(no subject)

[andrew_jorgensen]

I don't think it would come as any surprise that Tyler Cowen of George Mason University and Marginal Revolution knows something I don't -- it's probable he knows quite a bit I don't -- but I am surprised to find that one fantasy I've enjoyed is, instead, fact:

What were the most blogged about books in 2005?

Here is a New York Times list, no permalink yet. The data are drawn from an automated survey of the top 5000 blogs. Freakonomics, Harry Potter, Blink, and The World is Flat lead the list. Jared Diamond has two in the top ten. Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds is #12. The first work of fiction is The da Vinci Code at #10. Orwell and Narnia are not far behind. I conclude, tentatively, that the blogosphere is increasing the influence of non-fiction books, relative to fiction.

Well, that explains that bespectacled punk who keeps coming around claiming that my Pinewood Derby trophy is some sort of "horcrux."

Comments

[rebekahroxanna.livejournal.com]

Boy, it has taken me a long time to understand your post (I still don't understand the last sentence, though). I was thinking of some fantasy that was, well, fantasy, like longing for tropical islands to go diving in, Palau and Yap come readily to mind, or perhaps traipsing around northern Africa in search of an eclipse. Not fantasy as a book. What was the name of the guy who was at Cleveland state who wrote for Scientific American who had kids in the Cleveland Heights schools? Or maybe he just lived in Cleveland Heights.

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Jearl Walker; he had kids in the Cleveland Heights summer camp program, at least.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Well, that explains that bespectacled punk who keeps coming around claiming that my Pinewood Derby trophy is some sort of "horcrux."

ROFL at the imagery.

Now I'm going to have to imagine the HP crowd intruding at random into people's house to ask if their is a horscrux, in a Brazil/Time Bandit fashion.

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's worth at least a drabble, but, having posted, I'm now all creatived out for the month.

the Times Union picked up this on music

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/12/13/study_online_music_sharing_can_spur_sales/

Btw, did you read Collapse orBlink?

Re: the Times Union picked up this on music

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link. Certainly it's been my belief that those people likely to download lots of music are also likely to buy a lot of music. Though pretty much exactly as I developed the capacity to violate a lot of copyrights, I pretty much stopped listening to music at all; but I do enjoy reading other people's suggestions.

I've read Collapse, and I've read some of the material Gladwell developed into Blink in The New Yorker and perhaps The New York Times Magazine. Collapse had a lot of interesting anthropological detail, which I liked, but there was a lot of tedious repetition within those 700 pages. I'd definitely recommend both Guns, Germs and Steel and The Third Chimpanzee over it.

Re: the Times Union picked up this on music

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Thank you; that is helpful. C arrived on ILL before GGS, and having read the Iceland chapter, I cancelled the other. I'll give it a try.

Your link was a by product. Trying to scrap up things Ben might be willing to write about for his Econ. class, that being the current fretty point. He dislikes the teacher intensely and has decided to fail the class. Le sigh. I mostly failed mine through laziness. each generation devlopes a new... Glad you liked it though!

(I am not going to ask you to dance, I think. Looks painful.;)

Re: the Times Union picked up this on music

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Many people think my dancing looks painful, but they usually have the heart not to tell me!

Re: the Times Union picked up this on music

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Does Collapse deal with the Soviet Union at all? Or is the CCCP not deemed to have "collapsed" as per the operative definition of the book?

Re: the Times Union picked up this on music

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that since there are still people alive in the former Soviet Union, that it had not suffered the sort of total environmental and social collapse Diamond primarily deals with; but, indeed, the index lists "Soviet Union, collapse of, 509. And on page 509, we find, "In fact, one of the main lessons to be learned from the collapses of the Maya, Anasazi, Easter Islanders, and those other past societies (as well as from the recent collapse of the Soviet Union) is that a society's steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth, and power." So, there. You may consider the Soviet Union dealt with.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

"Top 5000 blogs". What's the criterion for that? Hit count? And here I thought blogging was supposed to be the ultimate democratic medium. But it's gotten elitist.

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

It's all a beauty contest. And I mean that literally. That's why my little LiveJournal will never have the hits of, say, InstaPundit. He's just so much prettier.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. ::sigh::

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Look, the fact of the matter is that Harry Potter is at least as "real" as anything produced by the mind of Thos. Friedman. I mean, if I had a tought foreign policy decision to make and no one else to ask, I'm pretty sure I'd go with JKR's advice over TF's.

On a side note, I was disheartened (though not surprised) to read, in a recent CCT featurette on summer reading, that a certain Dean Yatrakis cited The World Is Flat as her #1 read of Summer 2005, calling Friedman "brilliant" and claiming that he "writes beautifully." No wonder my Columbia undergrads can't construct a lucid argument to save their souls.....

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I should note that I was, back a Gulf War or two ago, a big fan of From Beirut to Jerusalem. I also may be misremembering but I think I was somewhat fond of Dean Yatrakis, at least until the disciplinary hearing . . .