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Sapping Attention

Personal blog · sappingattention.blogspot.comdatahistory

Sapping Attention is a personal blog at sappingattention.blogspot.com about data and history. Since 2012, 27 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Visualizing 100 Years of Ocean Shipping (2012)”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.

Visit the blog
38mentions?
27HN people?
2012–2024first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 7 in 2014

Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?

Why HN links it

HN readers cite these posts as data-driven visualizations and history: historical ship routes from logbooks, the history of peer review, and college major earnings. The posts are used as sources in discussions.

Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.

Digital Humanities: Using tools from the 1990s to answer questions from the 1960s about 19th century America.

Most-linked posts?

  1. Visualizing 100 Years of Ocean Shipping (2012)
    4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-04-12
  2. “Peer review” is younger than we think
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-09-18
  3. How Badly Is Google Books Search Broken, and Why?
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-02-18
  4. Do cities have a land area? And a literal use of the Joy Division map
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-20
  5. Literary Dopplegängers and interestingness
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-05-31
  6. Reading digital sources: a case study in ship's logs
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-01-03

What Hacker News says?

  1. rasz · 2019-03-19
    >Google Books broken and abandoned http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-badly-is-go... >Google Finance https://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-finance-as-you-know...

    Comment linking /2019/02/how-badly-is-google-books-search-broken.html

    on “Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service”
  2. benbreen · 2018-07-27

    Submitted Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities as a story · 153 points

    HN discussion
  3. dredmorbius · 2019-08-04
    Some history: "Peer review" is younger than you think. Does that mean it can go away? https://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2017/09/peer-review-is... Peer review : the end of an error? https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/the-end-of-an-erro... Peer review: Troubled from the start https://www.nature.com/news/peer-review-troubled-from-the-st... Why the National Institutes of Health Should Replace Peer Review With…

    Comment linking /2017/09/peer-review-is-younger-than-you-think.html

    on “Elsevier threatens others for linking to Sci-Hub but does so itself”
  4. longdefeat · 2019-02-18

    Submitted How Badly Is Google Books Search Broken, and Why? as a story · 134 points

    HN discussion
  5. jseliger · 2018-03-21
    One hopes the present system will go away: http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2017/09/peer-review-is-... The problems are in some ways even worse in the humanities: http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-New-Intellectuals/23835... than the sciences. Or see https://jakeseliger.com/2013/02/12/a-lot-of-academic-researc... .

    Comment linking /2017/09/peer-review-is-younger-than-you-think.html

    on “Peer review: the end of an error?”
  6. Petiver · 2017-10-09

    Submitted “Peer review” is younger than we think as a story · 129 points

    HN discussion
  7. twelvechairs · 2012-04-13Recommends
    Why not link to the original (much more descriptive) article? http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2012/04/visualizing-oce...

    Comment linking /2012/04/visualizing-ocean-shipping.html

    on “The age of sail, visualized”
  8. jvmiert · 2014-12-18

    Submitted Multidimensional analysis of plot arcs in thousands of TV and movie scripts as a story · 103 points

    HN discussion
  9. tgb · 2020-08-28Recommends
    Even back "in the day" the routes weren't actually following those lines. Here's a neat animation of the routes many ships took (from their logbooks) starting in the 1750's: http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2012/04/visualizing-oce...

    Comment linking /2012/04/visualizing-ocean-shipping.html

    on “100 years to solve an integral: The history of the Mercator map”
  10. benbreen · 2018-07-12

    Submitted Google Books and the open web as a story · 78 points

    HN discussion
  11. rossdavidh · 2018-08-30
    "humanities majors don’t make much less than people who choose to study computer science and finance" Uh...that's not a true statement, computer science majors make substantially more than humanities majors: https://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2018/08/some-prelimina...

    Comment linking /2018/08/some-preliminary-analysis-of-texas.html

    on “The 2008 financial crisis completely changed what majors students choose”
  12. benbreen · 2022-10-28

    Submitted What's in the Hathi Trust? as a story · 25 points

    HN discussion
  13. benbreen · 2015-10-07

    Submitted Visualizing 100 Years of Ocean Shipping (2012) as a story · 18 points

    HN discussion
  14. Hooke · 2017-08-13

    Submitted Do cities have a land area? And a literal use of the Joy Division map as a story · 14 points

    HN discussion
  15. benbreen · 2017-05-19

    Submitted A brief visual history of MARC cataloging at the Library of Congress as a story · 13 points

    HN discussion
  16. benbreen · 2016-09-12

    Submitted Literary Dopplegängers and interestingness as a story · 12 points

    HN discussion
  17. gry · 2014-09-19

    Submitted Investigate onscreen language in about 87,000 movies and TV shows as a story · 10 points

    HN discussion
  18. Thevet · 2014-09-18

    Submitted Shipping maps and how states see as a story · 9 points

    HN discussion
  19. chrismealy · 2016-05-31

    Submitted Literary Dopplegängers and Interestingness as a story · 7 points

    HN discussion
  20. diodorus · 2014-12-23

    Submitted What Years Do Historians Write About? (2013) as a story · 5 points

    HN discussion
  21. jsvine · 2014-08-26

    Submitted Data visualization rules, 1915 as a story · 5 points

    HN discussion
  22. bane · 2014-01-03

    Submitted Reading digital sources: a case study in ship's logs as a story · 3 points

    HN discussion
  23. scentoni · 2024-03-30

    Submitted A 192-year heatmap of presidential elections with a Hilbert-like y axis (2016) as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  24. stablemap · 2017-09-18

    Submitted “Peer review” is younger than you think. Does that mean it can go away? as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  25. benbreen · 2014-12-12

    Submitted Typical TV episodes: visualizing topics in screen time as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  26. alex_stoddard · 2012-04-12

    Submitted Digital Humanities, a century of shipping visualized as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  27. polm23 · 2020-06-18

    Submitted How badly is Google Books search broken, and why? as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  28. wyclif · 2019-02-19

    Submitted How Badly Is Google Books Search Broken, and Why? as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  29. avyfain · 2018-06-16

    Submitted Meaning chains with word embeddings as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  30. benbreen · 2017-07-25

    Submitted Population Density 2: Old and New New England as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion

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