Parsing Is Such Sweet Sorrow: Shakespeare through the lens of statistics

Nate Silver re-launches a vastly expanded FiveThirtyEight and amongst the new content we find a gloriously nerdy essay by Emma Pierson that begins with: 

More than 400 years after Shakespeare wrote it, we can now say that “Romeo and Juliet” has the wrong name. Perhaps the play should be called “Juliet and Her Nurse,” which isn’t nearly as sexy, or “Romeo and Benvolio,” which has a whole different connotation.

I discovered this by writing a computer program to count how many lines each pair of characters in “Romeo and Juliet” spoke to each other, with the expectation that the lovers in the greatest love story of all time would speak more than any other pair. I wanted Romeo and Juliet to end up together — if they couldn’t in the play, at least they could in my analysis — but the math paid no heed to my desires. Juliet speaks more to her nurse than she does to Romeo; Romeo speaks more to Benvolio than he does to Juliet. Romeo gets a larger share of attention from his friends (Benvolio and Mercutio) and even his enemies (Tybalt) than he does from Juliet; Juliet gets a larger share of attention from her nurse and her mother than she does from Romeo. The two appear together in only five scenes out of 25. We all knew that this wasn’t a play predicated on deep interactions between the two protagonists, but still.

From there she goes on to explore all of Shakespeare's lovers and how much, or how little they talked to each other, making an interactive visualisation that brings new perspective to the plays (for example, see how in the comedies there are separate relationships that draw our attention whereas the tragedies have the lovers front and center.)

Font Men: A Short Film About Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones

Font Men is a SXSW 2014 Official Selection in the Film Festival. It is a behind the scenes look at Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones. Given the recent company split it also feels like a sad obituary of sorts.  

You've seen their work. Before their recent split, they collectively ran the most successful and well respected type design studio in the world, creating fonts used by everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the President of the United States.

Font Men, gives a peek behind the curtain into the world of Jonathan and Tobias. Tracking the history of their personal trajectories, sharing the forces that brought them together and giving an exclusive look at the successful empire they built together.

Bodytorque.Technique: The Australian Ballet

After spending A Year With The Australian Ballet we now catch up with The Australian Ballet as they embark on a new movement in ballet, one that focuses less on storytelling and instead puts the spotlight on the athleticism and technique of the dancers. 

Life After Pi: A Cautionary Tale About Art And Bankruptcy

“Life After Pi” is a short documentary about Rhythm & Hues Studios, the L.A. based Visual Effects company that won an Academy Award for its groundbreaking work on “Life of Pi”– just two weeks after declaring bankruptcy. The film explores rapidly changing forces impacting the global VFX community, and the Film Industry as a whole.

This is only the first chapter of an upcoming feature-length documentary “Hollywood Ending,” that delves into the larger, complex challenges facing the US Film Industry and the many professionals working within it, whose fates and livelihood are intertwined.

The Fear Of Not Knowing

Peter Vajda in Management-Issues.com:

In Western cultures, we tend to over-emphasize how much we know and so feel that not knowing is unacceptable. So when we really just "don't know", we put ourselves in something of a conundrum. Our fear of admitting that we don't know leads us to try to save face. So we conjure up some sort of appearance of knowing so we can feel we're in control and hope to fool others into believing that our veneer of competence is intact.

...

In contrast, many Eastern cultures view not knowing as a self-supporting, personal-developmental practice that can improve how effectively we experience life. Approaching a situation or problem with a sense of "not knowing" can be a catalyst for creativity and insight. The darkness of the unknown supports us to access our inner strength and inner wisdom. And asking positive (not-fear-based) questions can help us to overcome our uncertainty and feelings of inadequacy.