Skewing the data

[shewhomust]

Via samarcand, esmeraldus_neo and beyond:

Acephalous is conducting an experiment to measure the speed with which memes propagate. To do this, a meme must be propagated, and here it is:

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)


2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply Acephalous is one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.)


3. Ping Techorati.

And here's how it works:

While you do that, a script I've written will track this meme (via Technorati) across the internet in 10 minute intervals. It will record the number of links to this post, register their authority and create a database the very size of which will cause my poor processor to fall tumbling, in flames, down a steep cliff. (So be it. We all must makes sacrifices in the name of science.)

My fear is that I'll post this and no one will participate in my experiment. On the one hand, that'll be educational too, allowing me to talk about top-down vs. bottom-up dynamics, the ineffectiveness of compulsion and coercion on free-range bloggers, &c. On the other, I would rather not tell the august body of the Modern Language Association that bloggers only stop posting about what they had for lunch (fish sticks!) when their cat strikes another (fifth today!) outrageously adorable pose...

Heaven forfend that the MLA should discover this sad truth...