Metafilter helps! March 14, 2011 9:05 AM   Subscribe

David McCandless, who writes Information is Beautiful used an AskMeFi thread as part of his data for a cloud of books everyone should read.

He also uses Oprah's book club... but hey, it's nice to see AskMeFi out there in the world!
posted by cranberrymonger to MetaFilter-Related at 9:05 AM (31 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite

Word clouds. Bad visualization or the worst visualization?
posted by demiurge at 9:20 AM on March 14, 2011


Slightly amusing, since it seems to me that this askme thread would be (rightly) deleted if it were asked today.
posted by Think_Long at 9:20 AM on March 14, 2011


The post is in the top 25 google search results for "books everyone should read". I hope he does something next on 'ostriches with hands down their throat', cause do I have a post for HIM.
posted by cashman at 9:21 AM on March 14, 2011


What, no Spider-Man comic?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:25 AM on March 14, 2011


Oh, and for an example for what's wrong with word clouds, in this one To Kill a Mockingbird fills up about six times as much space as 1984. To Kill a Mockingbird is mentioned eleven times on the combined list and 1984 9 times. So logically, 1984 should be about 80% the size of Mockingbird. That seems misleading to me. There was an article on Junk Charts which proposed a fix for this, but I don't know if it would really make word clouds more informative than a table.
posted by demiurge at 9:33 AM on March 14, 2011


The problem is that To Kill a Mockingbird is in the biggest and darkest text, and it's right in the middle. Unless that book was recommended twice as often as any other, it shouldn't be so much more prominent than everything else.
posted by John Cohen at 9:43 AM on March 14, 2011


Though it's a very neat-looking cloud, it seems like a "best-selling fiction" books list, rather than a list of awesome/important books that someone thinks everyone should read. I realize it's not someone but a consensus. But seriously, Tristram Shandy? Ulysses? For everyone? Does this make me a snob? I hope not. But maybe. I am probably looking at it the wrong way, but maybe "consensus of everyone" is just way, way too broad to be useful? Twilight? ...

OMG, A Prayer for Owen Meany! Must read that again.
Apologies if this was supposed to be about word clouds as a thing, and not the specific content therein.

posted by Glinn at 10:16 AM on March 14, 2011


I for one am fond of word clouds; many's the happy memory I have of lying on a hill with a friend, staring dreamily into the sky, and occasionally pointing out, "Hey - that one looks like a gerund!"

He believed it was more of a preposition but he was looking at it upside down.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 10:30 AM on March 14, 2011 [7 favorites]


My heart sunk when I saw "The Da Vinci Code" in that cloud.
posted by piratebowling at 10:31 AM on March 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


And in type bigger than "Siddhartha" to boot.
posted by piratebowling at 10:31 AM on March 14, 2011


People SHOULD read The DaVinci Code, if only to be able to say that they are fully qualified to deem it shit.
posted by Madamina at 10:34 AM on March 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


People should read it, but not buy it. That's right, I'm advocating book piracy (aka libraries).
posted by DU at 10:49 AM on March 14, 2011


Now was this a list of books everyone should read from people born after 1989? Because that's all I'd be interested in.
posted by inturnaround at 11:04 AM on March 14, 2011


The DaVinci Code was better than The Celestine Prophecy.

So it's got that going for it.
posted by empath at 11:07 AM on March 14, 2011


Which is nice.
posted by rhizome at 11:33 AM on March 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


And would suffice.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:41 AM on March 14, 2011


Is also great
posted by zamboni at 11:54 AM on March 14, 2011


As shit goes, Dan Brown books are the best kind: the go quick and don't leave much behind.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:06 PM on March 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


As shit books go
Dan Brown's are the best kind.
They go by quick
and don't leave much behind.

Unlike James Joyce
that shit's the worst of these.
I guess I'm still
pushing through Ulysses.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:01 PM on March 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


cashman: "The post is in the top 25 google search results for "books everyone should read". I hope he does something next on 'ostriches with hands down their throat', cause do I have a post for HIM"

You just made a googlewhack.
posted by idiopath at 1:28 PM on March 14, 2011


demiurge: "Oh, and for an example for what's wrong with word clouds, in this one To Kill a Mockingbird fills up about six times as much space as 1984. To Kill a Mockingbird is mentioned eleven times on the combined list and 1984 9 times. So logically, 1984 should be about 80% the size of Mockingbird."

Not neccissarily - for example RMS of a signal is much more informative than raw amplitude - sometimes exact linear proportion hides relevant information rather than exposing it. If what you want to highlight is an ordering, it makes sense to exaggerate the proportions of ordering to make that information clear.
posted by idiopath at 1:32 PM on March 14, 2011


idiopath: I see your point, but I don't think that has much relevance to this infographic. 1984 and Crime and Punishment have the same number of the votes on the combined list and 1984 takes up about a fifth of the space as Crime and Punishment.
posted by demiurge at 1:55 PM on March 14, 2011


People SHOULD read The DaVinci Code, if only to be able to say that they are fully qualified to deem it shit.

This is precisely how I feel about all things related to the inexcusably execrable Twilight.
posted by elizardbits at 2:40 PM on March 14, 2011


I've an idea to draw a book called Information is GRAR. If I still remember the idea tomorrow I'll post it to Projects, otherwise it will get flushed along with my daily Dan Brown.
posted by Elmore at 2:56 PM on March 14, 2011


People SHOULD read The DaVinci Code, if only to be able to say that they are fully qualified to deem it shit.

You don't need to read that book to be fully qualified to deem it shit, pretty much any other book will do.
posted by Elmore at 3:00 PM on March 14, 2011


I admit I am disappointed with the generally negative reception of this post but am still glad I shared it, if only to learn the best Da Vinci Code burn ever, courtesy of Elmore.
posted by cranberrymonger at 3:40 PM on March 14, 2011


As shit goes, Dan Brown books are the best kind: they go quick and don't leave much behind.

Making it, fittingly, the precise opposite of Left Behind.
posted by joe lisboa at 4:33 PM on March 14, 2011


demiurge: "Oh, and for an example for what's wrong with word clouds, in this one To Kill a Mockingbird fills up about six times as much space as 1984. To Kill a Mockingbird is mentioned eleven times on the combined list and 1984 9 times. So logically, 1984 should be about 80% the size of Mockingbird."

Not neccissarily - for example RMS of a signal is much more informative than raw amplitude - sometimes exact linear proportion hides relevant information rather than exposing it. If what you want to highlight is an ordering, it makes sense to exaggerate the proportions of ordering to make that information clear.


Also, Nineteen Eighty Four is a better book.

Also also, one's scaling is bound to be out when one couldn't be bothered to spell the title correctly....
posted by pompomtom at 7:56 PM on March 14, 2011


So wouldn't it have been easier if he used book covers (pretty close to the same size for each book) instead of the name of the book? Then when you mouseover, you get the full title of the book? Then plot the books by areas of highest concentration, so the book cover of the book that was mentioned the most at all the sources is in the center, while the most popular book on ask metafilter would be larger (possibly) and more off to one side, possibly with another source of data that also had it highly regarded. That should also map with the most popular across all the sources grouped in the center, and then the popular but only in one crowd areas would go further out (and as it becomes less popular, I'm going to guess that the data would hold that a single source with four mentions instead of two would be able to pull it away from the center.

Thats my random, I should be asleep, comment for the night.
posted by mrzarquon at 1:41 AM on March 15, 2011


"So logically, 1984 should be about 80% the size of Mockingbird."

If you only look at font size, it looks like it is about 80%. The problem is the disparity in the lengths of the titles, right? Lesson learned: make your titles as long as possible!
posted by soelo at 12:22 PM on March 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


it seems to me that this askme thread would be (rightly) deleted if it were asked today.

That was the second or third question I ever asked on Metafilter and, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't ask it. I'm amazed it wasn't deleted as chatfilter. Still, a lot of people answered and favorited and it is cool to see it referenced like this.
posted by pasici at 6:10 PM on March 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


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