Let’s get it on
Posted by Ray @ 10:02 pmNeil Gaiman has made available online 3/4ths of the first chapter of his new novel, Anansi Boys. I haven’t read it yet, because as I was reading his blog entry on the matter, something else caught my eye: the Flesch-Kincaid readability test!
Apparently it’s a mathematical test of how readable your essay/book/chunk-of-text is. According to the Wikipedia entry, the US government itself uses it as a standard (not sure how good an endorsement that is, but there you go). But getting to the point: I saw an online gizmo you could use to get your own Flesch-Kincaid score.
‘Heh heh heh~’, I thought. ‘It’s time to see just how good our local blogders are!’
So in total disregard of the looming exam schedule, I got to work copy-pasting random blogder’s URLs into The Machine. The scores are based on two factors: how easy it is to read, and how it stacks up to major publications. The list of publications goes something like this:
TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain (simple)
Reader’s Digest
Most popular novels
Time, Newsweek
Wall Street Journal
The Times, The Guardian
Academic papers
The government is covering something up (obfuscated)
Without further ado, here are the results!
Xiaxue - http://xiaxue.blogspot.com/
Ease of reading: 84.46
Standard of writing: TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain
I’m sure the gizmo isn’t saying that Xiaxue writes like the Bible. If she did, #2 on the Ten Commandments would read “Thou Shalt Not Proselytize”, and Christianity would have died out millenia ago.
mr brown - http://www.mrbrown.com/
Ease of reading: 79.28
Standard of writing: Reader’s Digest
Wah, mr brown can compare to Reader’s Digest! Not bad, not bad. Or maybe the singlish just messed with the gizmo - I don’t know. But there are more heavyweight contenders to come!
Mr Miyagi - http://myveryownglob.blogspot.com/
Ease of reading: 74.95
Standard of writing: Most popular novels
Out of nowhere, Mr Miyagi comes in and thrashes mr brown! He writes like a pop-novelist. Really. Don’t look at me like that, computer say one!
Wannabe Lawyer - http://shianux.jiyuuu.org/
Ease of reading: 60.85 (!)
Standard of writing: TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain.
Well, here it is at last. Conclusive proof that us lawyers are full of shit. Just look at that low readability score, coupled with that dumbed-down standard of writing! All those difficult words and we still only convey as much critical thought as a TV guide. And we’ll still make more money than you, suckers!
Popaghandi - http://popagandhi.com/
Ease of reading: 71.70
Standard of writing: Most Popular Novels
What’s this? A valiant effort to dislodge Mr Miyagi from the current top spot?! Will she succeed? But no - Mr Miyagi’s blog is easier to read! Alas, ’tis a pity. Is there no one to stop his reign of superiority?
Daryl Sng - http://www.dsng.net/
Ease of reading: Ridiculously difficult
Standard of writing: The government is covering something up
Yes! One man bravely steps forth… but wait. This guy’s blog had such short snippets & such short quotes that getting an accurate gauge was next to impossible. When I found his “Robots” review I thought, AHA, some content to gauge! But his web page was so deviously written that it broke the gizmo:
His “Closer” review also nuked the gizmo.
I can only conclude that his blog contains evil subliminal messages. Don’t go to it! Wait later you all get mind-controlled or something.
Mayhemics - http://www.geocities.com/mayhemics/home.htm
Ease of reading: 59.19 (!)
Standard of writing: Wall Street Journal (!)
On a whim, and suspicious of the accuracy of the broken gizmo, I loaded a passage that I knew to be enigmatic. Now the author (whom we shall call D) will adamantly insist that this is not a blog, and it isn’t - I just wanted to mess with the gizmo. The result? The passage is hard to read, but talks at the mental level of the Wall Street Journal - which is probably pretty accurate. Despite being the highest, knowing D, he’s likely to take that as an insult.
So there you have it! Our winners are:
1st Place: Mr Miyagi
Most Readable Blog: Xiaxue
Most Scary Blog: Daryl Sng
What about Squarebrain? Well… see, that’s kind of embarrassing. We scored pretty well on the readability, but couldn’t even garner enough points to be compared to a TV guide. That would put us… um. In last place. Thank god we’re not actually a blog!
(Test notes: blogs that quote extensively would not accurately reflect the skill of the blogder. In such cases I tried to choose a particular wordy post of the blogger’s own words to rank. But then I realized that those posts will have tons of comments from other people, too. At which point I gave up on all appearances of being fair. So don’t use these results for anything important!)
Briefly on KOTOR (Geek alert!)
Posted by Ray @ 2:19 pm
KOTOR is, of course, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I enjoyed it and its sequel more than I enjoyed the prequel movies.
Do also check out Clone Wars, an animated miniseries that’s supposed to fill the gap between Episodes II and III. It’s a damn sight better than what Lucas has been dragging out of his decrepit mind.