When we visited Vienna/Wien in 2015, it coincided with diplomatic talks about Syria, at the Hotel Imperial. These were the first talks Iran deigned to attend, so the atmosphere was quite hopeful that progress could be made.
We were in the hotel’s Café Imperial when I overheard that line from the distinguished gentleman above, presumably in one delegation or another. If you recognize the image, it’s because yes, this is the source for one of my banners.
I like looking at data. One thing I like is trends of names over time. Why? Because if you’re writing something, it makes sense the name of your character should match their age.
I like the Babynames.com site. It shows trends since 1910. (Though be careful. Enter names in the gray field right by the graph, not the darker one higher up the page — that way you’ll get results.) Here’s an example, using Jennifer, made famous for this kind of thing by the book Beyond Jennifer and Jason.
All right, but that’s not the only source. What about Social Security’s web site? (Go down to the “Popularity of a Name” box, and fill it in.) They’re using actual birth records as they come in.
The Social Security site shows a decline, just like Baby Names… but it’s much less sharp. What’s going on?
I had to think a while, and squint at the graphs, but I figured it out. In 1985, when the Social Security site tells us Jennifer was the 5th most popular name, the US birth rate (yes, it’s there, although not on the easiest site) was 15.461 births per 1000 people. In 2021, the most recent year listed, Jennifer was the 493rd most popular name, and the birth rate fell to 12.001 per thousand people — a drop of 22.4%.
Why is this important? Well, the Babynames chart is showing how many kids get a name. The Social Security chart shows the rank of the name among all others.
So while Jennifer was becoming less popular among names, people were having fewer babies in the first place.
Double-whammy. And that’s why the graph looks so much more spiky.
Yes, probably few people care. But it was a fun puzzle for me.
It was 2004, and many hearts were set aflutter by the declassification of this document (click through to see the whole thing, if that’s not clear):
As you can see, it’s a bit of a mish-mash, graphically.
So designer Greg Storey, under his rubric Airbag Industries, decided to take a swing at an improvement. Here we are, decades later, and I still think it’s a wonderful piece of clarity:
To paraphrase Augustine, I know it when I see it.
Dave Winer writes: “If I see something on Micro.blog that I would Like on another system, I don’t comment, I just do nothing, not because I’m bashful or overly quiet, rather because this is a language, and a comment has different meaning from a Like.”
This is another example where science fiction fanzines had this situation decades before online venues. (Not a surprise — many online customs clearly have precursors.) In this instance, there’s an acronym. RAEBNC. Read And Enjoyed But No Comment.
I’ve said before among my circle on Facebook that the FB Like fulfills much of the function of RAEBNC. Twitter is somewhat different, because of velocity. Instagram, because of the implicit aesthetic assessment.
But both Like and RAEBNC are doing that same thing — I read it, I agree with it, and no more communication at this time, Captain. (snappy salute)
Dave Winer wrote that, back in 2005. “People come back to places that send them away. Memorize that one.”
I did, Dave.
Alert users might have noticed I make my posts linkeriffic. One of the things I’ve missed on Twitter and Facebook is the ability to link more than once, maybe twice. Because links are a form of footnoting, to me. Even Ted Nelson might appreciate that. And I want to reach beyond Wikipedia entries, and go to people’s own sites, if possible.