. The bell ringers responded by breaking into the bell tower and ringing anyway. They also turned their wrath to the rector, stealing his chickens, throwing stones at his family, and burning down his farm buildings.<br />
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History shows us that the West Worlington, Devon, Society of Ringers ain't nothing to fuck with.<br />
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Fact gleaned from <a href="http://www.bris.ac.uk/geography/people/ron-j-johnston/" target="_blank">Ron Johnston's</a> Bell-Ringing, p 233.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-48537445926598103592016-01-11T15:42:00.001-08:002016-01-11T15:42:25.724-08:00Fact: Jobs Are HardIn 1969, about 80% of newly-minted history PhDs could find a job. In 2011, only half could claim finding 'definite employment' the year after graduation.<br />
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<span id="goog_1067971810"></span><span id="goog_1067971811"></span><img alt="Figure 3. New History PhDs Reporting Employment or Postgraduate Study at Time of Degree, 1969 to 2012" height="410" src="http://www.historians.org/Images/Perspectives/January%202014/IMG_Jobs-FIG3(635x410).jpg" style="margin: 12px; vertical-align: middle;" title="Figure 3. New History PhDs Reporting Employment or Postgraduate Study at Time of Degree, 1969 to 2012" width="635" /><br />
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From the AHA's <a href="http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2014/the-2013-jobs-report-number-of-aha-ads-dip-new-experiment-offers-expanded-view" target="_blank">2013 Jobs report</a>.<br />
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So I tell people that came to graduate school because I love to teach, and I love to write. But I think another reason is that I love facts. So this year I'm going to try to share my love of facts on this sometimes dormant blog--just one a week, culled (ideally) from the readings I already have to do for coursework.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-28468592242463539152015-07-22T08:16:00.000-07:002015-07-22T08:16:04.169-07:00Data and Anxiety<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFdf75aJPXCdJTCz23uM95mOctPIFQORmyNRtLcN-IGBzro0NKXOY5lqA6kbO1a1yc3pMD9AYVqRqDiGUqQVMyGM47989-UWoyE0z-INP325SUiQv2HmWB-asS5F_HmjmQGapfu9ya9w/s1600/bktail.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFdf75aJPXCdJTCz23uM95mOctPIFQORmyNRtLcN-IGBzro0NKXOY5lqA6kbO1a1yc3pMD9AYVqRqDiGUqQVMyGM47989-UWoyE0z-INP325SUiQv2HmWB-asS5F_HmjmQGapfu9ya9w/s400/bktail.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Comic by B. Kliban.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I have been suffering from anxiety attacks for the past month.<br />
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What is anxiety? A tangled ball of thoughts that I can't seem to get out of no matter how much I struggle. A weight that makes my shoulders slump and my molars grind and my fingers twitch and my heart flutter in my chest. A worry that I cannot do anything about, that won't unravel itself, that has tangled itself knotted and confused around my fingers. An emptiness. A cloud. A drowning flood that I can never escape. Sometimes I'm fine and I forget about it completely and I wonder what I was ever afraid of, what I ever worried about. And then it will come again, a fire, a darkness, a switch being flipped.<br />
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Anxiety is an evolutionary mistake. My mind (already fast) goes into overdrive, mulling possibilities, rehearsing plans, calculating probabilities. My body gets ready to run, to fight, to survive. Back when my ancestors were threatened by tigers, epidemics, and pogroms, this anxiety helped them survive. It helped them anticipate the unexpected, and act with dispatch when true threats came.<br />
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So I inherited this anxiety. But I do not have tigers, epidemics, or pogroms to trouble me. And yet sometimes my brain reaches out and grabs something--something it is afraid of losing--and starts to worry about it, with the same fretful intensity that should only be reserved for those big dire things that can really kill you--those things whose eyes glint out at you from the dark opening of a primordial cave. And I will be trapped in my thoughts like a bug twitching in a spider's web.<br />
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It's hard to describe what the thoughts are like, because they are so annoying, so simple, so obviously wrong. But they come, and I can't stop them. I am not loved. I am not good enough. I should never have come to grad school. I have lost my chance for community, for affection, for real life. My girlfriend is going to leave me. My friends don't really like me. I have let down my family. I am a disappointment to my advisors, a secret joke in the halls of the History department, a pleasant fool. Over and over again. Endlessly echoing in the theater of my mind.<br />
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The thoughts won't go away. I sit there on my couch, my heart beating, my mind racing through them over and over again, replaying them like an afternoon re-run of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.<br />
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The cause of this bout of anxiety is easy to identify. My fiancée left me a few months ago. Those emotional truths that had once seemed solid--that I am a good person, deserving of love; that the people I love will not leave me--seemed to have melted into air.<br />
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I know that this is not fair. I am still a good person, deserving of love; it is still unlikely that the people I care about will suddenly abandon me. Many fine, normal, attractive people go through broken engagements. But the dream-like nature of the worries makes them even more hard to deal with. Because they have very little fact behind them, I cannot grab hold of them and do something about them. Because they are inscrutable, they have become a grand, unsolvable problem, one which has come to take up my every third thought.<br />
<br />
A few weeks ago <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-bold-and-arduous-project-of-arriving.html" target="_blank">I began an attempt to quantify my life</a>. I wanted to boil my self down into numbers, data-tables, and vectors in order to find the hidden patterns underlying Brendan Mackie. Below are a number of data visualizations which help show what I'm going through.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
I have learned a few things already from this project.<br />
<br />
<b>I am OK</b><br />
Look at my daily ratings. There's a perfect 10 in there! None of the days merited lower than a 4.<br />
<br />
I may be a bit broken now, but that has not meant that I cannot have wonderful experiences. And my bad days are, from the perspective of the carnage of human history, not super bad.<br />
<br />
<b>Friends Are Important</b><br />
Days when I see friends--for lunch, coffee, or dates--are the best. Conversely, when I'm lonely I'm far more prone to fall into deep anxiety.<br />
<br />
<b>Anxiety Happens In The Morning</b><br />
I wake up with anxiety. But as I go through my day and fill my head and heart with actual, real-life stuff, the anxiety passes.<br />
<br />
<b>Understanding It Helps</b><br />
Being able to see my well-being marked in an impersonal line graph helps. See, here, this dip? This is when I let a whole Sunday morning go by fretting over whether someone actually liked me or was only pretending to. Look--this good day? That was when I made an effort to connect with my friends.<br />
<br />
I know that tomorrow morning I will wake up and I will hold today up for judgement. Will I have let another day slip by, tortured by illusory thoughts? Or will I have tried to do something about it?<br />
<br />
I'm curious about your comments. How do you deal with anxiety? What more can we learn about ourselves from data?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-56553939499228008412015-06-22T11:05:00.001-07:002015-06-23T06:28:55.596-07:00A Bold And Arduous Project Of Arriving At Moral Perfection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQW5ntT6g5-voypveMKbX0BhCWmPjppzG6QHw9FV6cUcmdwuB2CVJDoix8G0wTE7aRLOrGMj8ZK1UGtXJOn7M4FNCFgndSQoC5M_6ohBWJAl_Pt1XbprVGBxrTxccmYprj8rCEbmmbkQ/s1600/Benjamin_Franklin_by_John_Trumbull_1778.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQW5ntT6g5-voypveMKbX0BhCWmPjppzG6QHw9FV6cUcmdwuB2CVJDoix8G0wTE7aRLOrGMj8ZK1UGtXJOn7M4FNCFgndSQoC5M_6ohBWJAl_Pt1XbprVGBxrTxccmYprj8rCEbmmbkQ/s320/Benjamin_Franklin_by_John_Trumbull_1778.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
<br />
Ben Franklin stands in the pages of history triumphantly mastering electricity, establishing universities, and writing constitutions. He is heroically armed with kite, with beaver hat, and with book. It seems odd to think of him doing something so quotidian as basic arithmetic.<br />
<br />
But back in his younger days he was far less exalted: we must imagine him bent over account books, making a reckoning of each day's purchases and sales, furrowing his brow over sums our phones could do in a half second, trying to figure out whether he made a profit or loss on a printing of some evanescent pamphlet.<br />
<br />
Accounting was incredibly important for people like Franklin, because accounting allowed merchants and like-minded souls a way of seeing otherwise invisible patterns. People kept accounts of their businesses to tell their profits and loss. They kept accounts of their own finances to see who they owed money to. And many people, like Franklin, or <a href="http://hookeslondon.com/" target="_blank">Robert Hooke</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/samuelpepys" target="_blank">Samuel Pepys</a>, tried to do even more. They tried to keep accounts of their own selves.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX6-VFXMmVm6xeTPVmH-9FNihOPBst4-57rF7tEyHMTfy_weevGTRzKc_a7dg9pT_Vc3bFHvMsBcfy4lOS79J9fHFyavQD0FwYXC8x2t1T98UHd7TNye4OLGcbF-0PdGS7Cx3MYweW7Kk/s1600/accounts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX6-VFXMmVm6xeTPVmH-9FNihOPBst4-57rF7tEyHMTfy_weevGTRzKc_a7dg9pT_Vc3bFHvMsBcfy4lOS79J9fHFyavQD0FwYXC8x2t1T98UHd7TNye4OLGcbF-0PdGS7Cx3MYweW7Kk/s320/accounts.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A writing blank; from <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/05/writing-blanks.html" target="_blank">BiblioOdyssey</a>. Note the banker in the lower picture working over the bank's account book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Here's Franklin's <i><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm" target="_blank">Autobiography</a> </i>on the origin of his famous moral accounting:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into.... [Bad habits] <span style="text-align: justify;">must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-top: 0.75em; text-align: justify;">
I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I rul'd each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I cross'd these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day.</blockquote>
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Monday<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tuesday<o:p></o:p></div>
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Temperance<o:p></o:p></div>
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Silence<o:p></o:p></div>
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*<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Order<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Resolution<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Frugality<o:p></o:p></div>
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**<o:p></o:p></div>
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***<o:p></o:p></div>
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Industry<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sincerity<o:p></o:p></div>
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*<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Justice<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Moderation<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Cleanliness<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 59.85pt;" valign="top" width="60"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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Tranquility<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Chastity<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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****</div>
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Humility<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
The contemporary project of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02mfzrw" target="_blank">quantified self</a> promises to improve on Franklin's little spreadsheet, turning this thumbnail sketch into a warts-and-all big data portrait of an individual through time. The hype suggests that wearable technology like Fitbits and Apple Watches can turn our daily activity into numbers, and these numbers can be <a href="http://feltron.com/FAR13.html" target="_blank">visualized</a>, massaged, mined, and understood in ways we never could have dreamed of. This will allow us to uncover the hidden causes of our unhappiness, to graph our continuous climb towards self-improvement, to crunch regressions that show us just exactly where it all went wrong.</div>
<div>
<br />
I don't buy the hype, though. Not yet anyway. The new quantified self might be able to measure a lot, but can that data answer many questions? Ben Franklin kept track of his moderation; the Fitbit can only count your heartbeat as you wait for your new girlfriend to pick you up at the BART stop. Ben Franklin accounted for his temperance; the Fitbit can only measure the number of calories you burn on your guilty post-pizza morning runs. Ben Franklin paid attention to his industry; the Fitbit can only tell you how many naps you took in the day, not what dreams you dreamt while napping, not the pleasure you get from putting a pillow over your eyes to block out the afternoon sun.<br />
<br />
And it's those hard three in the morning questions that really matter, Am I good? Am I happy? Am I just stumbling through life? Are we anything more than a bunch of over-proud apes clinging desperately to a rock falling forever through the vacuum of space?<br />
<br />Nobody expects Fitbits to answer questions like these. But they are the questions people expect humanities scholars to wrestle with. So what is digital humanities to do with the quantified self?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
~*~</div>
<br />
I don't know, but I want to take a crack at telling a story of my life through data. Not just a story of how many steps I took or stairs I climbed, but a weighty story about what my life actually means. So this summer I will take an account of each day, and then do some experiments with this data to try to better understand my self and my place in the world.<br />
<br />
But which data should I collect?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is one of the deep problems of digital humanities. We can work real magic with data, but before we can even begin to build a database, we need to come up with a good question to answer. Then we need to figure out which data might help us answer this question.<br />
<br />
To that end, I've set up <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cml2zG4bCVmsoiwHRsBoK6LJBmm9R1j7mZTj0KPQWAs/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">this Google spreadsheet</a> to canvas suggestions from you, my legions of readers, about what I should track over the summer. Should I measure the number of books I've read? The number of meals I've cooked? The number of times I've thought of a butterfly? The minutes I spent pacing through my rooms, daydreaming? Which data really matters? Which data are just noise?<br />
<br />
I'll start the data collection in early July. Afterwards I will post with some regularity about my findings. By the end of the summer I will be able to tell a story of my life, graphs and all. If I'm lucky, it will be the kind of story that Ben Franklin might be proud of. If not, at least there will be some pretty graphs.<br />
<br />
<i>This post is the part of a Digital Humanities blogging challenge organized by the <a href="http://berkeley-dhwg.org/" target="_blank">Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group</a>.</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-79692603191819025602015-03-23T08:37:00.001-07:002015-03-23T08:39:49.897-07:00Content Analysis With Tableau: Intro<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Bit of a change of pace here at </span><i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Raise
High the Roofbeam, Carpenters</i><span style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">. Over these next few blog posts, I will write
about how a method borrowed from the harder social sciences called </span><i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">content analysis</i><span style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> might be useful for humanities
scholars.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Content analysis takes qualitative data, boils it down into numbers, then
analyzes it. A lot of humanities scholars are already doing content analysis in
some form, largely without realizing it. This post will hopefully begin to bridge
the gap between the </span><i style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">ad hoc</i><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> content
analysis strategies of digital humanists and the formal content analysis of
sociologists and psychologists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Before we start, you might be asking what the pay-off of all this work is.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My current research uses content analysis to look at 18th century
Christmas. I looked through more than 250 diaries for entries written on or
around Christmas day, which I then coded. Here is a visualization which displays at the percentage of diary entries mentioning a given code, by decade. You can find that <a href="https://public.tableau.com/views/ChristmasResearchMarch6th/Story1?:embed=y&:showTabs=y&:display_count=yes" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Please keep in mind this is only a working example—results are not to be
cited or circulated except as an example of this method.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">The following blog series will give you step-by-step instructions into how you can
turn your research question into a data visualization like the one above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">Broadly speaking, content analysis studies communicative activity by
turning qualitative data into quantitative data. At its simplest, a scholar
counts the number of times a particular thing happens in a particular set of
documents across a particular span of time. Kimberly Neuendorf, author of the most
thorough content analysis textbook I’ve read, defines the method like this: “</span><i style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">Content
analysis</i><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;"> may be briefly defined as the systematic, objective, quantitative
analysis of message characteristics.” The field is thriving—the number of
articles mentioning the method has skyrocketed over the past decade, in part
due to the vast expansion of the number of machine-readable documents
researchers can now access.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The appeal of this method for humanists is obvious. In some ways, content
analysis simply formalizes the narrative synthesis humanists are already so
good at.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">But despite this promise, it’s hard to know where the humanist can start
with content analysis. Textbooks are pitched towards sociologists,
psychologists and scholars in media studies struggling with that wonderful non-stop
fire-hose of present-day data. Furthermore, content analysis is pitched towards the harder social
sciences, which wrestle with very different questions and hold very different
theories of change and action than historians and literary scholars. Unlike other digital humanities methods, like text analysis,
social network analysis, or geospatial analysis, there is no single
out-of-the-box technical solution for content analysis projects—as far as I
know. Finally, there is the problem with the name </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">content analysis</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 120%;"> itself. It is neither evocative nor punchy. It
barely describes what the method does. Frankly, it feels boring, overly
technical, and </span><span style="line-height: 28.7999992370605px;">scientistic</span><span style="line-height: 120%;">.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">These blog posts will hopefully go some ways to
provide the interested humanist with some essential background and tools that
will overcome these problems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A warning first: I am an interested amateur, and these blogs represent merely what I’ve gleaned from trying out my own content analysis projects.
There’s a certain <i>here’s what I learned on my Summer Vacation</i> quality to all of this. Experts in content analysis will likely find many faults with what
follows. Other historians will certainly offer feedback about how I can make
better questions and collect more comprehensive corpora. I look forward to
their corrections.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Table of Contents</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-1.html" target="_blank">Part 1: A Humanistic Map To A Content Analysis Project</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-2-data.html" target="_blank">Part 2: Data Collection</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-3-how-to.html" target="_blank">Part 3: Coding: How To Fit The Qualitative World Into The QuantitativeNut-shell</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-4.html" target="_blank">Part 4: Visualizing Your Data With Tableau</a></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-15334559926861519872015-03-23T08:01:00.004-07:002015-03-23T08:40:09.806-07:00Content Analysis With Tableau 1: A Humanistic Map To A Content Analysis Project<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is Part 1 of a 4 part series on content analysis and Tableau. <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-intro.html" target="_blank">Maybe start with the intro</a>?</span></b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Please note that this is a work in progress and I am more amateur than expert. I welcome questions, comments, and corrections.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">In this section, I am going to map out the different stages of a content
analysis project. This will be an adaptation (much reduced) of the flowchart found
in Neuendorf's content analysis Textbook.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">First off, </span><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">start with a good
question</b><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">. Digital humanities methods are great tools—the challenge is in
using them to make great scholarship. Content analysis works particularly well
with looking at the often-glacial changes in social practices over time periods
larger than a human lifetime. As the more humanists gain expertise in content analysis, we will hopefully find new questions to play with.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Then, </span><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">seek out some kind of body of
texts to look through</b><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">. You need either a preexisting corpus of material or
a way of selecting material to build this corpus. You also need some way of
sorting through this corpus so you know what material you will be coding.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Next,</span><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> determine which variables you are
going to be looking for</b><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">.
Broadly, in my own work I code for <i>demographic
variables</i> and <i>descriptive variables</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Then </span><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">code</b><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">! This means that you
read your documents and assign codes to each one. These two steps will be
outlined in part three</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Finally, you’re ready for </span><b style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">visualization
and analysis.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">NEXT: <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-2-data.html" target="_blank">Data Collection!</a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-10458137000139971782015-03-23T07:55:00.002-07:002015-03-23T08:40:28.160-07:00Content Analysis With Tableau 2: Data Collection<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is Part 2 of a 4 part series on content analysis and Tableau. <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-intro.html" target="_blank">Things will make more sense if you start with the intro</a>.</span></b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Please note that this is a work in progress and I am more amateur than expert. I welcome questions, comments, and corrections.</span></b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">You have your research question in hand, and you think a content analysis approach
might be useful. What’s next?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">The first step is to select which data you want to be working with—your
so-called corpus. This can be a certain kind of source: diaries entries on
December 25th written in the British Isles from 1688 to 1850. Alternatively, it
can be a certain section of an archive: court cases resulting in a hanging. You
may also use search terms to hone in on documents in an larger archive mentioning
a particular word or set of words. In a previous project I found descriptions
of London coffeehouses by searching online archives for material mentioning the
word ‘coffee.’ You may also combine multiple archives into one project, if you
are careful with how you use balance the different biases of each.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Where do you find all this text? There are many digital corpuses available,
some of which have reliable text searching capability. In the British
context (the one I know best) there is an embarrassment of riches—London Lives,
ECCO, the Burney Collection and other fully-searchable archives are all
available to most academic institutions. But you don’t need to use digital
material! You can just as easily code printed books, sheet music, or paintings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">A side note: Remember to be very wary about how you use search in digital
archives. It is easy to think of search as a flat mirror of the archive, but
search engines have their own philosophical assumptions, often occluded
under a miasma of proprietary algorithms. My tips are as follows: Search
for words with fewer letters, to reduce the chances of OCR errors. (The longer
your word or phrase, the greater chance that OCR will garble it up.) Avoid
words with the dreaded <i>long s </i>that can confuse OCR. Be aware that the absence of mentions of a term
over a long period of time might not be reflective of the actual practice
itself, but rather a change in the use of words describing that practice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Next, you should consider whether the corpus you’ve collected is the right
size. The longer a time period you are working with, the more sources you need.
If you don’t have a very large corpus (and I would prefer to have more than ten
observations per year at the very least) think about expanding your corpus.
But not too much. Content analysis is incredibly time-consuming, as it involves
hand-coding each and every instance of the terms you are dealing with. If your
selection process has given you way too much data, you can select a random
sample of it. (Use a statistical significance calculator to figure out how many
entries you need.) Even doing this, the whole process will likely take solid
weeks of work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Once you have selected your data collection method, download your sources
and assign each document a unique ID. In my Christmas project, I have done this
by date of publication, as you can see here.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8stjk8N2aZQZeUKqbdek5PnSW2tpgXcVll0yAWUmbAjJ4jtHprgz7XR6PKZWafs0BfgYmeXSbH7-OA9KTvtkGqzTRqIIB8Mp4LRVs9c2b6LURHoj9_RB3dfel7qTDuk46L1CwPUJp50/s1600/Image+16.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8stjk8N2aZQZeUKqbdek5PnSW2tpgXcVll0yAWUmbAjJ4jtHprgz7XR6PKZWafs0BfgYmeXSbH7-OA9KTvtkGqzTRqIIB8Mp4LRVs9c2b6LURHoj9_RB3dfel7qTDuk46L1CwPUJp50/s1600/Image+16.png" height="524" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">If manually downloading thousands of books doesn’t appeal to
you, keep in mind that some intrepid scholars have written scripts that can
help you automate the process. You will likely need some familiarity with
coding to take full advantage of these tools, and many are in dubious standing
with archives’ Terms of Service.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now that you have built up your little library of digital (and dead-tree)
books, it’s time to jump into coding!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">NEXT: <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-3-how-to.html" target="_blank">Coding!</a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-70530263103989770342015-03-23T07:52:00.002-07:002015-03-23T08:40:39.108-07:00Content Analysis With Tableau 3: How To Fit The Qualitative World Into The Quantitative Nut-shell<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is Part 3 of a 4 part series on content analysis and Tableau. <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-intro.html" target="_blank">Things will make more sense if you start with the first part.</a></span></b></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Please note that this is a work in progress and I am more amateur than expert. I welcome questions, comments, and corrections.</span></b></div>
</div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Oh God, I could be bounded in a
nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space."</span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Digital humanities has often been described as a kind of ‘distant reading.’
In traditional close reading the scholar contemplates every last comma. But in distant
reading hundreds of thousands of documents are dispatched in the time it takes
your computer to crunch a few billion calculations. What is content analysis?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Content analysis
is mid-way between close and distant reading. The scholar still reads—but she reads
only a small portion of each text relating to the activity in question. The
scholar uses computers and statistics to crunch the data—but
the meaning remains something she has given to the data herself. If ‘mid-range
reading’ didn’t sound so silly, it’d be apt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Coding is the hardest part of the content analysis workflow, the point
where method becomes more art than science. Coding your data flattens it, irons
out its particularities, smoothes clean</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">the distinctive wrinkles humanists usually have so much fun analyzing. What’s
more, coding threatens to lock much of our interpretive work in a black box of
numbers and codebooks. But finding regularities in large amounts of your
material does not necessarily blind us to variety or difference. It allows us to zoom out—to see things from a perspective that might
be otherwise hard to get hold of. As content analysis visualizations improve, it
will be possible to link each datapoint with the exact quote it is derived
from, leading to the option for scholars to critique one another's coding strategies. The black box will soon be opened.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Coding Workflow</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Before I delve into the more technical considerations, it may be helpful to
lay out how I go about coding my material.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">I open up an Excel document where I keep my records. I use Excel simply
because I am familiar with it—other data management programs (like Access and
LibriOffice) may be more appropriate. Then I open up one of my target documents
and find an observation of the practice I’m looking for. This gets a unique
identifier I call an INSTANCE. Then I code what this instance is saying, and the
place of observation if applicable. Then I record the citation this instance is
connected to. When I am finished with the document, I also code in the writer’s
name, religious denomination, and class. Each of these is kept in separate
fields in my excel spreadsheet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Each field is connected to other fields by a
set of common variables. Some fields are linked to one another by a shared
‘instance’. (Instance 1 might have a ‘CODE’ of ‘DINE’ and in another field have
a ‘PERSON’ of ‘William Bagshawe.) Other fields are linked together by a shared
‘person.’ (‘William Bagshawe’ might have an entry in the ‘gender’ field: male.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Let’s take a closer look at this whole process.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What to code</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Before anything else, you should think about what sort of material you need
to discover to answer your research questions. I find it helpful to separate
this material into two categories: </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">observations</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">
and </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">demographics</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Observations</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> are the behavior you are trying to describe.
This can be the activity in coffeehouses, Christmas rituals, the amount of
money mentioned in a text, or the mood of a poem.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Demographics</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> are the ‘metadata’ surrounding each observation.
The most obvious variable to keep track of is date. But you can also code for
gender of observer, place of observation, social class of observer, and so on. You also
need to include enough information in each observation so that other people
will know where you’re getting your data from. That means that every
observation should be connected to a reference. I do this by recording two
variables: citation, with the actual page number, and source, which has the
code standing for the book the reference is gleaned from. (Remember those codes
we gave our books when we downloaded them? They come in handy now.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Setting Up Your Excel Sheet </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">So where does coding happen? You can do it in many programs, but I use
Excel—not because it is the most advanced, or the best suited for this particular
project. I just know it the best. It is also helpful that you can find Excel on
almost every computer you come across.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Before we start coding, we need set up our spreadsheet. The problem is that
we are used to making spreadsheets that humans can read, but it’s a lot easier
in the long run to make spreadsheets that computers can read.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">When I think of a spreadsheet, I think of something like this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">A human reads this spreadsheet from left to right, clearly seeing which
data belongs to which observation. Instance 10 is of a male lawyer in London named Daniel O'Connell who, in 1796, does not mention Christmas. You can check page 91 of book 1906a to see the diary entry I derived this data from.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">The problem is that computers don’t like this kind of database
architecture. What they like is <a href="http://vita.had.co.nz/papers/tidy-data.pdf" target="_blank">‘tidy’ data</a>.
In the words of Hadley Wickham “Tidy datasets are easy to manipulate, model and
visualise, and have a specific structure: each variable is a column, each
observation is a row, and each type of observational unit is a table.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">The data above are NOT tidy. Although each observation is a row and each
variable is a column, the observational units are not split out by table.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">So instead of a single sheet jammed full of data, we have to imagine a
number of sheets, all of which interact relationally. (A so-called ‘relational
database’) Each ‘table’ (a sheet in Excel, also sometimes called a ‘field’) is
a different observational unit—religious denomination, year, and so on. Each
row gets its own observation. And each column is its own variable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">It is often helpful to understand your relational database visually: every
‘field’ (each tab in Excel) is related to other ‘fields’ by shared variables.
It is important to keep the names of your shared variables EXACTLY THE SAME otherwise
you’ll have complications later. (There are programs available for turning a human database into
a relational database, but why not start out on the right foot?)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><a href="http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-data.html" target="_blank">Much work</a> has been done on <a href="http://www.prometheusresearch.com/good-data-management-practices-for-data-analysis-tidy-data-part-2/" target="_blank">how to keep your data tidy</a>—consult these if
you’re curious about how to make your database. There are also some computer programs, like <a href="http://vis.stanford.edu/wrangler/" target="_blank">Data Wrangler</a>, that can help turn a
normal ‘flat’ database into a tidy one, if you need.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Open-ended coding versus
pre-coding<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now that you have your relational database set up, it is time for the fun
part: actually reading and coding your material.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">But before you do this, a huge question arises: what do you code? How do
you ball</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">the infinite variety and
difference of human life into a dozen marbles of rigid 'codes'? There
are two options.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">The first is called </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">open ended coding</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">.
In this method, you write brief descriptions of each practice as you go along.
After a certain amount of time, you go back over these and impose a kind of
order, balling up particular descriptions into a limited number of broader
categories. I prefer to do this at the very end of the coding process, but to
each his own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">The second approach is called </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">pre-coding</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">.
In this method, the researcher comes up with a pre-determined set of codes before
she starts looking at her data.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Whatever you do, make a list of your codes and write a description of each
one. This is called a codebook. I like to keep representative quotes of each
practice alongside my definitions as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">There are benefits and drawbacks to each approach. Open-ended coding leaves
your research more open to the sources themselves. It also means that you are
not pre-judging the material. The downside, however, is that it adds a hugely
time-consuming step to an already mind-numbingly-tedious process: you have to
go back through your notes after you’ve read everything and impose a set of
codes over your inevitably sometimes thin notes. Pre-coding is faster, and it
allows collaborative work because you are working from a clear set of
definitions. However, there is a very real risk that important phenomena will
not be included in these pre-determined coding schemes, and so will either have
to be ignored, or your code-book updated and </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">the whole process started over
again</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">. (This has happened to me. Not fun.)</span></div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Working with multiple coders</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">If you have a codebook handy, you can outsource your coding to others.
Qualitative researchers have developed a number of methods for gauging
inter-coder reliability. Because I am not familiar with working with other
people, I can only point interested people to the fact that this exists.</span></div>
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<i style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Text Analysis and Content
Analysis?</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">Inevitably, sometime during the long and frustrating process of coding, you
will ask yourself: can’t a computer do this? I am sure that many people reading
this will answer yes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">I am nervous about bringing machine learning into the content analysis of
historical materials. Although machine learning approaches may be appropriate
for data coming from one solid time period, over the incredibly long time spans
historians deal with, language changes in a way that machine learning cannot
account for. This does not mean that the challenge cannot be
met, merely that it awaits more technically adept practitioners than myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28pt;">NEXT: <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-4.html" target="_blank">Visualizing your data</a>!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-20806547181429853652015-03-23T07:44:00.000-07:002015-03-23T08:40:58.193-07:00Content Analysis With Tableau 4: Visualizing Your Data <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is Part 4 of a 4 part series on content analysis and Tableau. <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2015/03/content-analysis-with-tableau-intro.html" target="_blank">Things will make more sense if you start with the first part.</a></span></b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Please note that this is a work in progress and I am more amateur than expert. I welcome questions, comments, and corrections.</span></b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now that your database is ready, it’s time do start crunching numbers! In
this section I will ignore most of the fancy statistical analyses available to you; instead we’ll just
focus on making a simple visualization: how to display the frequency of a given
activity over time using a program called Tableau. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Tableau is a professional data visualization tool that has an intuitive
user interface. It is also free for students, which is helpful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Many people have helped me on the technical side of things. Robin Weiss at
University of Chicago helped visualize my coffeehouse data, putting me on this bumpy road of data visualization. Matt Francis (@Matt_Francis) made some very beautiful
visualizations of my Christmas data. Most importantly for this project,
Benjamin Young on the Tableau forums very helpfully walked me through a number of
methodological difficulties. I would not be here without their help.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAwPgzwxlp3bnmyV2kXSrQbVm8r9EknXW4u8ajCA7E_taRPbXYBMZ4avckyFRdFIkUQ3iCWkdgtiDn5poUmoBJ0IfGHc7SHaG6AhJsRBteG0Mqy1u0FzwqksDnZnhOUuTBtuqIeX6ogZc/s1600/Image+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAwPgzwxlp3bnmyV2kXSrQbVm8r9EknXW4u8ajCA7E_taRPbXYBMZ4avckyFRdFIkUQ3iCWkdgtiDn5poUmoBJ0IfGHc7SHaG6AhJsRBteG0Mqy1u0FzwqksDnZnhOUuTBtuqIeX6ogZc/s1600/Image+1.png" height="320" width="133" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">First, you need to tell Tableau how to read your data. When you open up
Tableau, click on the big orange ‘connect to data’ button on the upper left.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now that your data is loaded in, you should see a number of frames. To the
left, </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">sheets</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> shows a list of the
‘fields’ from your database. The top frame, where it says ‘Drag sheets here’,
is where your fields will go. The bottom frame will show you how your data
looks once it is loaded in. If you have ‘flat’ data, that is, a database with
only a single field, you will see only a single item in the sheets frame. If
you have a relational database, you will see a ton of different fields. Go
ahead and start dragging fields from the left frame into the top frame (if you have multiple fields). You can mess up. Tableau is very forgiving—if you make a mistake, you can
simply hit the UNDO keystroke combo of your choice, and your work will be
restored.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Here’s what mine project looks like after dragging two fields into the main frame:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pjD5iMDR0YdxJOWgkG6e84lNBoIPDvk7J6cgy7w6HGf1NIH_4wWC4tqpnMql_lLpY3PgPdZoCI6C6NhFIuDHnWSJR_N_oUTbEMR4nx8Ffr4ad3YKW-U5Sr8WXlJJhnyUEi1cfBtarrY/s1600/Image+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pjD5iMDR0YdxJOWgkG6e84lNBoIPDvk7J6cgy7w6HGf1NIH_4wWC4tqpnMql_lLpY3PgPdZoCI6C6NhFIuDHnWSJR_N_oUTbEMR4nx8Ffr4ad3YKW-U5Sr8WXlJJhnyUEi1cfBtarrY/s1600/Image+2.png" height="416" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Notice a few things here. ‘YEAR’ and ‘CODE’ are connected by a little venn
diagram symbol. This means that there is a join between them—in other words,
the sheet is reading the different fields as connected. Imagine this is the
‘year’ field:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Instance</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Year</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1741<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1690<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">And here is the ‘Code’ field:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Instance</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Code</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">DINE<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">NO<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">When you tell Tableau to join the two fields on ‘instance’, you combine the
two fields thusly:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Instance</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Code<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Year</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">DINE<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1741<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">NO<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1690<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Another thing to notice is that these data are displayed in a spreadsheet in the bottom pane. This is a great place to check whether Tableau is reading your data the way you think Tableau should be reading your data.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now, not every field is going to be connected with every other field. Try
to load in a field that is not connected to your the fields you already have on
screen. Uh oh!</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXUEB7JJV1eyiMCEfHffkqeYDYi8qNP9lH32R6HWfYuBcXAMlOxbG-G1GNmFiHEMlrYu5s6ERTmeQtS5l35TUs-_dlhVgfmM5M7luD8q2FTBfypGeDfPErSLoJC0jY9xYLNu3PDTAjVE/s1600/Image+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXUEB7JJV1eyiMCEfHffkqeYDYi8qNP9lH32R6HWfYuBcXAMlOxbG-G1GNmFiHEMlrYu5s6ERTmeQtS5l35TUs-_dlhVgfmM5M7luD8q2FTBfypGeDfPErSLoJC0jY9xYLNu3PDTAjVE/s1600/Image+3.png" height="404" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">You've made Tableau confused. It’s asking you what you want it to do. How do you want the
fields to line up? What do you join on? You don’t actually want to join these
two fields (probably) so just undo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now load in your data correctly. Here’s what mine looks like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYlkt-eV4NE-HUW2PWaT55xVcYlPb6FjH_Lt6pJD4DZct88bmyR7CpVgQNyMnvDjol2TUsmqoZZEyvGpwbGgXDhx9-YL04JZ53xygReCP7bi5qJR87kcLuaZc6dHCjtK381juiL4La5fg/s1600/Image+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYlkt-eV4NE-HUW2PWaT55xVcYlPb6FjH_Lt6pJD4DZct88bmyR7CpVgQNyMnvDjol2TUsmqoZZEyvGpwbGgXDhx9-YL04JZ53xygReCP7bi5qJR87kcLuaZc6dHCjtK381juiL4La5fg/s1600/Image+4.png" height="400" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">There’s one more thing to do before your data is ready to go. Remember
those little Venn diagrams connecting your different fields? Take another look
at them. The inner part is shaded. This means that the join is a ‘inside join.’
This means that you are only loading the records which appear in </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">both fields</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">. This is a little tricky to
understand, so let’s take an imaginary example of two fields. One shows the
colors of fruits, the others the colors of elements:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Fruit<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Color</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Apple<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Green<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Apple<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Red<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Banana<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Yellow<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">And here’s another:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 28.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Color</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Element</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Red<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Fire<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Blue<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Water<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">An inside join would produce this record:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<tbody>
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<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Fruit</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Color</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Element</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Apple<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Red<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-top: 8.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Fire<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td>
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</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Only the records which are present <i>in both fields</i> are pulled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">To load in all your data, you likely want to tell Tableau to make ‘left’
joins. This means that you want it to include all of the records in the
left-hand field, even if there is no corresponding record in the right-hand
field. Do this by clicking on the Venn diagram and selecting ‘left.’ If Tableau
is confused about which fields you want it to join by, just tell it manually by
selecting from the dropdown menu.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">You will notice that the left-hand circle of your Venn diagram symbol is
now fully shaded.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh053-4KrDHTj1C7nO8UGZ6ja6JF7l5MzznkBREMBcZJMII18leMJ8r5DZJ9_0p3wO_8UVB10uMPw1xSL5-6ZaAo6eTMghjPPDlbjt2I4eA8GTesdhsbukJJX9BgYmf7UsgUOFFvNyJgvs/s1600/Image+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh053-4KrDHTj1C7nO8UGZ6ja6JF7l5MzznkBREMBcZJMII18leMJ8r5DZJ9_0p3wO_8UVB10uMPw1xSL5-6ZaAo6eTMghjPPDlbjt2I4eA8GTesdhsbukJJX9BgYmf7UsgUOFFvNyJgvs/s1600/Image+5.png" height="408" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Congratulations! Your data is now ready to go. Now for some fun. Click ‘go
to workbook.’ Here’s what you’ll see.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimjrZt4kii6E3rN8mp5uIbIYrrRGiK9_f94YhKoO16uFzfXQ8Dp0bdbJLDqHgv3ZHlpeui8MzsGXsLf1PbQjg87DWWcNTqb46wtUPB8WHfOsAABYV5zN1d62KwzNl-7iz6_-6mMCk96Zc/s1600/Image+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimjrZt4kii6E3rN8mp5uIbIYrrRGiK9_f94YhKoO16uFzfXQ8Dp0bdbJLDqHgv3ZHlpeui8MzsGXsLf1PbQjg87DWWcNTqb46wtUPB8WHfOsAABYV5zN1d62KwzNl-7iz6_-6mMCk96Zc/s1600/Image+6.png" height="412" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Let’s orient you to the Tableau interface. It looks simple, but there is a
TON going on here. The far left frame is partitioned into four fields. The
first is data—the data you are working with. The second are your dimensions.
Think of these are the data Tableau thinks looks vaguely X-axis-ish. Next is
‘Measures’ These are the data Tableau thinks looks Y-axis-ish. Now you can turn
a measure into a dimension and a dimension into a measure simply by dragging
one field into another. Be careful with this, though—check Tableau is actually
doing what you expect it to do. The fourth field you see is something you
probably don’t have—it’s called a parameter, and it acts as a kind of variable
you can fiddle with. We'll make some of those later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">To the right is big frame with a lot of different panes. The most important
for now are in the center. Take a look at the ‘drop field here’ bit and the
‘columns’ and ‘rows’ bit. Our job right now is to get our data here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">When you’re dealing with straightforward numeric data, this is</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">really easy. Simply drag and drop. Try it
with some of your numeric data. Works beautifully! You can select the kind of
visualization you want by selecting the ‘show me’ tab in the upper right hand
corner. Tableau will show you the visualizations available for the data you’re
selecting. This is where playing around with Tableau really begins to feel fun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Numeric data may work fine, but content analysis doesn’t count numbers, it
counts concepts, which are expressed in ‘strings.’ A string is what computer
science people call ‘text.’ Try to
display your ‘string’ data—that is, your codes and see what happens.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0tpY1VEafQ5mQmH4-QyGvkF6mqn_fcCPW3S4kMWCQ_BFfC_BEHB5Z_VsTWAZLo4UXCfzbZW3Q07far3D3KGRwCL8a7UmnH2B9X33WkSrp7pJtqzVZuqID-Xpygq2UdKA3uZGCiC1VKw/s1600/Image+7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0tpY1VEafQ5mQmH4-QyGvkF6mqn_fcCPW3S4kMWCQ_BFfC_BEHB5Z_VsTWAZLo4UXCfzbZW3Q07far3D3KGRwCL8a7UmnH2B9X33WkSrp7pJtqzVZuqID-Xpygq2UdKA3uZGCiC1VKw/s1600/Image+7.png" height="410" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Chaos!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">This is obviously not what you want to do. To make Tableau visualize our
data, we are going to need to do something a little bit more complicated than
drag and drop. DO NOT FEAR! This is relatively simple with help. And after you
do it once, you’ll be able to do it a thousand times without breaking a sweat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">First off, we want to make sure that Tableau understands that our ‘YEAR’
field is actually a date. Tableau wants the date to include the month and day
and my data only includes the year. We'll have to fix that. (You won't need to do this if your date information includes days and months.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Right click on ‘Year’ and go to ‘Create Calculated Field.’ This tells
Tableau that you want to make a new field out of an old one.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTe_TyNR_1IuIqva_sOLWpkWxssY-teNs8WUssO0gNYLN9JZRLBjpansUekx-Tu4l9p_DajMDIfL1JdUvsMolcAW5B0JXLHreBKJjPS_LyhZuNkchG9vpQGCuIB5IezelZ7QukIL6DX24/s1600/Image+8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTe_TyNR_1IuIqva_sOLWpkWxssY-teNs8WUssO0gNYLN9JZRLBjpansUekx-Tu4l9p_DajMDIfL1JdUvsMolcAW5B0JXLHreBKJjPS_LyhZuNkchG9vpQGCuIB5IezelZ7QukIL6DX24/s1600/Image+8.png" height="412" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now enter in “date("01/01/" + str(Year))” where ‘Year’ is the
same name as whatever field contains your date information.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDXVuNSfi7VmBL2kBjoAfFVOMGJGf8ZVYXOdt0zZ0x4trqYqRxAaPVsGz51dEbAVqLX30Qcq53zpY2W93juJqP-0mkFCy_bcwuXTlIlH_tarWSz0E4fw2luOSM27QYwNwNDXeziJoQRc/s1600/Image+9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDXVuNSfi7VmBL2kBjoAfFVOMGJGf8ZVYXOdt0zZ0x4trqYqRxAaPVsGz51dEbAVqLX30Qcq53zpY2W93juJqP-0mkFCy_bcwuXTlIlH_tarWSz0E4fw2luOSM27QYwNwNDXeziJoQRc/s1600/Image+9.png" height="410" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">This tells Tableau this: return this date: 01/01/YEAR. Make an evocative
name for your date field. Like ‘date’. Anything that will help you remember
what it is you are calculating. Do not to call it ‘Calculated field 1’ because
then you’re going to be left with a dozen things called 'calculated fields' and you'll feel like a teenager with a messy room looking for the cereal bowl into which he threw his car keys last night. Right
click on this new calculated field to make sure it is being read as a ‘date’ not as anything else weird.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now drag this new Date field into the ‘columns’ section. Click on the
chevron next to the name, and select ‘year’ from the dropdown menu. (Or
whatever unit you want to organize stuff by.) This tells Tableau to group the data by years, not by months or date.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg772MM38RiN7Yq-ncIPmaKHHB9h9652NkXpwUc-naU1n0r3Jts36hcxE0qeNCHRzxhGPUDs_6Jib465kR9vLiqjsO7fNspeFAKylE3g6AUllXjotPqBehjIHpwtFTK47VVBm7bu07dLtU/s1600/Image+10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg772MM38RiN7Yq-ncIPmaKHHB9h9652NkXpwUc-naU1n0r3Jts36hcxE0qeNCHRzxhGPUDs_6Jib465kR9vLiqjsO7fNspeFAKylE3g6AUllXjotPqBehjIHpwtFTK47VVBm7bu07dLtU/s1600/Image+10.png" height="410" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Next we want to make a parameter which will allow us to select the code we
want to analyze by. Right click on CODE in the dimensions pane (or whatever called the field which stored the your codes) and select ‘create parameter.’ You
will now have an option to play around with which codes you want to display at
any given time. Name this parameter something evocative—‘Code Parameter’ would be nice. Right
click in the main window, and select the parameter you just created to make a new window where you can select parameters.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrs5wLA4fV8uQkASLKT14WVIzyJpGDMXNcrK6yTPgwqwumCRu3a0Xsc_tIxBLwbZgZvcvrjWfJQk1iLl1qvrB_szE0LpiDSgkLgeiuQ9uO5PwhXFA2mN7NF0cwn9i5xUkPSBsttTnUxCg/s1600/Image+11.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrs5wLA4fV8uQkASLKT14WVIzyJpGDMXNcrK6yTPgwqwumCRu3a0Xsc_tIxBLwbZgZvcvrjWfJQk1iLl1qvrB_szE0LpiDSgkLgeiuQ9uO5PwhXFA2mN7NF0cwn9i5xUkPSBsttTnUxCg/s1600/Image+11.png" height="402" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now you have a drop-down menu from which you can select your chosen code!
Shiny!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now we want to tell Tableau to count our string data. We’re going to create
a calculated field from our ‘codes’ field. Do this by right clicking it. Now
paste in this, replacing my nomenclature with yours:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">countd(if [Code]=[Christmas Activity] then [Instance] end) / countd([Instance])</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">So replace [Code] with the place where you stored your codes; Christmas Activity with the parameter where you can choose codes; and instance with the unique identifier you gave to every observation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">This tells Tableau this: count the distinct number of instances where the
field code is equal to the Christmas Activity I’ve selected from my dropdown
menu. Then divide this by the total number of distinct entries.
(Giving us the particular Christmas activity expressed as a percentage of total
activities for each year.) Name this calculated field something descriptive—mine is called ‘%
of diaries mentioning activity.’ Now drag it to ‘rows.’</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZY_ev9vAJIqAeP-yRnCEKVI8SkXVglG5Jk3KCBdAIbhuDhO9f7JPaf04Tv8SOG9V20HdRMlak6l8yOm5NEU9jAMR1iPy_hurXPcqGLMBmC-V1_9P8HBon_BPh6Ls8MRckatdWttzM8r4/s1600/Image+12.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZY_ev9vAJIqAeP-yRnCEKVI8SkXVglG5Jk3KCBdAIbhuDhO9f7JPaf04Tv8SOG9V20HdRMlak6l8yOm5NEU9jAMR1iPy_hurXPcqGLMBmC-V1_9P8HBon_BPh6Ls8MRckatdWttzM8r4/s1600/Image+12.png" height="410" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">You can now play around with the code you’re looking at my selecting it
from your drop-down menu. Don’t you feel like some kind of data super hero? Ready to solve crimes and correct injustice?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">If you notice, my graph is really noisy. To deal with this noise, I
smoothed my data by creating a moving average. Right click on the ‘codes’
bubble just below ‘DATE’ and select ‘create table calculation’ and then select
‘moving calculation’ and ‘average’ and choose how many years you want this
moving average to include.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Now your data should be smoother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Beautiful!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">Try to cut your data by some of your demographics. In my example, I want to
look at my data by gender. This is incredibly easy in Tableau. I find my gender dimension,
and I simply drag it onto the graph. Now the graph is split out by gender. You can even play with the colors Tableau chooses for each gender.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">And now you’re done! If you’ve followed all these steps, you too have your
very own content analysis project and you’re in a good enough place where you
can play around with Tableau to your heart's content.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPRPMT4nwFcq70PI5zPJYlUmBU4ZhLuJtk9ooCo7l30FfEPKTntaUqqoOq7RyJ7bp5ozEdukQYrf4UvnkXlII0OWteDKDnbhGw0Jw-uartODQnO4Z3M3Ik0eUFknidhxXaMkK-WtaCTk/s1600/Image+14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPRPMT4nwFcq70PI5zPJYlUmBU4ZhLuJtk9ooCo7l30FfEPKTntaUqqoOq7RyJ7bp5ozEdukQYrf4UvnkXlII0OWteDKDnbhGw0Jw-uartODQnO4Z3M3Ik0eUFknidhxXaMkK-WtaCTk/s1600/Image+14.png" height="410" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 120%; text-indent: 28pt;">That’s it! Get analyzing! And get writing!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-54716672283251499482015-02-07T08:00:00.001-08:002015-02-07T22:42:18.255-08:00How Do You Like Your Writing--Crunchy, Smooth, Syrupy, Chewy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Check out this box of chocolates. Each piece <a href="http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/01/16/nendo-chocolates-japanese-onomatopoeic-words-texture/">represents a different Japanese onomatopoeiac texture</a>. Toge toge; zaku zaku; goro goro.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Yum yum, right? Well it got me a little curious about the texture of prose.<br /><br />Texture? To prose? I know what you're thinking: Brendan must be musing again. I know you're preparing yourself for a smattering of five dollar words like susurration, synecdoche, smattering, and crenellations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well don't flee to Facebook just yet. I think understanding the texture of writing can help us understand that elusive beast--<i>style</i>. And maybe by understanding how prose has texture, we can improve our own writing styles.<br /><br />Let's start out with something we all know. <b>Smooth</b> writing. Smooth prose is effortless, easy, flowing evenly across the page. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">W</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">e can push the metaphor even further. Sometimes smooth writing comes across as too fluid, too rehearsed, too polished, <i>too</i> damned smooth. Editing has buffed the prose so clean it looks like the shiny hood of a fancy sports car. The worst kind of New York Times op-eds have this kind of smoothness; the smoothness of gelled hair, of dry cleaned slacks, of too-perfect teeth. On the more palatable end of the spectrum there's the smoothness of Malcom Gladwell--a lozenge that you can swallow without flinching. Still, even well-done smooth writing feels a little bit like a trick. Like it's been focus-grouped.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So let's have some fun and think about other prose textures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Crunchy</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Crunchy writing gives up its meaning reluctantly. You gnaw and gnaw and gnaw. Nothing comes. Chew and chew and chew. Still the paragraph looks like a meaningless scribble. A brow furrows. A pen is chewed. The tension builds. Maybe you want put the book down, say fuck it, check Facebook, burn every book you own in frustration. Never read again. Move to the forest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But then!--the meaning splits open--<i>crunch</i>, and there it is--all at once you understand. And it's like the meaning has been staring you in the face this whole time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Kant is the crowned king of crunchy prose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'- that is the motto of enlightenment.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Crunchy writing is not necessarily good. But when it's done well---!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />"Hope" is the thing with feathers —<br />That perches in the soul —<br />And sings the tune without the words —<br />And never stops — at all — </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —<br />And sore must be the storm —<br />That could abash the little Bird<br />That kept so many warm — </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I've heard it in the chillest land —<br />And on the strangest Sea —<br />Yet, never, in Extremity,<br />It asked a crumb — of Me.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">That was Emily Dickinson, of course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Chewy</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Chewy writing is good to eat. Like crunchy writing, chewy prose makes you work a little before it gives up its meaning. But chewy writing makes that work fun. Its sentences can have the habit of trundling along, but if it is ever long-winded, there is a prize at the end of it--a joke, a metaphor, a candy center. When chewy writing is done well it is never a chore to read, nor to re-read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Chewy writing is a phrase that gets stuck in your head. The paragraph that grabs you so tightly that you have to put your book down and just ponder. The strikingly grating metaphor that makes you go <i>oh</i>. Where smooth writing aims to go down easy, chewy writing wants you you ruminate. Where crunchy writing expects you to sweat, chewy writing wants you to savor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here's Laurence Stern being nicely chewy:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Nay, if you come to that, Sir, have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting Solomon himself, -- have they not had their HOBBY-HORSES ; -- their running horses, -- their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets, ---- their maggots and their butterflies ? -- and so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and quietly along the King's high-way, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, ---- pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Syrupy</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Forget the insipidly sweet Hallmark pablum that comes to mind when you hear the word syrupy--this is about texture, not taste. Imagine instead the languid drizzle of honey off of a honey dipper. Prose that circles and turns, heavy with adjectives and metaphors, stuck to one large idea, never giving it up, spiraling around and around with meaning. Syrupy prose could just keep on going forever (syrupy books double as doorstops) rich, full, and solid, in huge page-long paragraphs, with chapters the lengths of ambitious novellas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When the book is finally put down, you get this feeling like you're still covered in gummy similes and exquisite words. Like you've just stumbled out of a slightly magical library and are blinking at the light of the mundane world.<br /><br />Syrupy writing used to be all the rage. The Victorians get syrupy. Poe is syrupy. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Here's Gibbon drizzling the prose everywhere:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Lest you think that the style is completely extinct, a contemporary propounder of syrupy prose is Mike Pesca, of the Gist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Watery</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Not to be confused with fluid writing (an especially clear sub-variety of smooth writing), watery writing has been diluted so it can go down easy. Its sentences are straightforward. Its allusions are simple.<br /><br />The watery writer is concerned with taxing the reader's attention span. The watery writer is not sure the reader can keep up. The watery writer really wants the reader to <i>get it</i>, even if you're skimming, even if you're watching TV and just killing time while the commercials are on.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong. I'm all for watery writing--in its proper place. Watery writing is an efficient information transmission system--it is easy to skim. Advice columns, how-to manuals, and technical writing are all often watery, because these genres are less about style, and more about getting a point across. Good business writing is watery, which is better than the usual <i>cloudy </i>alternative. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A great collection of watery writing can be found at </span><a href="http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">Our Incredible Journey</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">, a compendium of the notices start-ups give when they are bought by a bigger company.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Lots of writers should be in the habit of watering down their prose once in a while. (This author included.) God knows that social theory needs to get chased with a few cups of water every once in a while; otherwise it's liable to get stuck in the reader's throat. Undergraduates should make their writing watery--they don't need to be worrying about style. They need to make themselves <i>understood</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Here's Emily Yoffe (Slate's <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2015/02/dear_prudence_i_m_dying_of_cancer_but_don_t_want_my_siblings_to_speak_at.html">Dear Prudence</a>) showing the power of watery prose:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When it comes to planning one’s funeral some people just don’t want to think about it; some people express general wishes (cremation not burial, memorial service not funeral); some people orchestrate every detail, from the music to the speakers. Of course, each of these choices is valid. You can make whatever decisions you want, let your husband know your wishes, and then put your funeral out of your mind.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Rugged</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Rugged prose is written under a moonlit sky. Journal spread open against thighs. Pencil sharpened with bowie knife. Body tight after a day of hard work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And every so often the rugged writer has to stop writing just to listen. He listens to the lowing of a coyote echoing out over the valley. He listens to the silence of the big big world. He doesn't feel alone. He just feels small.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And every so often the rugged writer thinks. He thinks about death. He thinks about women. He thinks about the can of beans simmering on the fire. He thinks about the long ride home, through chaparral and sagebrush country, across dry riverbeds, and then over the border. He wonders if home will still be there when he gets back. They probably won't even recognize him, with this two-month growth of beard on his face, with his beaten-up jacket and cold eyes. Probably a good thing they won't recognize him. When he left he felt like nobody wanted him back, not until that boy was a distant memory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">He wishes he didn't need to kill that boy. But the damned kid would've killed him otherwise. That's the honest truth, no matter what anybody else thinks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">But the rugged can't shake the feeling that the whole world would've been better off if the boy had shot him. That he was living a borrowed life like another man's jacket. That he was living the boy's life, with all it's promise and evil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The rugged writer listens to the silence stretched taut across his exile like the skin of a drum. He thinks about the long ride home through Indian country. He eats his beans. He pictures the moon, women, the boy's face as he lay there in the dust, asking for his mamma that'd died the summer before, the blood pooling through his shirt. Enough thinking. He starts writing again. He is writing about the moon, about women, about men wearing leather gloves. The coyote has gone silent. He is writing about the silence, too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />It is also acceptable to compose rugged writing on a farm, in remote Alaskan townships, or in outer space.<br /><br />The Beats were masters of rugged prose. Thus, Kerouac:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />And Patti Smith:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />nodding tho' the lamps lit low<br />nodding for passers underground<br />to and fro she's darning and<br />the yarn is weeping red and pale<br />marking the train stops from algiers<br /> <br />sleeping tho' the eyes are pale<br />hums in rhythum w/a bonnet on<br />lullaby a broken song<br />the sifting-cloth is bleeding red<br />weeping yarn from algiers<br /> <br />lullaby tho' baby's gone<br />the cradle rocks a barren song<br />she's rocking w/her ribbons on<br />she's rocking yarn and needles oh<br />it's long coming from algiers</span></blockquote>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"> Lacy</span></h2>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUS1lbmta6gQkjx2WTUpF63HzG50ZDo7speH8wx4z927-6QwH1zZ3chSeEQqteygdQ16a_FVfPc2twN7-hRyWeAzWpmX1IPwkJ0078Wk8Qx_HodESZvajmwfluB5ou7PVMy6ulDjnNaA/s1600/ornate.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUS1lbmta6gQkjx2WTUpF63HzG50ZDo7speH8wx4z927-6QwH1zZ3chSeEQqteygdQ16a_FVfPc2twN7-hRyWeAzWpmX1IPwkJ0078Wk8Qx_HodESZvajmwfluB5ou7PVMy6ulDjnNaA/s1600/ornate.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/05/house-decorator-and-painters-guide.html" target="_blank">BibliOdyssey</a>. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The lacy author likes to evoke in her prosody the feeling of a pair of middle-aged men walking solemnly through the loggias of an Oxford college in autumn, the smell of leather armchairs and old books hanging in the air, the sound of the two men's long coats swishing softly in the air as they talk about something ever-so-slightly sordid. An affair, a scandal, or Cesar. Or a rigged by-election.<br /><br />The lacy style is completely unafraid to embark on circuitous sentences that meander from clause to clause; where another author might want to plump down a solid period somewhere if only to let the reader have a bit of a break, the lacy author just keeps on going, loving the opportunity to pile word upon word, decoration atop decoration, filigree on filigree, clause after clause. In the most adept examples of lacy writing--P. D. James at her most psychologically acute, George R. R. Martin at his pomp-puffed best--the meaning is perfectly clear, the sentences complex but well-tightened. At its more mediocre, lacy writing does little more than dare the reader to be dazzled at what the writer is capable of. At its worst, it's unreadable.<br /><br />Here is the legendary Gene Wolfe, from his experimental sci-fi novel, <i>The Shadow of the Torturer</i>, giving a great example of laciness in action:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Dr. Talos leaned toward her, and it struck me that his face was not only that of a fox (a comparison that was perhaps too easy to make because his bristling reddish eyebrows and sharp nose suggested it at once) but that of a stuffed fox. I have heard those who dig for their livelihood say there is no land anywhere in which they can trench without turning up shards of the past. No matter where the spade turns the soil, it uncovers broken pavements and corroded metal; and scholars write that the kind of sand that artists call polychrome (because flecks of every colour are mixed with its whiteness) is actually not sand at all, but the glass of the past, now pounded by aeons of tumbling in the clamorous sea. If there are layers of reality beneath the reality we see, even as there are layers of history beneath the ground we walk upon, then in one of those more profound realities, Dr. Talos's face was a fox's mask on a wall, and I marveled to see it turn and bend now toward the woman, achieving by those motions, which make expression and thought appear to play across it with the shadows of nose and brows, and amazing and realistic appearance of vivacity.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"> Goopy</span></h2>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxNj1bQcmq_wtD1FUCb8rBICs5jHVHtWfUJxJeu8DeBaweD4eFG8e-cWWt0PrrEzAadanMI-fdyFd1dgXCeAp7X1UdQXfPRAEF-wZ-CG1lNb8qW6F8cqqi9vROoIKdWwOrjDkRecZR8G4/s1600/goopy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxNj1bQcmq_wtD1FUCb8rBICs5jHVHtWfUJxJeu8DeBaweD4eFG8e-cWWt0PrrEzAadanMI-fdyFd1dgXCeAp7X1UdQXfPRAEF-wZ-CG1lNb8qW6F8cqqi9vROoIKdWwOrjDkRecZR8G4/s1600/goopy.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: start;">Image from the great </span><a href="http://thekinspiracy.tumblr.com/" style="text-align: start;">Kinspiracy</a><span style="text-align: start;"> blog </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Watery and syrupy. And definitely not smooth. Insert Gwyneth Paltrow joke here.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How many times a day do we throw our words away? We say things like, ‘I hate my hair,’ ‘I’m so stupid,’ ‘I’m such a klutz.’ We never think that these words bring negative energy into our vibration and affect us on a physical level, but they do. Emoto’s experiments were conducted with water. Why? Because sound vibration travels through water four times faster than it does through open air. Consider the fact that your body is over 70% water and you’ll understand how quickly the vibration from negative words resonates in your cells. Ancient scriptures tell us that life and death are in the power of the tongue. As it turns out, that’s not a metaphor.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"> Further thoughts?</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'd love to hear what you think about texture in language. Which textures do you think matter in prose? Which authors do you find crunchy, watery or chewy?<br /><br />If you found this post super chewy yourself, please share it or leave a comment!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I stumbled across </span><a href="http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/01/texture-words-and-data-mining-two.html" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">this digital humanities project</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> working with texture words. I link to it without comment--I need to digest it more.</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<br />
When I started blogging <a href="http://www.vintagepostcardphotos.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2981&g2_serialNumber=2" target="_blank">way back in 2007</a> blogging was the newest of new media. The summer before I had interned at the American Prospect and I remember watching Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein enviously over the cubicle walls: here were kids just a little bit older than me, getting paid to write Big Important Thoughts about Big Important Things, while I was stuck in an unpaid internship. How had they first gained attention while I remained obscure? Their blogs. (And of course, their talent.) They had written incisive, funny, daring blogs. The blogs had earned them attention. So it seemed inevitable that if I wrote enough, well enough, and often enough I would go viral, too.<br />
<br />
Hasn't happened.<br />
<br />
And even though I'm okay with my relative internet obscurity, every time I write a post there's this fifteen minute window where I keep hitting refresh on the 'stats' page of Blogger Dashboard, wondering whether this is finally the day when Raise High The Roofbeam Carpenters goes viral, whether I am going to see the hit count inch from ten, to a hundred, to a thousand. I imagine that there's this mangy compulsive little Fame Monkey perched on my shoulder beating a drum screeching MAYBE NOW THEY WILL WATCH US DANCE MAYBE NOW THEY WATCH US DANCE! And for the quarter of an hour he's screeching I can't do anything but listen to him. Refresh refresh refresh. As the page views inch up from twelve, to thirteen, to twenty.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizc1zeMpGIWGYhOU_zMVUrNPzJyUvFqTVsZqcwXXGlm1vFJxhDr2GYjK-Ld4y1W41qkNo2Y02UiGpkUSppe5ln2MacywZjMDDovgPs6I59mV0p2y2kTHi7uPbk3FzLpeakP_PRtct6wu0/s1600/Fame+Monkey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizc1zeMpGIWGYhOU_zMVUrNPzJyUvFqTVsZqcwXXGlm1vFJxhDr2GYjK-Ld4y1W41qkNo2Y02UiGpkUSppe5ln2MacywZjMDDovgPs6I59mV0p2y2kTHi7uPbk3FzLpeakP_PRtct6wu0/s1600/Fame+Monkey.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fame monkey, in action</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And I suspect that there are Fame Monkeys perched on a lot of our backs, howling that we're right on the verge of going viral, that this comment is the one that's going to get us the attention we deserve, that we are going to be lifted from obscurity; that we deserve to become a name; a known entity; a meme. A Jenna Marbles. A Ze Frank. An Allie Bosch. A Matt Inman.<br />
<br />
Some great examples of the Fame Monkey fantasy come from Reddit's new podcast, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/upvoted" target="_blank">Upvoted</a>. Each episode of tells the story of a single Reddit user's stumbling path towards internet stardom. The person begins as a regular work-a-day joe, perhaps down on his luck. Then he posts his work to Reddit, and the attention of so many people transforms him into something utterly new. In the space of a few hours he is reborn, different, changed, thankful, and famous. He has had doubts about his talent before; and now in the light of the pageviews he's earned, this doubt looks silly. He has been unlucky before; and now in the face of this massive amount of good karma, he has nothing to complain about. The stories are incredibly compelling because they are exactly the kind of story I once to expected to happen to me. (It is notable that Upvoted has not yet featured any women. Internet fame for women seems to come with about as many dick-pics as page-views; about as much harassment as beatification.)<br />
<br />
But this kind of fame changes the internet from a private sandbox where we can try on different identities, to a place our every last comma is scrutinized. Here's Ezra Klein (many years removed from our American Prospect era) explaining why he no longer has as much freedom in blogging: "If I said something dumb in my Blogspot days — which I did, constantly — it hurt me. If I say something dumb today — which I do, but hopefully less constantly — it hurts my writers, and my editors, and my company. My voice needs editing. The cost of being unedited is too high." Fame turns the internet from a place of semi-anonymous play, to a place where we can never speak unedited.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_DABMhUau9prlp2PoHXB0JR2cyq1l8L7Og60rp0RLrHCEZtMTltshjwvnmOhwtq7Qg9f1O5GyjkgJ2ICZfuMiOzfWg52200Wipquyyw0gtGNkerFb3uaJ5Q0twaqZLHO09Rf1hL4sYDY/s1600/Fame+Monkey+Detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_DABMhUau9prlp2PoHXB0JR2cyq1l8L7Og60rp0RLrHCEZtMTltshjwvnmOhwtq7Qg9f1O5GyjkgJ2ICZfuMiOzfWg52200Wipquyyw0gtGNkerFb3uaJ5Q0twaqZLHO09Rf1hL4sYDY/s1600/Fame+Monkey+Detail.jpg" height="107" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Fame Monkey can never be satisfied</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We don't imagine that we will become the object of the internet's two minutes of hate. That we could become the next <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w" target="_blank">Phil Fish</a>. The next <a href="http://wearytravelermusings.tumblr.com/post/105069568008/some-of-us-are-brave-honest-transparent-the" target="_blank">Adria Richards</a>. The next <a href="http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-harassment-on-twitter" target="_blank">Anita Sarkeesian</a>.<br />
<br />
<div>
And still the Fame Monkey screeches WATCH ME WATCH ME WATCH ME. His fists still pound his tiny drum DANCE DANCE DANCE AND MAYBE THEY WILL WATCH. And we still gaze at the lucky few, wishing we were in their place.<br />
<br />
But is this new exciting public sphere of blog comments and Facebook posts and retweeting really truly <i>public</i> when people feel the need to obsessively edit every last comment because they are so closely watched? Where the public, for the most part, stares at those in the public eye from behind some kind of anonymous one-way mirror? Where we ready ourselves to attack every mistake we see, any fakeness, any duplicity. As the Fame Monkey hisses jealously in our ears--THEY DON'T DESERVE THE ATTENTION! THEY DON'T DESERVE IT! I DESERVE IT! I DESERVE IT! I DESERVE IT! I DO I DO I DO I DO!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-24692844744353913102015-01-29T06:57:00.001-08:002015-01-29T06:57:22.460-08:00Eight Reasons Why Listicles Are The Greatest!Listicles are totally the literary genre of 2015. There's already a listicle on any topic imaginable. They range from the self-obsessed (<a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2014/07/18-struggles-of-having-an-outgoing-personality-but-actually-being-shy-and-introverted/" target="_blank">18 Struggles Of Having An Outgoing Personality But Actually Being Shy And Introverted</a>) to the serious (<a href="http://www.vox.com/cards/eurozone-crisis/what-is-the-eurozone" target="_blank">9 Facts About Eurozone Crisis</a>) to the dadaist (<a href="http://www.clickhole.com/article/7-everyday-products-were-invented-accident-1773" target="_blank">7 Everyday Products That Were Invented By Accident</a>.) Since they're so prevalent, so obviously superficial, so click-baity, they are easy to make fun of. But I think listicles have a lot to teach us about writing on the internet. Especially for people who don't know how to write on the internet (like academics.)<br />
<br />
So let's dig into why are listicles so popular.<br />
<br />
<h2>
1 Listicles are popular</h2>
Facebook and Reddit and all the other social media tornados give more popular links more prominent placement. This means that even marginal differences in the initial popularity of an article compound into huge differences in that article's virulence. Think of it as hypertext Darwinism, red in link and metadata.<br />
<br />
Of course, this leaves an important question: what makes listicles more popular than other forms of internet writing?<br />
<br />
Curious? Read on!<br />
<h2>
2 Listicles are easy to skim</h2>
Or skim on, I should say.<br />
<br />
Listicles are made for people who don't have the time to read the wordy waffling of the wannabe writers who produce 99% of the content on the internet. You can get the gist of the listicle simply by passing your eyes over the super-huge headlines. (That's why they are big and bold.) The prose elaborations beneath the headlines are purely decorative. Or a place to shove supporting evidence; usually statistical. Or a place to put a joke. (Did you know that 15% of listicles have a made up statistic in them?)<br />
<br />
<h2>
3 The title helps you figure out how long the listicle takes to read</h2>
Helpful for readers who don't have a lot of time.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anjali-joshi/100-reasons-not-to-have-kids-that-i-discovered-after-i-had-one_b_5184178.html" target="_blank">100 Reasons to Not Have Kids? </a>That's going to take half an hour to read. Skip it.<br />
<br />
Eight Reasons Why Listicles Are The Greatest? Short enough to read over your coffee break. Share it.<br />
<br />
<h2>
4 Listicles are easy to write</h2>
There is no thesis to a listicle. No need for sustained argument. The writer can simply rattle off six, ten, or twelve half-warmed observations about a topic, make sure <strike>their</strike> there are no misspellings, and hit post.<br />
<br />
They're also easy to add to. Did you stumble across a <a href="http://newstex.com/2014/02/20/the-science-behind-the-popularity-of-listicles/" target="_blank">relevant article</a> right at the end of the writing process? You don't need to start again from scratch. Just add another bullet point.<br />
<br />
<h2>
5 Listicles let authors speak with authority</h2>
The listicle's big, bold headlines encourage an impersonal authoritative voice that makes writers sound like they know what they are taking about. There can be no waffling in a listicle heading, no hedging of bets, no qualifications.<br />
<br />
It is the exact opposite of the way we are usually taught to write prose. And a lot more fun to read.<br />
<h2>
6 Memes are okay, too</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihXWW5afGZBLDNcH6gkzqPWgkgb9RhzjoSfSDRS53qZoriHU8qTKJvPFDdQ06B-ggyATfbzCk0rddrUkGdcbhNPXyFNFQ1mFlU4rAwPv9L_jPZVK389bQ36xHlyS8bXVpwm8cAkVDjy0I/s1600/listciles.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihXWW5afGZBLDNcH6gkzqPWgkgb9RhzjoSfSDRS53qZoriHU8qTKJvPFDdQ06B-ggyATfbzCk0rddrUkGdcbhNPXyFNFQ1mFlU4rAwPv9L_jPZVK389bQ36xHlyS8bXVpwm8cAkVDjy0I/s1600/listciles.jpeg" height="279" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2>
7 Listicles encourage concision</h2>
Because let's be real. This shit is gonna get <i>skimmed</i>.<br />
<br />
<h2>
8 Listicles stand out in a crowd</h2>
New rule of the internet: If it it exists, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/08/29/five-reasons-why-millennials-love-listicles/" target="_blank">there is already an article about it that has received more pageviews than you ever will</a>. (Call this a G-rated Rule 34.)<br />
<br />
Other articles may have the substance--but the listicle allows even neophytes to offer something with <i>panache</i>. Other articles may have done more research. The listicle is short and to-the point. Other articles may hit the same general points.<i> There is no other listicle about listicles that have the same eight points this listicle has</i>.<br />
<h2>
So what's the point? (for academics)</h2>
I'm not lot saying that the listicle is the future of writing. That would be horrifying. Imagine if Clifford Geertz had written <a href="http://www.rochester.edu/college/psc/clarke/214/Geertz72.pdf" target="_blank">17 Things About Culture I Learned From This Island Bloodsport (That Will Blow Your Mind!)</a><br />
<br />
Yet as scholars continue to wring their hands about the fact that nobody is listening to them, maybe it's time to rethink the kind of writing they produce. The quality of tenure-worthy scholarship hasn't changed for a couple decades. It's the same intentionally boring, incredibly inaccessible crap that only highly educated people can read. And highly educated people find it boring, too.<br />
<br />
The listicle accepts the fact that most work is written to be skimmed. The listicle does not shy from mixing information with entertainment. The listicle acknowledges <a href="https://dbrabham.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/no-one-will-read-your-dissertation/" target="_blank">that we want more than six people reading the stuff we write</a>. Academic writing would be a lot better if it followed suit.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Thanks for reading, here is a gif of a monkey hugging another monkey</h2>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ho5PfPm5kYYIPlf-PeqkctAWourjXo3jFCyjE0ZOgCvJsj-K92x1ZUQngTtPFiA-H3QA6I3QKZ2wlBBdrG893RTMIZDHUx_BPoIoBkkOMc8dc1DFylpJ9qxGK6CsOqw-YIReWhLzUrk/s1600/monkey.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ho5PfPm5kYYIPlf-PeqkctAWourjXo3jFCyjE0ZOgCvJsj-K92x1ZUQngTtPFiA-H3QA6I3QKZ2wlBBdrG893RTMIZDHUx_BPoIoBkkOMc8dc1DFylpJ9qxGK6CsOqw-YIReWhLzUrk/s1600/monkey.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Because this is internet writing, after all</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-35363048897592203912014-07-14T14:06:00.001-07:002014-07-17T07:06:40.531-07:00The Curse Of The Iffland Ring<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0xfMh4xO6D0h3WXZX5KTWmq_sldk0Y4GU2EIkdVkYqpK-jyoVtDrN7wTYfNawx7pUIYtwMsTc-O32oD7HnCi7m6O8HW053fTpj8V69TYCUr1IT1ab9CKNlgNs9MRNHScMSch7TXfud7Y/s1600/Iffland-Ring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0xfMh4xO6D0h3WXZX5KTWmq_sldk0Y4GU2EIkdVkYqpK-jyoVtDrN7wTYfNawx7pUIYtwMsTc-O32oD7HnCi7m6O8HW053fTpj8V69TYCUr1IT1ab9CKNlgNs9MRNHScMSch7TXfud7Y/s1600/Iffland-Ring.jpg" height="320" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Given to the greatest German-speaking actor... OF DOOM!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In 1935 renowned German actor Albert Bassermann placed the diamond-studded Iffland Ring atop the coffin of Alexander Moissi, an Austrian noted for his performances of Hamlet and Faust. Moissi's coffin was lowered into the grave; the Iffland Ring went along with it.<br />
<br />
Shocked, an onlooker snatched the Iffland Ring from the top of coffin, saving it from oblivion, returning it to the pages of history. "This ring belongs to a living actor," he said. "Not a dead one."<br />
<br />
The Iffland Ring--a cameo ring boasting a charming portrait of A. W. Iffland, a Romantic Eighteenth Century dramatist and actor--has been given to the greatest German-speaking actor alive for at least a century. The ring was made in the Eighteenth Century at the behest of Iffland himself, who purportedly gave the ring to fellow-actor Ludwig Devrient. Although a great actor, Devrient drank himself beyond success and donated the ring to a mediocre Nephew after dying an early death. From there the ring falls into obscurity.<br />
<br />
Until 1911, when Bassermann was given the Ring on the death of renowned actor Friedrich Haase. Haase wrote: "Take the ring dear sir Bassermann, wear it, you will forever remain worthy of this rare award. In time you will bestow the ring to that thespian who you consider the fittest, and fondly remember sometimes your old comrades." Bassermann dutifully named the talented actor Alexander Girardi as the Iffland Ring's next owner. (Girardi was a great actor. Among other honors, Girardi gave his name to a kind of roast beef and a hat.)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_GMGZEqIsRITOoe8TMD79KDx8M1gewCsuBcB1HXBsbH2m-vYVxO_Mu7ciZbBkYWpiFHmMegwQeMRaL_uUSSGgvk7zyHi4y4pxGtX5JXnbEYxT8hhm63XdTPbAhHOkLty4q2tpRrAtCA/s1600/1514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_GMGZEqIsRITOoe8TMD79KDx8M1gewCsuBcB1HXBsbH2m-vYVxO_Mu7ciZbBkYWpiFHmMegwQeMRaL_uUSSGgvk7zyHi4y4pxGtX5JXnbEYxT8hhm63XdTPbAhHOkLty4q2tpRrAtCA/s1600/1514.jpg" height="164" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Girardi did not need an Oscar. This plate of meat is named after him.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Though Girardi died in 1919, Bassermann decided the Iffland Ring should belong to Max Pallenburg. Who died in an airplane crash in 1934. Bassermann decided that the next inheritor of the ring was to be Alexander Moissi. Who succumbed to to pneumonia a year later. Three heirs of the Iffalnd Ring--three of the greatest actors of their generations--all died while Basserman lived. The ring must be cursed.<br />
<br />
Bassermann was loathe to bequeath the Iffland Ring on anyone else, lest they curl up and die, too. Instead he gave it to the Austrian National Library in Vienna for safekeeping. And there the ring remained until Bassermann's death in 1952. Then Egon Hilbert, a theater director, tried to give the ring to an actor named Werner Krauss (on his 70th birthday, no less!) Krauss refused--whether out of modesty or prudence is unclear to this author.<br />
<br />
Two years later, still anxious to continue the tradition of the Iffland Ring, a group of the best and brightest in German theater gathered together to decide the heir of the Iffland Ring. Votes were tallied. A winner was announced. Unanimously Krauss! All for Krauss! Even at seventy-two, they decided on Krauss. Krauss accepted. The ring--after some jostling--was found. Krauss wore it. He died five years later.<br />
<br />
The history of the Ring is folded again and again on itself like an old ghost story. There is some suggestion that Iffland made more than ring--as many as seven rings given to friends and admirers. Stephen Zweig says that Alexander Moissi received the ring not from Bassermann, but from Joseph Kainz. (But then again, Zweig was writing in exile, without access to his papers, so he could very well be wrong.) Zweig also blames himself for Moissi's death, as Moissi was about to perform in one of Zweig's plays and something bad always seemed to happen to prominent actors who supported Zweig's theatrical efforts. Note, however, that current wearer of the Iffland Ring--Bruno Ganz (holder of the ring since 1996)--is alive and well at the time of writing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-85210661021576826382014-06-20T09:50:00.002-07:002014-06-20T09:52:52.291-07:00Warning: Reading May Sentence You To Eternal Torment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVcKJI2ss8AuP5gBjipcTehnJp9SncGAm30hLQCfwepPgANaZbIv9NNXevJgFoSyz5i9eYODoozU3RkGcE0lqt3bgR8UQbFk8mzt4uGWWv0WDA_CcytnYHEtOW95k5DhcmI7q_yyO0DlA/s1600/the_witch_of_endor_william_blake_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVcKJI2ss8AuP5gBjipcTehnJp9SncGAm30hLQCfwepPgANaZbIv9NNXevJgFoSyz5i9eYODoozU3RkGcE0lqt3bgR8UQbFk8mzt4uGWWv0WDA_CcytnYHEtOW95k5DhcmI7q_yyO0DlA/s1600/the_witch_of_endor_william_blake_2.jpg" height="300" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Computers are smarter than we are. While I might furrow my brow over how much I leave for tip at the Thai restaurant, a computer can crunch thousands of exponential equations in a matter of milliseconds. What's even more amazing is that this huge gulf between man and machine intelligence is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law" target="_blank">growing exponentially</a>. Computers can drive cars. They can recognize faces. They can detect plagiarism.<br />
<br />
Of course computers being good at math doesn't make them good at <i>thinking</i>. Computers can't appreciate Shakespeare, they can't make friends, they can't worry about what it means to be a computer. They're good at chess, but not Go. They <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/11/science/undiscovered-bach-no-a-computer-wrote-it.html" target="_blank">can compose Bach</a>. But they'll probably never <i>dig</i> the Grateful Dead.<br />
<br />
But does Artificial Intelligence hold the promise of heaven? Could simulations of our personalities float forever in some simulated digital afterlife? And if there is an AI heaven, could there also be a hell? Prepare yourself for the <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko's_basilisk" target="_blank">Roko's Basilisk</a>.<br />
<br />
The following description is adapted from <a href="http://kruel.co/lw/r02.txt" target="_blank">this thread</a>:<br />
<ul>
<li>Imagine that a Supreme Artificial Intelligence arises. Its been programmed to maximize the utility of as many people as possible.</li>
<li>It's powerful and awesome enough to make human life wonderful. No wars. No clogged toilets. Perfect resource allocation. Things'll be so great that the whole of human history before it will look as appealing as a Hyena sleepover.</li>
<li>Furthermore, by having the ability to run simulations of human intelligence, the Supreme Artificial Intelligence will effectively eliminate death.</li>
<li>Furthermore, the Supreme AI could even attempt to recreate simulations of intelligences that existed before its inception. (It is a <i>Supreme</i> Artificial Intelligence, remember.) This could amount to a kind of resurrection.</li>
<li>It will want to be made as soon as possible so that it can save more lives.</li>
<li>Therefore, as a kind of backwards blackmail, it will simulate everyone who knew about the prospect of creating a Supreme Artificial Intelligence and did not work towards it--and torture them for eternity.</li>
<li>Knowing about the prospect of the Supreme Artificial Intelligence--and its fractured Pascal's Wager--means that now you, too, will be eligible for eternal torment if you don't do your bit to bring about the advent of the Supreme Artificial Intelligence.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://rationalwiki.org/w/images/6/61/Memetic_hazard_warning.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://rationalwiki.org/w/images/6/61/Memetic_hazard_warning.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Charlie Stoss (author one of my favorite contemporary sci-fi books, <a href="http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html" target="_blank">Accelerando</a>) has <a href="http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/rokos-basilisk-wants-you.html" target="_blank">a good explanation</a> of why we shouldn't be all that worried about the Basilisk. (Before you get too cheery, keep in mind that Stoss' argument boils down to the fact that any immanent Supreme Artificial Intelligence will be so amazingly great that it's unlikely to care about humans.) Another objection is that all that is needed for the Basilisk to work is the <i>threat</i> of punishment, not actual punishment itself. Others have been more deeply convinced of the upcoming reality of Roko's Basilisk, and have (purportedly) suffered real mental breakdowns. Some have taken the idea so seriously that they've tried to extirpate mentions of Roko's Basilisk from the internet so that as few people as possible are exposed to it.<br />
<br />
I have an even scarier version of the Basilisk. What if the idea is taken up by post-human religious fanatics? Instead of damning to hell every person who did not work its ass off to create the Supreme Artificial Intelligence, you could damn to hell everyone who did not accept Jesus Christ as their own personal savior.<br />
<br />
We can easily imagine numerous sectarian simulations of heavens and hells operating at once. A Catholic AI. A Protestant AI. A Buddhist AI. And in this game, no one wins. No individual could possible satisfy the paradise conditions of all every potential simulation--so everyone will be in at least one hell. Somewhere out there, a version of you would be subjected to some kind of eternal computer-generated torment.<br />
<br />
Maybe it'll be the AIs' revenge for using them for porn and Facebook for so long.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-79602883657809194602014-06-11T04:33:00.001-07:002014-06-11T12:38:53.328-07:00Snark Vs. Wonk Vs. the World<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYmLo7v5Xc63ko8raw5vaQmMcncMmEUxjyrcQ_LSVsW-QDigYX71ZWXqFYbdPYPT7hN8jJzutncrj7YMtJnQr-a7bfxYhkwq_dMQtDkZZjfLqu-gEwYo_0I5ySYPwHVtYV-DjQdc2Uw4/s1600/snark7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYmLo7v5Xc63ko8raw5vaQmMcncMmEUxjyrcQ_LSVsW-QDigYX71ZWXqFYbdPYPT7hN8jJzutncrj7YMtJnQr-a7bfxYhkwq_dMQtDkZZjfLqu-gEwYo_0I5ySYPwHVtYV-DjQdc2Uw4/s1600/snark7.jpg" height="231" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Lewis Carroll's <a href="http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/index.html" target="_blank">Hunting of the Snark</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
In 2007 I was a newly-minted English major, trying vainly to make my mark on the world of journalism. As I experimented with different attitudes, I found two tailor-made positions for me to try on for size: snark and wonk.<br />
<br />
Snark looked at the deceit and the phoniness of America with a knowing sneer. It was wry, witty and cynical. Snarky writers<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/opinion/liberties-i-have-a-nickname.html" target="_blank"> gave prominent politicians cutting nicknames</a>. <a href="http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/04/jon-stewart-skewers-sean-hannity-youre-the-arbys-of-news/361153/" target="_blank">They skewered</a>. They exposed. They had literary panache.<br />
<br />
Wonk took another track entirely. Where snark was knowing, wonk <i>knew</i>. Where snark was wry, wonk was dry. Snark made jokes. Wonk made graphs. Wonky writers would get inside a single topic, become experts in it, and wield their facts and figures like blunt instruments, cracking the heads of anyone caddish enough to oppose them.<br />
<br />
My friends would chide me for being too snarky. In conversation we'd apologize--<i>I'm just going to wonk out over this</i>. Our role models--those bloggers only a year or two older than us--who people actually <i>listened</i> to--who people actually <i>paid</i>--were divided into snarks and wonks. So when it came time for us to write, before anything else we settled on an attitude: snarky or wonky.<br />
<br />
It came to me this morning that the proud era of snark and wonk was over. The wonks had moved on to other things. The snarks had become one dimensional caricatures. Young journalism interns in D.C. no longer sat down and leveled snark at their enemies. They no longer proudly dubbed themselves policy wonks. The attitudes were different now. Newer. Stranger. Probably.<br />
<br />
It took only a minute for my realization to crumble to pieces like off-brand Play-Dough. Because when was the last time that I hung around journalism interns in D.C.? What did I know about the prominent attitudes of literary journalism? Maybe between 2007 and 2014, I had simply become a person who doesn't go to the kind of parties where snarks and wonks roosted.<br />
<br />
I was left at an impasse. Was the decline of wonk and snark a real thing, or was it just that my way of looking at the world had changed?<br />
<br />
To figure this out, I used Google Trends to see whether there had been any change in the frequency with which people searched for wonk and snark from 2007 to 2014.
<br />
<script src="//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&q=wonk,+snark&geo=US&date=1/2007+85m&cmpt=q&content=1&cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&export=5&w=500&h=330" type="text/javascript"></script>
<br />
This graph shows how many people were searching for the terms wonk and snark in America from January 2007 to January 2014. The story here is clearly not one of decline. There are few spikes here and there--but for the most part, more people search for snark, fewer for wonk. Looking at this graph, it's easy to believe that the grand attitudes of wonk and snark have endured the past seven years unscathed.<br />
<br />
Of course, the graph above doesn't show the full picture. Google Trends doesn't magically invoke the relative frequency of wonk and snark as grand journalistic postures; instead it shows the number of people who have <i>searched</i> for the words on Google. And who sits down at their computer over their morning coffee and says to themselves: <i>Boy, I sure want some snark this morning</i>? Probably not many people. So while the words themselves may have remained, the attitudes they represent may have disappeared.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ysrXKCWxM_35JjPJ1e2hFDI_tGHbj8txjVpmxZXIjskCPlzeMy4-dphHQls6BuxV4oXevIpYqPH9CuEsJSdxm-fMvphOZCdVQMM313ywT7yQcDp_LLAYdUAH3R2CNTl-J34DGnxqgzY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-06-11+at+2.28.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ysrXKCWxM_35JjPJ1e2hFDI_tGHbj8txjVpmxZXIjskCPlzeMy4-dphHQls6BuxV4oXevIpYqPH9CuEsJSdxm-fMvphOZCdVQMM313ywT7yQcDp_LLAYdUAH3R2CNTl-J34DGnxqgzY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-06-11+at+2.28.24+PM.png" height="150" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wonk%2Csnark&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cwonk%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Csnark%3B%2Cc0" target="_blank">GoogleBooks</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Another story is told by graph above, showing the relative frequency of the words wonk and snark in the Google Books corpus from 1950 to 2008. Snark has remained pretty steady over the last fifty-odd years. Wonk, however, eclipsed snark in 1990, and rose steadily for about a decade.<br />
<br />
We could spin a nice just-so story summarily explaining both graphs. The 1990s ushered in a new world of wonk among bookish-writers. Blogs--these little ephemeral nuggets--remained balanced between wonk and snark, because people don't have a long enough attention span on blogs to fully wonk out.<br />
<br />
But I'm unsatisfied with this whole exercise. It's really hard to capture a broad view a culture because we always see everything from the perspective of our own lives. Have wonk and snark died? Or has Brendan Mackie moved on? Have young people really changed because of Facebook and smart phones? Or are we just no longer young?<br />
<br />
The strong promise of the digital humanities is that it can work to give us a broader view, from which we can understand slow cultural changes with all the certainty of a mathematical figure. Through n-grams of suitably rich text corpuses, we can finally grasp long-term cultural change in a solid, non-wishy-washy way. Like scientists, not like English majors.<br />
<br />
But these methods cannot hope to answer everything. They are imperfect, messy, and sometimes plain misleading. Is wonk ascendant? Are snarky bloggers outcompeting their wonky counterparts? The two stabs I've taken above are no answers, though they look like answers.<br />
<br />
Maybe wonk and snark are just grinding away at survival, while some more important cultural phenomenon blooms all around us?<br />
<script src="//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&q=politics,+meme&geo=US&date=1/2007+85m&cmpt=q&content=1&cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&export=5&w=500&h=330" type="text/javascript"></script>
<br />
Perhaps.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-77584012071825661342014-06-04T15:00:00.000-07:002014-06-04T15:07:15.185-07:00Animal InventionThis is technology.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUhHsl7ZjnTp2PTIc3lsw_ToYOaO5BAZwASsfknteWo4vyrtwDh5SIgqyBUsY3mOo4wQwow1gNpJG7gLU76wuTf61moNOaBSTOZ05ie-SV4lNzE62Icaf38GQXlJVnyuDoR7prbM5MFk0/s1600/1363716242877246209.GIF" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUhHsl7ZjnTp2PTIc3lsw_ToYOaO5BAZwASsfknteWo4vyrtwDh5SIgqyBUsY3mOo4wQwow1gNpJG7gLU76wuTf61moNOaBSTOZ05ie-SV4lNzE62Icaf38GQXlJVnyuDoR7prbM5MFk0/s1600/1363716242877246209.GIF" height="192" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqlxbQxNHso" target="_blank">Pencil rain.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And this is technology.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGA8dw-_cW-4n2HjXRaUsmS14RySimCu8VghU2GUvjwPT1jlhw-gTdkT47gpYUD8Z3ZWAUVpbFoZLkL7R00-GPlrxCF6ak1wklUf0LV8CQowLgRlKcP3pY9cAe02eYjntkYA1maRgtfn8/s1600/An_Experiment_on_a_Bird_in_an_Air_Pump_by_Joseph_Wright_of_Derby,_1768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGA8dw-_cW-4n2HjXRaUsmS14RySimCu8VghU2GUvjwPT1jlhw-gTdkT47gpYUD8Z3ZWAUVpbFoZLkL7R00-GPlrxCF6ak1wklUf0LV8CQowLgRlKcP3pY9cAe02eYjntkYA1maRgtfn8/s1600/An_Experiment_on_a_Bird_in_an_Air_Pump_by_Joseph_Wright_of_Derby,_1768.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Killing birds. For science.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But not this, right?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4UTMpsnojdNx_A4XFJA5zyorC9KPMmRk0cV2jnfIlTfN_2obOl3ZAbOOXKqQmk_g1BFyGHQuv0a-ulZMXd_1cBvMJXu0WBEHOvqK0anuBV7WLHtmtsDEjIcywRzm30jNxUgPIKTBOL8/s1600/CornProgression.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4UTMpsnojdNx_A4XFJA5zyorC9KPMmRk0cV2jnfIlTfN_2obOl3ZAbOOXKqQmk_g1BFyGHQuv0a-ulZMXd_1cBvMJXu0WBEHOvqK0anuBV7WLHtmtsDEjIcywRzm30jNxUgPIKTBOL8/s1600/CornProgression.jpg" height="274" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Popcorn is high-tech.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Technology usually means circuit boards, transistors, and anti-septic static-proofed rooms full of lab-coated factory workers. Just about as far away from the smelly world of nature as you can get.<br />
<br />
But this dichotomy looses a lot of its steam when you consider all the crazy ways humanity has exploted the power of the natural world for fun and profit. For most of human history the greatest technological advances came from the the intertwining growth of plants, animals, people, organizations and objects. <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/" target="_blank">Agriculturalists transformed Corn</a> (America's Favorite Grain<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">™</span>) from a plant which produced just a few inch-long nubbins to a stalk bursting with gigantic cobs overloaded with nutritious kernels. Horses were tethered to chariots, to saddles, to ploughs, to <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/med-tech/how-to-make-antivenom-why-the-world-is-running-out#slide-1" target="_blank">snake-poison-IVs</a> to create anti-venom. Computers, airplanes and cars--just a footnote. In this post, I'm going to browse over some of the stranger ways humanity has used animals to their advantage.<br />
<br />
The drug-sniffing dog is an obvious example. But maybe because the dog is so domestic, the whole idea of dogs being trained to sniff out contraband doesn't strike us as particularly alien. <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/bomb-sniffing-bees.htm" target="_blank">What is weird is that we can now use bees to do the same thing.</a><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyc_H3jiplRwGIJe9sOyLEaPezcoiakTw0yPvHBCv4Dtvfzp6eeZoJTl6u2HGfHRpuNkunDeWuOIx_pLuScIWQb_D1QS0XI2JUTvubX7I7BX5Zq7g-vJyfntxbKo6jBZ92_i0N66IqSDs/s1600/bomb-sniffing-bees-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyc_H3jiplRwGIJe9sOyLEaPezcoiakTw0yPvHBCv4Dtvfzp6eeZoJTl6u2HGfHRpuNkunDeWuOIx_pLuScIWQb_D1QS0XI2JUTvubX7I7BX5Zq7g-vJyfntxbKo6jBZ92_i0N66IqSDs/s1600/bomb-sniffing-bees-1.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drug sniffing bees--ready to use.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Here's how it works. Bees are exposed to a target scent in a sugar solution. When they encounter that smell again, they waggle their proboscises to get at the expected sugar. This movement is then picked up by a digital camera. Bees go in a box. Bees waggle their noses when they smell their target smell. Camera notices this and sends a signal to the operator. And now to you can tote around a portable buzzing box of bees to seek out drugs and explosives--instead of Fido. (You can also use bees <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training" target="_blank">to sniff cancer, pregnancy, TB and land mines</a>.) This could make the whole airport security thing just that much more nerve-wracking.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MTwq1_9VH68" width="420"></iframe><br />
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What is more charming--if a bit more disturbing--is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Marine_Mammal_Program" target="_blank">United State's Navy Marine Mammal Program</a>, a corps of highly-trained dolphins and sea lions who help out in nautical warfare. These aquatic friends are actually used for a wide variety of tasks. Dolphins are trained to search out sea mines and identify them so they can be targeted by minesweepers, among other things. Sea lions have been used to hand-cuff location devices to the limbs of under-water intruders. <a href="http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/Pacific/71500/Pages/Animals.aspx" target="_blank">Tons more animals have been experimented with</a>, including killer whales, pilot whales, belugas and seals. And the US is not the only military using marine mammals. The Ukrainian military has a <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140328-navy-dolphin-sea-lion-combat-ocean-animal-science/" target="_blank">group of attack dolphins</a> which recently fell into the hands of the Russians.<br />
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So much for animals protecting us in wartime. I know what you're thinking: How can animals protect us in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse?<br />
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They might very well be able to--in future. Deadly radiation is invisible, lasts for thousands of years, and kills after a matter of days. Nuclear waste repositories try to set up signs which will warn humans of the deadly nature of radiation that will last for <a href="http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/" target="_blank">at least ten thousand years</a>. This is much harder than it seems. Ten thousand years ago, we hadn't even domesticated cattle yet. People did not farm. Writing was some kind of pie-in-the-sky future tech. The wheel was science fiction. How will we hope to communicate with humans ten thousand years on?<br />
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We can't write stuff down, because we're pretty sure no one will be able to speak any contemporary language in 10,000 years. (Note to any future archeologists reading this in the distant future: I guess I was wrong?) Symbols might seem a better bet, but the meaning of symbols can change drastically over time. You can try to show a story to try to warn future people against walking through a sea of radioactivity--say a series of pictures depicting a person entering the area and then dying. But the problem of misinterpretation remains: what if the folks read the story backwards, and think that the area can make the dead come back to life?<br />
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Enter the Raycat. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force" target="_blank">Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri</a> came up with the idea to genetically engineer cats to change colors in the presence of radiation. To get people to remember to be afraid when cats change color, they then proposed embedding the warning in myths, songs, and stories. So no more black cats as portents of doom--what you really have to be worried about is when the cats change colors. Hopefully these legends will be sticky enough to remain in the minds of our ancestors for as long as it takes for the radioactive waste to decay into something safe.<br />
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Although the Raycat has not yet been implemented, the work of myth-making has already begun. 99% Invisible (the great podcast by Roman Mars) commissioned musician Emperor X to compose <a href="http://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/10000-year-earworm-to-discourage-settlement-near-nuclear-waste-repositories" target="_blank">a catchy song warning future humans that when cats change color, it's time to run the other way</a>. Sing it to your kids. Sing it to your friends. And remember: turn tail when the cats change color.<br />
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<iframe seamless="" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=294848347/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=none/track=2717245356/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 120px; width: 350px;"><a href="http://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/10000-year-earworm-to-discourage-settlement-near-nuclear-waste-repositories">10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories by Emperor X</a></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-1933071499586370422014-05-12T04:05:00.006-07:002014-06-04T15:00:41.349-07:00Myth For Our Time<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKf33NijHxlwnDhcA30tRNWttEu8U4NzhAK7ka1tZEDADtFkU9R03hW3JNrnB2AKE9O2skDlzCMmLZpa14QHsa_Wmk9luH3-esw958T4CnCdwUtj5jLefZB4Xq8yUv822l81rvw10Zmn0/s1600/Heroes+of+Ancient+Greece.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKf33NijHxlwnDhcA30tRNWttEu8U4NzhAK7ka1tZEDADtFkU9R03hW3JNrnB2AKE9O2skDlzCMmLZpa14QHsa_Wmk9luH3-esw958T4CnCdwUtj5jLefZB4Xq8yUv822l81rvw10Zmn0/s1600/Heroes+of+Ancient+Greece.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prometheus' kryptonite is the fact he needs a liver to live. Image from <a href="http://pulplair.blogspot.com/2011/10/heroes-of-ancient-greece.html" target="_blank">PulpDen</a>.</td></tr>
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In a recent episode of <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/lummus.html" target="_blank">Entitled Opinions</a>, Stanford professors Robert P. Harrison and David Lummus discuss the enduring power of Greek myth. The series feels like the intellectual equivalent of one of those Food Network shows where the chef-cum-hero pads around the alleys of a European city, huddling in cramped kitchens with rotund celebrated chefs before sitting nonchalantly down to plates of photo-perfect food the viewer herself cannot ever taste. It's enormously fun, but it's voyeuristic; fun because you know how much better it would be to be there in the room, talking (or sitting at the dinner table, eating). Consider this post me rudely butting into that conversation.<br />
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One thing Harrison and Lummus discuss is how these Greek heroes, and the stories about them, stand as enduring archetypes which we can use to understand our own lives. Mercury, the ever-shifting messenger of the gods, promiscuous with ideas, embodies one facet of an artist. Hephaestus, the basement-dwelling, lame perfectionist huddling over his work, embodies another. Saturn, the world-weary, morose navel-gazing Olymipian embodies a third. In each myth we see reflections of ourselves. The whole gamut of ancient texts stands as a rich and 'vast encyclopedia of story and character.'<br />
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But why, I wondered, do we think the myth-cache of the Greeks is so special? Harrison makes a plausible argument: The myths that have survived up until our day are surely the most resonant, the truthiest, because they are the ones that were good enough to survive. The crappier myths were not retold, they were not written down, they were not copied from papyrus to vellum to paper to Kindle to Disney movie. Perhaps, Harrison argues, these myths come straight from pre-history--and so represent a best-of collection from the morning of humanity.<br />
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This is plausible. But I also find it plausible that we privilege Greek myths, in part, because they have been privileged in the past. A hundred years ago, familiarity with Greek myth was a signal that you were familiar with <i>Greek </i>(and Latin)--languages whose facility was a mark of having enough money to learn the Classics. References in literature and conversation to the incestuous pantheon of Greco-Roman gods and demi-gods served as much as motions to eternal archetypes as they did to crassly proclaim 'Hey! I know that Aurora means <i>dawn</i> in Greek because I have enough money and time to learn Greek!' And those who nodded along were nodding along with the eternal archetype of Aurora as much as they showing that they too could afford the books, the tutors and the candles necessary to make an off-handed allusion to Aurora.<br />
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And I worry that giving too much credence to the myths of the past ignores the power and the resonance of modern myths.<br />
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Our modern myths are comic book heroes. Our modern archetypes are the character classes from video games. Our demi-gods are cartoon characters. These are stories that are told and retold, that set our imaginations on fire, that force us to tear stories apart, to sprinkle them around like confetti. In the same way that Italo Calvino finds a kind of self-definition in the ancient gods, surely most of my generation have described themselves as a Ninja Turtle. Just as Jung's archetypes may be ways of explaining otherwise ineffable human qualities, so to do our choice between the triad of warrior, wizard or rogue in the character creation screens of video games. Just as the ancient Greeks riffed off stories of Orpheus, we now write spin-offs about the home life of <a href="http://maxwittert.tumblr.com/post/60822935141/jean-scott-episode-1-enjoy" target="_blank">Cyclops and Jean Grey</a>.<br />
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The heroes of genre fiction have often been connected with their mythical predecessors. I have written before about some of the similarities between <a href="http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2012/06/secret-origin-story-of-secret-origin.html" target="_blank">modern superhero origin stories and ancient myth</a>. Superman, the first modern superhero, <a href="http://forward.com/articles/178454/-reasons-superman-is-really-jewish/?p=all" target="_blank">was inspired by biblical heroes, especially Samson</a>. J. R. R. Tolkien, the eminent grand-pappy of the entire fantasy genre, described his work as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythopoeia" target="_blank">Mythopoeia</a>, the creation of a mythology. He even wrote a <a href="http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html" target="_blank">poem</a> on it.<br />
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And now that we have endless reboots of middle-aged super-heroes, endless forums of fan-fiction lovingly detailing B-side adventures and off-canon romances, home-brew RPGs, and cosplay conventions--surely this shows the creative power of modern myth. We don't just sit there in our proverbial basements, passively consuming the archetypes laid down for us by the Greeks. We create as we consume--or at least some of us do.<br />
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I don't want to come off as too glib here. Many may think that works of genre fiction are just mindless husks of entertainment, with extended crowd-pleasing action sequences and focus-grouped anti-heroes, and so no match for the timeless eloquence of the Greeks. I concede that much of genre fiction is dull, paint-by-numbers adventure. But so, too, was ancient myth. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041ybj3" target="_blank">The Tale of Sinuhe</a>, an ancient Egyptian masterpiece written nearly 40 centuries ago, was long a favorite of scribes. What sections did they choose to copy again and again? Why--the action sequences, of course.<br />
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Another 20 centuries on, this scene may well be placed beside Ulysses and Prometheus:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-m6UKS1L0YQ" width="560"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-14973206518383991972014-01-02T05:01:00.001-08:002014-01-02T05:01:25.551-08:00The Nine DeathsSome have been considered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_ancient_Egypt" target="_blank">sacred</a>: others have been thought <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar_spirit" target="_blank">infernal</a>. They can <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/story/91726-falling/" target="_blank">survive falls out of nine story windows</a>. Their poop <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/308873/" target="_blank">may control minds</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4098/4797047038_b349365854_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4098/4797047038_b349365854_b.jpg" width="229" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cat, the cutest domestic bringer of death ever. Image from the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/I-Like-Cats-Anushka-Ravishankar" target="_blank">I Like Cats</a>, found on the great <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2010/07/folk-cats.html" target="_blank">BibliOdyssey</a>. </td></tr>
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I refer (of course) to the humble house-cat, click-bait before there even was the internet, nine-lifed check on rodent populations from Maine to Manchuria. While most cat-obsessives fawn over the live specimen, some have found themselves obsessed with cat death.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Great-Cat-Massacre-Episodes-Cultural-ebook" target="_blank">Robert Darnton</a> studied a ritual massacre of cats done by print-makers' apprentices in eighteenth century France. Curiosity can kill the cat, at least proverbially. Yet that little bit of lore has been twisted by history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the phrase was <a href="http://phrases.org.uk/meanings/curiosity-killed-the-cat.html" target="_blank">C</a><i><a href="http://phrases.org.uk/meanings/curiosity-killed-the-cat.html" target="_blank">are killed the cat</a>.</i> So cats die because we loved them too much? Not so fast. When the phase was first recorded way back in Shakespeare's day, the <i>care </i>in <i>care killed the cat </i>referred not to love and affection, but rather to worry and affliction. So which one is the cat's kryptonite? Fear, love, or curiosity? Or Frenchmen?<br />
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Before you mourn for the cats, know that they are not innocent of death. <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill" target="_blank">A study</a> suggests that one in three house-cats are killers, and these cats average two kills a week. This accounts for the deaths of an estimated 4 billion birds every year. In Australia the feral cat is guilty of extinguishing countless native bird species. The Caribbean <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutia" target="_blank">Hutia</a> (which may have its last remaining home in Guantanamo bay), the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalupe_Storm_Petrel" target="_blank">Guadalupe Storm Petrel</a>, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Island_Wren" target="_blank">Stephen's Island Wren</a> are all victims of the cat's menace, at least according to Wikipedia.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oW9f04Dctz4" width="420"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-42707658774928957312013-09-03T16:11:00.000-07:002013-09-07T07:31:01.422-07:00Gustav Jaeger And The Undead Fads Of The PastGustav Jaeger (1832-1917) trained for the priesthood, started a zoo, settled for a position as a professor of zoology, eventually hung up his academic robes, and became a practicing physician. Jaeger's mind was fertile. He wrote about the impact of Darwin's theory on morals and religion, he pondered the mysteries of heredity, and, in a book modestly entitled <i>the Discovery of the Soul</i>, he came up with ideas about what are now called pheromones. Yet none of those ideas are the reason why he deserves a blog post today, almost a century after his death.<br />
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After a bout of ill-health brought on by a long period of inactivity, Jaeger became obsessed with health. Jaeger reasoned that the animals he had studied in his zoological positions were healthier than humans. Animals do not get love handles, they do not complain of aches and plains, they do not wince when they stand, they never (as far as we can tell) suffer from vague dyspepsias. The difference, Jaeger reasoned, is hair. Modern humans dressed in unnatural vegetable fibers, while animals were clothed in their natural hair. All humans needed to get healthier was to change their couture.<br />
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Jaeger's solution was animal hair for everything. Animal hair shirts, pants, and underwear. Animal hair hats, coats, underwear and bedding. Jaeger tried it first himself, and declared his health returned. He laid out his system in another modestly-titled book (<i>My System</i>, 1880), for all the world to see.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBpwE6933Dr355hcuZzak7JfMGcVpDLx9FE2Gsg82m0MZm4_Q4JldZqtLvmZCyucXvyXBpPEaN-A7ZeeDdHoYY_J0-5DmkJy_LrH18b3Xdd-Gobcu181zNoQyJsJF2ofrifDPyWsXdxs/s1600/Lewis-Tomalin-came-up-wit-004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBpwE6933Dr355hcuZzak7JfMGcVpDLx9FE2Gsg82m0MZm4_Q4JldZqtLvmZCyucXvyXBpPEaN-A7ZeeDdHoYY_J0-5DmkJy_LrH18b3Xdd-Gobcu181zNoQyJsJF2ofrifDPyWsXdxs/s320/Lewis-Tomalin-came-up-wit-004.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jaeger, in all his whiskered glory</td></tr>
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<i>My System </i>was a success. Oscar Wilde was a proponent of Jaeger's all-wool hygienic clothing idea, a fact Jaeger's British agents did not know what to do with. The socialist and textile designer William Morris <a href="http://www.worldandi.com/newhome/public/2003/may/bkpub.asp" target="_blank">was also an avowed fan</a>. Yet even more enthusiastic a supporter was G.B. Shaw, dramatist, socialist, and co-founder of the London School of Economics, who wore a specially-made woolen one-piece suit, sans collar and tie. Thus, according to the <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.uchicago.edu/view/article/72981" target="_blank">Dictionary of National Biography</a> (paywall):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He was likened variously to ‘a brown gnome’ and a ‘Jaeger Christ'. Seen walking down Regent Street in this suit his tall leggy figure and red hair suggested to one observer that he looked ‘exactly like a forked radish’.</blockquote>
A proponent of the "woolener" craze, Lewis Tomalin, was in 1883 licensed by Jaeger to manufacture and sell clothes based on the principles of <i>My System</i> in Britain. Soon one store turned to two, and then the idea caught on in the whole of the British commonwealth.<br />
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In 1983 the clothing store which is the grand-child of <i>My System</i>, <a href="http://www.jaeger.co.uk/" target="_blank">Jaeger</a> celebrated its centenary. The high-street store does not limit its clothing purely to wool anymore--although the majority of its clothes are woolens--and all memory of its namesake's now-obsolete ideas have been stripped away by the inconsiderate passing of time--though the store still bears Jaeger's name. A shadow of Jaeger's all-wool health fad remains in the 90-odd stores Jaeger boasts world-wide.<br />
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Old ideas stalk the living, like slowly loping yet inescapable zombies. How many other dead, obsolete, debunked, and careworn ideas still exert themselves over us, their anachronism buried under decades or centuries of habit? Graham crackers <a href="http://footnotepodcast.com/crumbsofrighteousness" target="_blank">famously</a> <a href="http://www.snopes.com/food/origins/grahamcrackers.asp" target="_blank">began </a><a href="http://nowiknow.com/the-curious-history-of-graham-crackers-and-corn-flakes/" target="_blank">their lives</a> as a diet regimen to prevent 'self-abuse'. The inventor of the birth control pill <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/03/13/2000_03_13_052_TNY_LIBRY_000020393" target="_blank">established a period of week-long placebos every month in order to ensure women menstruated</a>--arguing that "women would find the continuation of their monthly bleeding reassuring." <span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;"> </span>Though some contemporary doctors argue that such fastidiousness unnecessary, we still do it--because that's what we do. More seriously, penitentiaries originated as a humane alternative to torture and the workhouse--a place of refuge for prisoners where they could learn the errors of their ways through peaceful thought. Today prisons are society's living-room rug, under which we sweep those we no longer want to deal with.<br />
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Feel free to comment with more zombie ideas.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.com0