My return, I hope, plus some apparent nonsense

  I've been busy, what with the election and then finishing Work-in-Progress number 1.  It isn't quite done, but Carlos and I went through a frenzy of productivity (and three steak lunches, with wine) in New York last week, and the end is very near.

So I will try to get back to posting, although I can't promise anything.  Anyway, I began today with a brief discussion of the Typealyzer.  It purports to be able to analyze the personality type of a blog-writer using some sort of unspecified text analysis algorithm.  I heard about it on Kevin Drum, and then again on Language Log. 

Now, I usually like this sort of thing.  What British political party should I belong to?  The Liberal Democrats!  Of course!  What kind of movie is my life most like?  An action flick!  Obviously!  What South American country would I be?  Venezuela!  Uh ... well, yes, that does make more sense than any of the others, when I think about it.

But the result from the Typealyzer, well, it was just odd:

ESTJ - The Guardians 

The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they´ve made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.

The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.

The result is very amusing for anyone who knows me in the slightest.  It just doesn't make any sense.  So either I write my blog in a rather abnormal mental state, or the Typealyzer's likely methodology is bullshit. 

At least the Genderanalyzer said that there was a 73% probability that I am male, which is only 27 points away from the true number. 

The Typealyzer, by the way, declares Doug Muir, Carlos Yu, and his lovely wife are collectively "Performers" who "are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells."   Uh, sure.

Comments

[Will Baird]

INTP (The Thinker) for The Dragon's Tales and ISTP (mechanic) for Team Phoenicia. Various posts I feed it always come up with one or another.

I've always been an ENTP/J in my tests I've taken.

Welcome back, Noel.

[Marcia]

ESTP - The Doers

>The active and play-ful type. They are >especially attuned to people and things >around them

Yes.

>and often full of energy, talking, joking >and engaging in physical out-door >activities.

Only during about half of a personal month.

>The Doers are happiest with action-filled >work which craves their full attention and >focus.

Um, I guess that's true. I do like every day to be different, whither paid work or un. Not sure about the full attention/focus part. Breaks are good!

>They might be very impulsive and more keen >on starting something new than following >it through.

While this might be fundamentally true, I've worked to overcome it. Oh crap, I sound like I'm in a job interview.

>They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Not true at all. Thanks for the diversion, Noel. I'll pass it on.

[Marcia]

Oh, and there's a 70 percent chance I'm male.

[Doug M.]

Annoyingly little known fact: the MBTI is nonsense on stilts. It was devised by Myers and Briggs literally over a dinner table during the Coolidge administration. Both were bright autodidacts, but neither had any training in psychology or statistics. It's been massively and consistently criticized by professionals over the last 25 years; I could list the various problems with it but, hell, you know this already.

(Here's the one that gets me. Not the most damning critique, but it's the one that gets me: not one of the four traits, however defined, has shown the slightest hint of bimodality.)

Anyway. I suspect the analyzer is conflating Carlos' love of pleasure and beauty with my sweet smells. Or something.

Doug M.