Infographics

In a recent poll involving me alone, infographics were determined to be ridiculous creations. The main reason cited was that they do not help information retention.

I have read a lot of silly infographics in my time. Stared at them. Admired the colours and the various shapes. Even vacantly drooled on the table a little. But I can't remember what a single one was about, and I'm going to blame the infographics.

They're a reflection of the mentality of catering for the lowest common denominator; aiming at the broadest audience of perusers, who click, glance, and move on, rather than those who read with the intention of learning or remembering. The whole development process is aimed at making information palatable, rather than memorable.

"Jimmy is scared of proper information, so lets give Jimmy a picture he can look at".

Jimmy isn't going to learn anything extra from the picture than he would have from a graph. All an infographic will do is obfuscate the information for anyone who stood a chance.

In summary, know whether you're trying to communicate or entertain.


Edit: 
Since writing this, I've relaxed somewhat on what I vehemently opined. I now believe that infographics can be good, but that 95% of those I have seen were poorly designed. As an example, this infographic from The Huffington Post is touted as good, and is clearly a mess.

I'd note also that Wired's top 13 infographics of 2013 are all either maps or well labelled charts. 

The difference appears to be that well organised graphs which don't use traditional axes work, but jumbling random facts into a long picture does not.

Finishing Books

I always tell people that if they're reading a book just for pleasure and they don't enjoy it after a few chapters, they should just stop.

So, I'm about 100 pages away from the end of Sentimental Education by Flaubert, and I've been bored to death by the last 150. I had been reading a book per week, but this thing has dragged out for a month.

Rather than rant about book stories, I'll leave you with some recursive irony.

Take your own advice.

How the Other Half Lives

I've often tried to get foreign people to be "racist" and do impressions of English speakers, just to hear what it sounds like. You can imagine my delight at finding this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

Diaries

It puzzles me when people show off their diaries to others. For me, my diary is a completely accurate record of what's going on; the good, the bad and the ugly. It's bare, and I don't sugar coat anything. At the same time, I don't make anything sound worse than it was. It just is.

I could never show it to anyone, because for ever more I would write it knowing someone might look at it. I would have an audience in mind. I would self censor and completely compromise the integrity of the writing, and then it would be nothing more than an aesthetes dramatisation of my life.

I keep a blog for the world, but my diary is for me.

Art, Background, and Context

Art commentary really bugs me, largely because the language surrounding art is completely illequiped to describe its impact on the average person.

When I look at art I will be struck by the technical expertise, whether I like it or not, and an emotion. Speculating as to what it "means" is making the rather large assumption that it was designed with an intended meaning, and that the artist was actually able to communicate that meaning above all others you may accidentally pick up on.

However, despite my protestation, this "depth and meaning" has come to be of considerable importance to the value of art, and thus must be included in it. Were one, say, to produce an extraordinary album, one surely must have a good story of how it came about.

The Sisters Brothers

I’m not generally a fan of narratives that take place in Western America, but I was quite impressed with this novel. There’s something strangely charming about the innocence of killers. Their world of hope and struggle in the gold rush era makes for a curious setting to their confused odyssey, which seems to walk the line between purpose and disaffection that so many great tales carelessly ignore.

The subjective narration leaves the story feeling very self contained, so that although much is left unexplained, the reader is left with a sense of closure.

I know nothing about the author, but he reads like a far more experienced and professional writer than other titles I’ve read recently.

The Bell Jar

This book is full of such incomprehensible emotion and behaviour that my instinctive reaction is to suppress any acknowledgement of it. I battled with this through the entire book, and came to loathe everything that the protagonist was. 

Her disaffection to the world, her warped perspectives of those around her, and the absence of any awareness of life beyond that which affects herself was so totally repugnant, I was impressed that such a character could be written. It exists in a dimension I could not have conceived before reading the book.

Notwithstanding that, it was an easy and educational read. The narrative trundles along, and even when things are happening, it feels like they aren't. Such is the skill of the writer.

Toward the end, the structure breaks down and becomes a bit of a mess to read, much in the way that the last chapters of The Great Gatsby become a little sloshy. Time passes madly. The reader has to work to stay in tune. The author is clearly sick of writing and needs to wrap it up.

Perhaps it was a flaw in my edition that the spacing of paragraphs was poor.

Though not enjoyable, the book itself was not totally abhorrent. Read it to have read it, rather than to be reading it.

I Am the Messenger

The first book I read by Marcus Zusak was "The Book Thief". It was a Christmas present that I had shelved for a long time, thinking it was going to be moralising tripe like Chicken Soup for the Soul, which is more like Fish Food for the Brain. I was pleasantly surprised.

Many people write books; Zusak tells stories. He tells them in a way that makes you forget he exists, in a way that lets you drift off into his world.

"I Am the Messenger" is quick, pleasant read that will make you feel good about yourself. Perfect bedtime reading.

Mornings in Jenin

My opinion of this book is tainted by how little I enjoyed reading it. And that's not to say it was a bad book; I just didn't enjoy it. So much sorrow crammed into a lifetime, and crammed into a novel, does not for a pleasant Sunday read make.

Stylistically, it's overwritten. The plot rambles in places. It will not make you feel good about yourself. But none of that really matters.

When you mention Israel and Palestine to most people, their faces take on a slight panic as they think of some thing to say, and usually only manage something like "what a mess". The mess is comfortable. The mess means that maybe no one is right, and the whole thing is just a jumble of silly things. The mess makes it easy to ignore. "Busy, busy" if you're a Bokononist.

The horrible thing Mornings in Jenin does is make it very simple. 

A family live in a village. Then some people come, shoot them, take their village, and claim to still have the moral high ground. It's so simple it's hard to ignore.

Monings in Jenin taught me something I'd rather never have learned.

Sometimes it's very wrong to say that no one is right.