Ten Most Popular Page Views

Since, I opened this blog on January 2, 2011, these articles have tallied the most readers.

What (if Anything) Did Dorothy Learn? 

(3600 pageviews. January 6, 2012)

At the end of the 1939 movie version of The Wizard of Oz, Glinda the Good Witch says that Dorothy could have gone home any time, but she had to learn that for herself.  Scarecrow asks Dorothy what she learned.  …  Clearly, what begins as a cliché ends as a contraction.

Contradictions in the Constitution 

(2721 pageviews. August 13, 2013)

This grew out of a discussion on Galt’s Gulch Online.  Ayn Rand suggested that as admirable as the Constitution is, not having been based on a consistent philosophy, it contained the seeds of its own destruction.

Alongside Night to Run in Austin; Author to Appear  

(1800 pageviews. May 27, 2014)

With help from my anarcho-capitalist comrades here in town, we brought a screening of this movie and its author here for a weekend.

With a cameo by Ron Paul, Alongside Night is the story of the final economic collapse of the United States. We see it through the eyes of 16-year-old Elliot Vreeland.  Elliott searches for his father, a Nobel laureate economist who was targeted for arrest because he consulted with the Europeans to create a gold-based currency that effectively destroyed all confidence in the U.S. dollar. 

Bob Swanson and Genentech 

(689 pageviews.  July 3, 2013)

Bob Swanson was 29 when he provided the money for Prof. Herbert Boyer to start Genentech.  Like all overnight successes, the real story is more complicated, with deep roots.  Bright, accomplished, and motivated, Swanson had obvious potential – and a string of failures to show for it.

William Sheldon: Psychologist,Numismatist and Thief  

(603 pageviews. September 1, 2013)

Dr. William Herbert Sheldon, Jr., (1898 – 1977) came from a privileged family. The philosopher William James was his godfather. Sheldon created the 70-point grading scale that is the standard in modern American numismatics.  He also pioneered the study of Early American Copper, the Large Cents and Half Cents struck until 1857. He also stole coins from the American Numismatic Society; and he defrauded other collectors.

Debt: the Seed of Civilization 

(555 pageviews.  December 28, 2011)

In these days of anti-capitalist protest, it is important to know that keeping track of debts led to the inventions of counting and writing, and eventually gave voice to art.

There is no John Galt: And That’sWorse

(359 pageviews. September 13, 2014)

What you tax you get less of; and what you subsidize you get more of.  The brightest people in the world are making video games; and no one is on the Moon.  It did not take a genius to figure this out: it is a universal law of human action

Supplies and Demands

(342 pageviews. November 25, 2011)

In Economics 101, the Supply curve and the Demand curve are displayed.   The point where they intersect is called “equilibrium” where the most efficient allocation of resources is claimed to occur.  This ignores the fact that the other choices do not disappear. People are still demanding and supplying all along both curves.

Scripophilly

(337 pageviews. August 10, 2013)

Scripophily is the study of stock certificates, bonds, and related fiduciary instruments. It is a subset of numismatics, the art and science that studies the forms and uses of money. Like coins, banknotes, checks (drafts), and tokens, stock certificates reveal the daily life and work of the times. And like other numismatic items, they can be highly artistic.

Republicans for Voldemort

(323 pageviews.  May 20, 2014)

In point of fact, such a claim would be unnecessary, as for instance, "Republicans for Bush" or "Republicans for Palin."  Logic demands that we accept Voldemort as a Democrat and allow that some Republicans favor his reign.

POPULAR THIS WEEK

In addition to those above, these were among the other posts that recently gained some attention.

Against Gulching

(88 pageviews. December 25, 2016)

The defining attribute of fans of the Atlas Shrugged movies is that they are people who want to set themselves apart in a separate, isolated and hidden community of like-minded people. Many dream of a physical locale. Most enjoy online communities. In those discussions, the occasional reports of attempts at a “Galt’s Gulch” receive close attention. Although the plot element of “Galt’s Gulch” served a poetic purpose, it was not a call to action.

Short Snorters

(14 pageviews. September 26, 2016)

A short snorter is paper money, signed by people who share a common experience. During World War II, with 16 million men and women in the American armed forces, the custom spread rapidly. After the war, it faded just as quickly.

Art and Copy

(7 pageviews. January 23, 2013)

Products become icons because of the insightful and compelling work of advertising.

Art & Copy (2009) is a film by Doug Pray.  “Everything that was done to launch that product is now done differently because of that product. ... Every computer company on the planet does their ads on a Mac.” – Lee Clow, creator of the Macintosh “1984” ad.

The Weatherman Songbook

(5 pageviews. February 5, 2014.)

"Some of the best things in life are free / If you can steal them from the bourgeosie!" When Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn came to Eastern Michigan University to speak to the New Students for a Democratic Society in 2010, I was there. Bill did not recognize me even though I was at the Flint War Council, December 27-31, 1969.

Peace is More Powerful

(4 pageviews. May 31, 2105)

Imagine a successful protest in Berlin 1943 against the Holocaust.  Between February 27 and March 6, about 200 German women stood outside a detainment center, demanding the release of their Jewish husbands. …  "Researchers used to say that no government could survive if just 5 percent of the population rose up against it," Chenoweth says. "Our data shows the number may be lower than that. No single campaign in that period [1900-2000] failed after they'd achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population." She adds, "But get this: every single campaign that exceeded that 3.5 percent point was a nonviolent one. The nonviolent campaigns were on average four times larger than the average violent campaigns."

JUST TO NOTE

I found a mirror site in Sweden:  http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.se/  I did not set it up; someone else unknown to me did that.  I also found that many readers come here via a Russian site, yandex.ru, which I have never visited because my personal protection is not strong enough for me to go gallivanting.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Open Secrets   

Science in the Middle Ages  

Money is Speech  

Laboratory Misconduct in the Courtroom  

India Two Point Oh: Amita and Raj 

Raymond Loewy

Today's Google Doodle celebrated the 120th birthday of Raymond Loewy, the father of industrial design. 

Raymond Loewy is called “the father of industrial design” for a reason.
He took ugly consumer items — pencil sharpeners, refrigerators — and made them beautiful.
He designed cars that were a decade or more ahead of their time.
He created kitchen appliances, crockery and furniture,
and did design work for Greyhound, the U.S. Postal Service and NASA.
(The website cataloging his work is here.) 

"I waited for the S-1 to pass through at full speed.
I stood on the platform and saw it coming from the distance at 120 miles per hour.
It flashed by me like a steel thunderbolt, the ground shaking under me,
 in a blast of air that almost sucked me into its whirlwind.
Approximately a million pounds of locomotive were crashing through near me.
I felt shaken and overwhelmed by an unforgettable feeling of power,
by a sense of pride at what I had helped to create.
I had, after all, contributed something to a great nation
that had taken me in and that I loved so deeply.
And I had come a long, happy way myself from my start in fashion advertising.
I had found my way of life."

Every artifact speaks to us, reflects us.  Loewy delivered the 20th century.  He was not alone but his sense of vision brought form to thousands of common items.  And they inspired a century of material progress that nurtured and rewarded the common (and largely unstated) belief that we can and will make a wonderful future.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
The Genius of Design
Space is the Place: Come to the High Frontier
Jack Kemeny Knew: We Shall Have Computed
The Cure for a Failing Empire
The Science of Liberty

Readability is the Only Metric

What you can measure, you can improve.  Whether you need creative content for e-commerce or step-by-step instructions for machine repair, you must reach your audience.   Microsoft Word offers metrics for readability, from the Grammar and Spelling checker, under Tools.   We have no quantified methods for creativity, invention, cleverness, or insight.  We can measure word length, sentence length, and sentences per paragraph.  

It is not perfect. In fact, it can be gimmicked, tricked, and gamed.  But it works.  On a project to develop a multiprocessor industrial controller, the other technical writer was a young guy from an advertising agency.  He did not know manufacturing, but he was good writer.  We enjoyed finding some of the many failings in the MS-Word readability scales. We still used them.  They proved that we documented the interactive debugger to a 6th grade reading level.  When the line is down, no one is looking for a literary experience. You need answers.

Texas Department of Information Resources
IT Policy - Originally at 12.9 reading level

Same IT Policy - Rewritten to 12.0 reading level.

Of the 300,000 main entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, only 3,000 are Basic English; and most of us speak only 10,000 distinct words.  The average college-educated American recognizes about 100,000 words.  Whether "fardels" in that list is putative.  So, Hamlet's rhetorical question might pass the readability score, but not carry meaning.  Whether "putative" is in your speaking vocabulary may be arguable.

The fact remains that we have an objective measure for readability. 

Also on Necessary Facts
Visualizing Complex Data
Documentation is Specification
The Art of Typography
 The Genius of Design
How to Hire a Technical Writer

ART & COPY

The Energizer Bunny, the Apple iPod, “Just do it.”, the Me Generation, Perrier, Ronald Reagan, “I Want My MTV.”,Tommy Hilfiger, “Got Milk?”, the Budweiser lizards, Netflix, “I Love New York”… 

Products become icons because of the insightful and compelling work of advertising.  Fifty years ago, advertising agencies were run by and for account executives, men in gray flannel suits.  The artists and writers – the “creatives” – worked behind the scenes, far from the client.  The art director and the writers may not have been even in the same room.  Like much else in the sixties, that changed when bold and aggressive creatives advocated for a new paradigm.  The goal was no longer to tell your customers about the five key features of your product.  Advertising now made your product integral to their self-identification.  That ultimately changed how companies saw themselves. 

Art & Copy (2009), a film by Doug Pray, is available from PBS and iTunes.  I borrowed it from the city library.   

 “Everything that was done to launch that product is now done differently because of that product. […film editing, sound and music editing, all the production tools of print…] Every computer company on the planet does their ads on a Mac.” – Lee Clow, creator of the Macintosh “1984” ad.

  

Mary Wells Lawrence rebranded Braniff Airlines
and became  the first woman to paint a jetliner.
Her autobiography is A Big Life in Advertising.

Hal Riney found Crocker Bank needing to replace its aging clientele.  He hired Paul Williams to write "We've Only Just Begun." The Carpenters took it to the top of the charts. Today, it is a standard at every wedding reception. 

Also on Necessary Facts
The Genius of Design
Objectified
Start the Presses two films about typography
Documentation is Specification