It’s been a hectic couple of weeks but I’m looking forward to posting several pieces this week as a lot of weighty notes and ideas have been piling up in my Drafts queue.
For the moment, however, I’ll feed you this fluffy bit of blogging folderol that I saw on The Wide Awake Cafe the other day. It’s something better-suited to Friday foolishness but last Friday was far too busy for foolishness, so here it is now: What Gender is your blog? The Gender Analyzer website will scan the writing on a blog and use its arcane tools to project the gender of the writer. It’s formulas might be a bit suspect since it guessed that the Wide Awake Cafe — sole proprietor Laura Lee Donaho — has a 69% probability of being written by a man. Running the Night Writer blog through the black box results in the following: “We guess the Night Writer blog is written by a man (55%), however it’s quite gender neutral.” Well, given that three of the four regular contributors here are women, I think it tells you something that 25% of me is still enough to deliver a 55% manliness rating.
We have strong indicators that
Hammerswing is written by a man (96%).
Well, that’s a relief since that blogger is my future son-in-law. I think he lost 4% for writing in French occasionally.
We think Pair o’ Dice is written by a man (73%). That computer better be smiling when it wrote that.
We think Shot in the Dark is written by a man (77%). Two men, actually, but one frequently rides a bicycle and I understand that can be really harmful to the testosterone levels.
We think Bike Bubba is written by a man (80%). I may have to reconsider my previous hypotheses.
We think The Kool-Aid Report is written by a man (73%). Hmmm. Perhaps the computer was having a hard time putting all the references to “boobies” and “poop” in context. Given that, it’s surprising that the analyses didn’t say “We think The Kool-Aid Report is written by an adolescent.”
We guess EckerNet is written by a man (59%), however it’s quite gender neutral. No real surprise here. Despite all of Kevin’s swearing and gun references he really can’t disguise his gentle and caring nature which is most often demonstrated by his threats to dismember my daughters’ boyfriends.
We think Mr. Dilettante is written by a man (66%). You’d think that with a clue such as “Mr.” in the title the computer would have had a higher masculine rating. Still, the word “dilettante” does sound a bit limp-wristed.
We think Martin Andrade is written by a man (76%). The computer may have considered the Twin City Burger Guide to be a cookbook and the holiday gift guide to be a shopping list.
We guess Nihilist in Golf Pants is written by a man (58%), however it’s quite gender neutral. Use the comment section below to list your Top 11 ways that Nihilist can appear more manly.
We think Residual Forces is written by a man (78%). Nothing says “man at the keyboard” like a bunch of typos and misspellings.
We guess James Lileks – The Bleat is written by a man (56%), however it’s quite gender neutral. As the name would suggest, this is written by a man. It is clear, however, that years of prolonged exposure to the StarTribune’s editorial board has had an emasculating effect.
We have strong indicators that The Art of Manliness is written by a man (92%). Ya think? What was the first clue?
What about the distaff side of my blogroll?
We think Through the Illusion is written by a man (75%). Fooled me at first, too. This woman knows way too much about how a man thinks.
We think Fritinancy is written by a man (74%). Very, very wrong. Perhaps it’s because Nancy owns a kayak?
We guess Plain Simple English is written by a man (53%), however it’s quite gender neutral. Wrong again, but when Buffy posts first-person excerpts from her fiction the character is often male.
We think Michelle Malkin is written by a woman (66%). They got that one right (though the name could have been a big clue). The Kos-kids would likely disagree, however.
We think Our House is written by a man (81%). Posts about birds, gardening and Mexican soap operas? This blog is primarily written by Margaret Martin, with some contributions from her husband, David Strom — and yes, we have seen both of them in public together.
