Kyanobenthes' Scratch Pad

I’ve been digging into my bookmarked research sites and downloading/saving/reading a lot more new articles concerning various aspects of Japanese culture, this time as it pertains to women.

Here’s an older article (2004) that people should find interesting. Note the irony in my “older” label for it–2004 really wasn’t long ago at all, but according to this, Japanese women hoping to be successful outside of being housewives have little hope in finding Japanese male mates who would support them. Has much changed in a mere five years? I doubt it.

But I will take issue with this paragraph in the article:

To be fair, not all the blame for female angst here can be laid on Japanese men. The government has been slow to enforce equal opportunity laws, and both pay and the glass ceiling in most Japanese corporations remain low for women. Recession has hampered longer maternity leave and other family-friendly policies.

If 90%-plus of the Japanese government and higher corporate structures are being run by men, then the above is definitely self-contradictory. (It seems a lot of people have a general inability to connect the dots in logic, honestly.)

Whew. Going through this particular leg of research isn’t just time-consuming but pretty painful. I’m researching many subtopics from laws to business structure to higher education to cultural social expectations to criminal statistics like rape. I really feel sorry for Japanese girls and women, even if it’s through a Western lens. Granted, things should still improve here on this side of the pond. ^^

1.11 NOTES

Disclaimer: Mai-HiME owned by Sunrise, except the characters that aren’t.

Syncope 1.11

Out of curiosity, I looked up some information about readability and found a Brit-based calculator using the “new” SMOG reading formula. I ran Syncope chapter 1.10 and came up with these statistics:

The SMOG index: 14.6
Total words: 8317
Total number of polysyllabic words: 850
Total number of sentences: 656

The page goes on to say that “(a)s a rough indication, SMOG 9-10 = Entry Level 3, 11-12 = Level 1 and 13-14 = Level 2 but that it’s far from an exact science and SMOG should only be taken as one indicator among many for the suitability of a text.” So 14.6 is around “Level 2.” The interpretation from LiteracyTrust.org.uk indicates that Level 2 tops off this British scale, but I don’t know how this compares to American scales. According to these sites, chapter 1.10 has a readability level between the British newspapers The Sun and The Daily Express, but since I don’t read those newspapers, I have no idea what that means. (Ha!)

In another readability calculator that covers different formulae that do convert to US grade level estimates, the scores for chapter 1.10 are as follows:

• Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease 75.50 (A higher score indicates easier readability; scores go from 0 to 100.)
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 5.90
• Gunning-Fog Score 8.10
• Coleman-Liau Index 9.70
• SMOG Index * 6.70 (This is probably the old SMOG formula)
• Automated Readability Index 5.40
• Average Grade Level 7.16 (Excludes Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score.)

A Wikipedia citation states:

Nearly all of today’s blockbuster writers write at the 7th-grade level, including John Grisham, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, and Dan Brown. Experts today recommend writing legal and health information at the 7th-grade level. Laws often require writing medical and safety information at the 5th-grade level.

Hmmm, so it looks like my 1.10 results hit that U.S. 7th grade “sweet spot.” Of course, all these mathematical formulae are largely quantitative approximations and say nothing qualitative, but it’s still interesting (especially that there are so many different methods).

Anyway, I plugged in my rough draft of chapter 1.11 (only half finished) and got these scores:

• Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease 71.90
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 6.10
• Gunning-Fog Score 7.90
• Coleman-Liau Index 10.10
• SMOG Index 7.10
• Automated Readability Index 5.20
• Average Grade Level 7.28

I noticed that shorter excerpts ended up getting scored higher. For example a 1.11 flashback sequence ended up getting an overall 10.28 readability score as opposed to the half-draft; an even shorter excerpt of the same flashback got a 12.30, and one sentence in the excerpt got a 20.54. Curious! I guess it’s an artifact of the mathematics.

Back to the point, though–chapter 1.11 is proceeding right along.

This is confusing as hell. Okay, I think I got most of it working. I still haven’t tried the poll plugin, but that’s pretty minor.

Uh, please avoid commenting on any other of my entries besides this one since I’m still trying to figure out how to fully import/format my old Livejournal stuff here. Of course, I’m trying to get an OpenID plugin to work so people could still comment with their old Livejournal userids too. Hmmm.

TO DO LIST:

1. Convert all entries’ internal links-to-LJ into links-to-WP. This will take some time. (Appears okay now)
2. Test theme features, make sure everything works (e.g. commenting – login?). (Continue in live testing)
3. Add thumbnails to represent old LJ layout. (Partial)
4. Import/edit original About/Gallery stuff from LJ.
5. Lock down old LJ posts and leave a link to here.
6. Finish chapter 1.11. Post to site.
7. Announce to…somewhere.

I’m still moving some stuff from my old LJ account to this Wordpress, but I’ll crosspost chapter announcements.

syn·co·pe n.
1. Grammar. The shortening of a word by omission of a sound, letter, or syllable from the middle of the word.
2. Pathology. A brief loss of consciousness caused by a temporary deficiency of oxygen in the brain; a swoon, blackout.

WORD COUNT
57,600 completed / ???,??? total estimated
Almost 50%

Table of contents

Collection of basic information from Japanese opinion polls/surveys on various topics: http://whatjapanthinks.com/

I figured out my problem with the “lunch” bit in 1.10, so I plan on fixing some things there when I post 1.11.

But 1.11 won’t be posted until after Wordpress 2.8 is released. ^_^ I found out that that new version will have a pretty decent Livejournal-importer, so I’d like to move everything onto my own server with a little more control over content and layout. Hopefully the Wordpress installation and LJ importer won’t be too buggy.

It’s fair to say these last two chapters of Part I are going to be quite long (by my standards).

No job now.

I also know one other friend who was laid off this year, one laid off last year, and a bunch of people whose job searches have been empty since late last year. My priorities are shifting a bit, so that’s fair warning that chapter 1.11 probably won’t be released this month.

I mean, you wouldn’t want me to hurriedly put together some half-assed shet for Haruka-Shizuru conversation, right? Not that Haruka’s side takes a particular amount of finesse… Well, maybe her talky bits take a totally different kind of finesse.

[si~~~~~~igh] Economy, please get fixed soon. kthx

LJ may be having problems since they cut a good chunk of their workforce and has difficulty making a profit.

I’ve bought my own domain and intend to host “Syncope” there among other things, but I’ll have to figure out how to mirror and stuff later. Maybe I’ll set up Wordpress? We’ll see. I don’t think I’ll be moving completely off LJ anytime soon until the winds clearly point to the business failing or changing hands or something.

2009 is going to be interesting. I mean, 2008 was pretty demn interesting already, but I expect 2009 to take the cake in terms of international attention span for a lot of people. One can only hope, anyway.

I don’t have any particular new year resolutions, though. I’d like to say that I’m going to continue consistently with Syncope and finish this year, but I’d rather not jinx it given how Life likes to throw curve balls when one least expects it. ^_^;

Aw, and it seems I have the beginning symptoms of a cold. How unlucky.

Happy end-of-2008 holidays!

Dear Suzushiro Haruka:

I hate you, Mrs. Malaprop.

With fist-shaking love,
Ky

P.S.: Muse-chan isn’t terribly amused either.

1.10 NOTES

Disclaimer: Mai-HiME owned by Sunrise, except the characters that aren’t.

Syncope 1.10

Avoiding the deus ex machina