for you sociology nerds: bibliographic edition

Quick! Without using a search function or looking at your bookshelf, how many Arlie Hochschild publications can you name that begin with the word THE? I'll start you off with some easy ones...

The Time Bind
The Second Shift

I'm editing a bibliography and just noticed that all six references to Arlie start with THE and then reveal a new concept, to be forever etched into the minds of sociologists.

No links from this post, as that would give it away.

And of course I've never even visited Boston, New Hampsire, or Maine

via Crazy Carla (take the quiz)

UPDATE: Thanks to Jen, I retook the test. I marked that I say neither "horrible" (pronounce as whore) or "horrible" (pronounce as hot without the t). I think that I actually say the former, so here are the new results. Especially check out the newscaster part.

something fun (if you count finding out you don't exist) for Sunday: Census Search

Via Kieran Healy, I found this website, which calculates how many people in the United States have your name. I happen to know that my name is very easy to Google, so I figured that there were not too many people with my name. I turns out that only 720 people in the United States even have the last name of Rittle, and none of them are named Marc. Go me.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Oh wait, does that mean that even I don't have my name?

Hmm. Well Kieran found the same result, but he currently resides in Australia. I don't, though; I'm in the U.S. So with further digging I discovered that this website is based on the 1990 U.S. Census, the last national collection of name data. But I also was in the United States in 1990, so I checked a little further.

Soon I discovered that the data takes both names independent of each other, and measures the probability of the name existing in the U.S. It's true, of 720 Rittle's, Marc might not be very popular. But I do exist, so why doesn't this site catch it? Of course Marc is my middle name, so maybe that has a bearing on it. And of course I do not recall filling out census information in 1990, so maybe that means something too.

In hopes to feel more existant, I checked my name variants and misspellings:

Marc Rittle = 0
Mark Rittle = 3
Marc Riddle = 18 (with 41,996 Riddle's in the nation)
Mark Riddle = 198 (I've actually met one of them. We sometimes get each other's mail)

Compare this with my actual first name: John (not Marc)

John Rittle = 18
John Riddle = 689

Now my first and middle names, with no last name at all:

John Marc = 25
John Mark = 246

Finally, my school library identity, which for reasons unknown, reads "Marc Marc Rittle."

Marc Marc = 1 (must be me at the library)
Mark Mark = 71 (note: not Marky Mark, which equals 0)

other fun things: The Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass, The Late Greats Gender Mix, Commercial Closet, American Factfinder, NCLB Scores

something fun (if you count calculating your car's emissions as fun) for wednesday: TerraPass

TerraPass is an organization that funds clean energy projects, but I just like to see how many pounds of CO2 my car produces a year. I said we drive 8,000 miles per year, but living in the city it could be less. Anyway, here's mine, what's yours?:

Personal emissions report

Your car emits 4,891 lbs of CO2 per year.

Vehicle:

1999 Saturn SL automatic transmission

Mileage:

27 mpg (city), 37 mpg (highway)

Distance:

8,000 miles per year

Fuel use:

250 gallons per year

Emissions:

4,891 lbs CO2 per year

other fun things: Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour

something fun (if you count the depletion of the earth's resources as fun) for wednesday: Your Ecological Footprint

If every person in the world today consumed the resources of one average American, we would require six (6) Earths, or an ecological footprint of 24 acres of land per person. Can you believe it? This of course is for the average car driving, meat eating, McMansion building red blooded American, and for many of us it might be much lower. Still, I thought I was resourceful (as a vegetarian, walker/bicycler, and resident of an apartment building), but found that if everyone lived like me we would require two and a half (2.5) Earths, or 11 acres of land per person. My footprint is too big.

According to Earthday.net our ecological footprint is partly about our personal consumption of resources, but it's also about the community in hich we live. So to reduce the resources that we consume on a daily basis, it involves more of a communitarian effort than it does an individual effort. For example, I live in the city of Chicago, and our public transportation system could use a major overhaul. If the El were more accessible to more people to more places at more times, then maybe we wouldn't collectively use our cars so much. But this becomes a structural issue for the city that effects my personal decision as a resident.

The solution? I don't know, get onto city council? Have local, state, and national governments that actually pay attention to these things? I'm curious what other people's footprints are, so take the quiz and get back to me.