A blog post by "Blue" lists the word counts of a few dozen novels, including a bunch of classics and some PEN/Faulkner winners. Blue doesn't exactly identify a source for the info; in the Comments, Blue says they're taken partly from teacher materials and partly from Amazon that used to provide word counts but does not do so anymore.
Median word count in the "classic" novels listed is 99,341; average is 136,604. War and Peace (version unspecified) is 587,287 and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is only about 25,000 short of that. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay has 216,020.
Anyone have a source for word counts? I tried the Library of Congress, but I don't see this info there.
Update 1/14/11: Here is a source for word counts. In fact, that's probably the source used by "Blue" above. H/t to Lars Knudsen who commented on Blue's post.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Labels
I am slowly but surely adding tags or "Labels" to our posts. I've made it through about 500 posts. Just 2300+ more to go. (Yeah, I'm not sure I'm that motivated.) The labels serve as an index; they're an additional tool to help find things. Feel free to add or edit tags.
Update: Two things:
1) I've been inconsistent -- whimsical, really -- in choosing whether to tag a post liberally or sparsely and whether to include the topics that appear in the Comments. Do not try to infer rhyme or reason; there is none.
2) I believe we can "hide" the Labels on the posts, so if you don't like the way they alter the look of the blog, we can fix that.
Update: Two things:
1) I've been inconsistent -- whimsical, really -- in choosing whether to tag a post liberally or sparsely and whether to include the topics that appear in the Comments. Do not try to infer rhyme or reason; there is none.
2) I believe we can "hide" the Labels on the posts, so if you don't like the way they alter the look of the blog, we can fix that.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Comcast's role in delivering audience to Fox News
I've just discovered something unsettling.
We intended to downgrade our Comcast cable TV service for the summer, from the ridiculously priced $80/month package (with gazillions of channels, but no HBO etc) to their $10/mo plan that would give us decent reception, but no cable channels. I called to make the service change and the customer service person explained that if we made that change, our internet service would increase by $10 and oh-by-the-way we offer a $20/month "family" cable package that would include lots of channels, though not all that we have been getting. In other words, for the same amount we were willing to pay for zero cable channels, we could have a bunch of cable channels. She rattled off the list of channels that I didn't pay much attention to since we were prepared to not have any.
Here's the strangest thing: the "family" cable package includes Fox News Channel, but does not include MSNBC. This gives me a new perspective on audience numbers for cable news shows.
We intended to downgrade our Comcast cable TV service for the summer, from the ridiculously priced $80/month package (with gazillions of channels, but no HBO etc) to their $10/mo plan that would give us decent reception, but no cable channels. I called to make the service change and the customer service person explained that if we made that change, our internet service would increase by $10 and oh-by-the-way we offer a $20/month "family" cable package that would include lots of channels, though not all that we have been getting. In other words, for the same amount we were willing to pay for zero cable channels, we could have a bunch of cable channels. She rattled off the list of channels that I didn't pay much attention to since we were prepared to not have any.
Here's the strangest thing: the "family" cable package includes Fox News Channel, but does not include MSNBC. This gives me a new perspective on audience numbers for cable news shows.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Happy Birthday, LJ!
A present for you. Pretend your name is Terrance.
Update: The birthday boy, Terrance, is the first dancer appearing in the video posted immediately below.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Is it rock or is it opera?
Here's a video from a recent one of Adam's tour shows. Vocals are amazing. This is Sleepwalker, a song on his album.
I'm thinking maybe he was taking it easy while recovering from a cold the night we saw him, because he didn't sing like this that night.
I'm thinking maybe he was taking it easy while recovering from a cold the night we saw him, because he didn't sing like this that night.
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