Editing 2791: Bookshelf Sorting
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Created by a BOOKSHELF SORTED THE NORMAL WAY. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | + | Some people sort their bookshelves by color, which is pleasing to the eyes but unhelpful when [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxmPHLU9oA trying to find a specific book]. This may annoy those that [[Randall]] calls Book People. These are likely people who loves books, and may like them to be primarily sorted by author's last name (for fiction) or {{w|Dewey Decimal Classification|subject}} (if non-fiction), but certainly a meaningful sequence. | |
− | He | + | But Randall has tested a different method for sorting that makes these book people even more angry. He has sorted the pages by number! This means he has had to separate each book into its individual pages and then organize them into groups by page number. |
− | + | All the front covers are on the left side, being effectively "page 0", then all the page 1s, the page 2s, etcetera, with the back covers mixed in depending on the length of the (now-dismembered) book. Sorting by color has no practical use (beyond possibly that of making an aesthetic appearance), but this distribution of books, makes them useless in all situations and makes for an erratic display potentially susceptible to disordering knocks and drafts. | |
− | + | There are a lot of different-sized front covers on the left side of the shelf (meaning they start with low numbers on the left). Progressing rightward, there are then repeating patterns of taller and shorter loose-leaf pages, having gathered together each a page of the same number from a different book, tracking the proportions of each cover. | |
+ | After a while, the first back cover is sorted in, as the shortest book's page-count runs out, and then additional runs of pages (less those of each 'finished' book) and end-covers as necessary. At the end, there are only the last pages of the longest book left, now all uniformly in size, and its rear cover. These are either books left without any un-numbered {{w|Book design#Front matter|front matter}} (also the corresponding back matter) or the sorting and collating goes by absolute page count, not by the numbers printed on pages. | ||
− | The caption claims that "book people" | + | The caption claims that this is a way of sorting that "book people" hate, even more so than sorting by color of the cover/spine. It is not clear if the spine part is thrown away or just not visible, maybe being sorted towards the wall. This would make it a sort of antithesis to color sorting, not only is it not sorted by color, but the spines that usually define the color sorting are either to the back or fully removed. It might be the intent to have "the absolute opposite" of color sorting and follow this idea ad absurdum. |
− | In the title text Randall | + | In the title text Randall begins by saying that he of course sorts his bookshelf alphabetically, like book people, but then he states that he sorts books by first '''sentence''' instead of the book author or book title. This is just as impractical, for most purposes of finding, as sorting by color as people then cannot find a book they haven't read (and remembered the first sentence). But at least it doesn't destroy the books and can also be accomplished by a quick glance inside each book (which bibliophiles should certainly enjoy, if it does not distract them from the task at hand) rather than having to pay much attention to exactly how you shuffle and collate many loose-leafs. You can use something like a simple {{w|merge sort}} to arrange the shelf from scratch, or do a {{w|binary search algorithm|binary search}} to find where to insert individual new books. |
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==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | :[A bookshelf hanging on a wall is shown. It is covered almost from left to right but not with ordinary books. To the left there are 11 covers next to each other without any paper between them. They have different heights and shades of gray. After the last of these there follows many leaves of paper of differing heights similarly to that of the covers. The top of the papers thus form a wave shape with more than twenty peaks before they reach another cover. After that there follows similar patterns with paper in different height and then a cover in between more papers. But there is a much shorter distance between the first and second cover than before the first cover, after the initial 11 covers. The next two covers are close to the first, then there is a longer stretch of paper to the fourth, much less to the fifth, and then the next three covers comes very close. There is again quite long distance to the ninth and tenth cover, and here the number of different heights for the paper are clearly less than the previous paper stretches. Finally before the last and 11th cover all the paper, not much of it though, are of the same height, and just a bit lower than the final cover. The 11 covers at the start matches the 11 covers later | + | :[A bookshelf hanging on a wall is shown. It is covered almost from left to right but not with ordinary books. To the left there are 11 covers next to each other without any paper between them. They have different heights and shades of gray. After the last of these there follows many leaves of paper of differing heights similarly to that of the covers. The top of the papers thus form a wave shape with more than twenty peaks before they reach another cover. After that there follows similar patterns with paper in different height and then a cover in between more papers. But there is a much shorter distance between the first and second cover than before the first cover, after the initial 11 covers. The next two covers are close to the first, then there is a longer stretch of paper to the fourth, much less to the fifth, and then the next three covers comes very close. There is again quite long distance to the ninth and tenth cover, and here the number of different heights for the paper are clearly less than the previous paper stretches. Finally before the last and 11th cover all the paper, not much of it though, are of the same height, and just a bit lower than the final cover. The 11 covers at the start matches the 11 covers later, but do not come in the same order throughout the paper stretches as they are sorted to begin with. There is a caption beneath the panel:] |
:Book people hate seeing books sorted by colors, but it turns out they get ''way'' more angry if you sort the pages by number. | :Book people hate seeing books sorted by colors, but it turns out they get ''way'' more angry if you sort the pages by number. | ||
{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} |