Bad math and comics
This is what happens when I'm waiting for scripts to finish running. In my attempt to impose organization on my life, at least the bits I can keep organized, I recently recategorized the webcomics I read (the list was kept here). Compared to (say) a year ago, I read fewer webcomics. This is because some that I followed slowed or stopped updating or just lost my interest (it's not like they jumped the shark, but there's that similar feeling that something good isn't nearly as good anymore), while the number added has not offset the number leaving. I'd like to think it's because I'm getting choosier and not because webcomics are losing momentum. That said, I did hear of one just last week (Lovelace and Babbage) that sent me into throes of spastic glee! It's semi-historical, and the artist (an absolute geek) is an animator who has facial expressions I find very amusing for some reason. A Google Reader bundle of my favorites can be previewed here.
With the reorganization complete, and scripts still to run, I restarted an idea I had earlier (one, which a comic-phile friend of mine once said "sounds like a terrible idea" when I described it to her): some comic artists list other comics that they like on their site. Under the assumption that, if you like a comic, and an artist likes their comic, and two people who both like one thing probably like similar things, then you may also like comics they like. Thus, you can sort of create a score similar to Google page rank based on which comics point to which comics. Except I'm too lazy to program a crawler. Or an SVM. Or much of anything. Insert bad math here.
I took the links pages from the following comics:
and just tallied them. One reassuring observation is that, with the exception of Lackadaisy, they form a closed, recurrent state map, meaning they like each other. And Lackadaisy links to Girl Genius which, while they don't maintain links, has made shoutouts to Gunnerkrigg Court, Lackadaisy, Questionable Content, and Scary Go Round. So it's one big happy family. Graphically, it's centered around the large, interconnected blob that is Dr. McNinja / Dresden Codak / Gunnerkrigg Court / Scary Go Round (it may have something to do with 2 of them having the most out-going links among the 8).
The most tallies (allowing a comic to vote for itself) a comic received was 5. Here's the list, with ones I already read bolded:
And 4 tallies:
1 in 3 recommendations being something you already like ain't bad, and I've heard if not checked out at least half of these.
One final statistic I made up is to examine the comics pairwise and see how many links they have in common, normalized to a potential maximum of 1 (i.e. dividing by the number links of whichever has the fewest). This leads to the conclusion that the two comics which have the most in common are with 86% match (drumroll, please)... Gunnerkrigg Court and Scary Go Round. Um, yeah. Well, maybe the artists would get along. Being British and all. Runners-up were Dr. McNinja and xkcd (70%) and Dr. McNinja and Questionable Content (69%).
Okay, not every idea I have is a winner.
With the reorganization complete, and scripts still to run, I restarted an idea I had earlier (one, which a comic-phile friend of mine once said "sounds like a terrible idea" when I described it to her): some comic artists list other comics that they like on their site. Under the assumption that, if you like a comic, and an artist likes their comic, and two people who both like one thing probably like similar things, then you may also like comics they like. Thus, you can sort of create a score similar to Google page rank based on which comics point to which comics. Except I'm too lazy to program a crawler. Or an SVM. Or much of anything. Insert bad math here.
I took the links pages from the following comics:
- Cat and Girl
- Dr. McNinja
- Dresden Codak
- Gunnerkrigg Court
- Lackadaisy
- Questionable Content
- Scary Go Round
- xkcd
and just tallied them. One reassuring observation is that, with the exception of Lackadaisy, they form a closed, recurrent state map, meaning they like each other. And Lackadaisy links to Girl Genius which, while they don't maintain links, has made shoutouts to Gunnerkrigg Court, Lackadaisy, Questionable Content, and Scary Go Round. So it's one big happy family. Graphically, it's centered around the large, interconnected blob that is Dr. McNinja / Dresden Codak / Gunnerkrigg Court / Scary Go Round (it may have something to do with 2 of them having the most out-going links among the 8).
The most tallies (allowing a comic to vote for itself) a comic received was 5. Here's the list, with ones I already read bolded:
- A Softer World
- Achewood
- Overcompensating
- Scary Go Round
- Wondermark
And 4 tallies:
- Dinosaur Comics
- Dr. McNinja
- Gunnerkrigg Court
- Octopus Pie
- Patches
- Sam and Fuzzy
- Wigu
1 in 3 recommendations being something you already like ain't bad, and I've heard if not checked out at least half of these.
One final statistic I made up is to examine the comics pairwise and see how many links they have in common, normalized to a potential maximum of 1 (i.e. dividing by the number links of whichever has the fewest). This leads to the conclusion that the two comics which have the most in common are with 86% match (drumroll, please)... Gunnerkrigg Court and Scary Go Round. Um, yeah. Well, maybe the artists would get along. Being British and all. Runners-up were Dr. McNinja and xkcd (70%) and Dr. McNinja and Questionable Content (69%).
Okay, not every idea I have is a winner.