Let me be the first to say that this post is just chart porn and contains no real science.

Hypothesis

Metallica has become less relevant over the last twenty-five years, which will be evidenced through declining search engine ranking for their song titles.

Methodology

Metallica has opinions about the Internet. They famously spoke out against Napster back in 2000. In 2006, they begrudgingly joined iTunes. They once leaked new songs to bloggers but sent cease & desist letters when they were reviewed. It is fitting that the Internet, in all its raw democratic ability, should serve as their jury.

Each song on each album will be scored from 0 to 10, with 10 signifying a #1 result from a Google search referencing the band and a 0 signifying an absence of the band’s name from the first page of search results. The song’s album will then receive a composite score as an average of the song scores.

Results

“Kill ‘Em All” – Metallica, 1983

Yes, they make the first page for “whiplash”. Upsetting lots of lawyers.

“Ride the Lightning” – Metallica, 1984

“Master of Puppets” – Metallica, 1986

“…And Justice for All” – Metallica, 1988

“Metallica” – Metallica, 1991

“Load” – Metallica, 1996

I’m shocked they made the first page for “2 x 4″.

“Reload” – Metallica, 1997

Seriously, first page for “fuel”?

“St. Anger” – Metallica, 2003

The Harrison Ford movie just barely wins for “Frantic”.

“Death Magnetic” – Metallica, 2008

The final single, “My Apocalypse” is the only result that links explicitly to Metallica.com.

Analysis

First, it should be noted that Metallica took a few albums to get started. Here are the Billboard peaks for each album in the year it was released. Their first #1 record was the eponymous “black album”, no doubt propelled by their single “Enter Sandman”, and they have been able to reach that position for each new release since.

Rising throughout the 1980s, the search engine visibilty of Metallica’s song titles did indeed wane in the late 90s. Although it has recovered again with the notoriety of Metallica’s 2004 documentary “Some Kind of Monster” and the release of their latest album, “Death Magnetic”.

In fact, if we remove the albums “Load”, “Reload”, and “St. Anger” from the data, we see the trendline of the band’s early rise closely predicts the relevance of “Death Magnetic”. While many reviews claim that “Death Magnetic” is a return to form for the band, recapturing the glory of pre-”Metallica” albums, we now have the unassailable scientific evidence.

Think I’ll go torrent that now.

1. Come up with your criteria: Under $2000? Has to allow cats? Laundry on premises? These are things you need to know. If you’re living with someone else (or moving in with them because you’re tired of leaving your cat all alone when you’re over at their house) talk to this person about his or her criteria. Since you’re in a healthy relationship, hopefully the lines of communication are already open.
2. Focus on a few neighborhoods: Chances are that there are going to be some places you can afford to live but won’t want to and some places you want to live but can’t afford. Best to get that out of the way before you get much deeper. Head on over to HousingMaps.com and visit San Francisco. You can pretty quickly scan and see what it costs to live in different neighborhoods. You might enter you criteria from step one to make the job easier.
3. Make it a daily habit: The best way I’ve found to do this is to grab a feed from Craigslist. After you search, according to your criteria and in the neighborhood you’re excited about and can afford, Craigslist will generate an RSS file for you (visible as an orange icon in your addressbar if you’re using Firefox, which you should be). Throw that link into your feedreader and check it daily along with your favorite blogs.
4. Check the place out: Virtually, of course. From your feedreader, you can jump to the Craigslist post and then jump to Google Maps. You might as well jump all the way to Street View and check the street out. Is it where you thought? Maybe take a virtual walk around the block, looking for cool coffee shops, laundromats, or peddlers of assorted sundries? Does it feel like home? Or, more importantly, does it feel like bothering to call for a viewing? Yes, even I like to actually visit the place before I move in.
5. Staying connected: It’s important to me that wherever I live has pretty good access to mass transit. I don’t know why I love mass transit so much, all the diverse faces and personalities, each with their own exciting fashion and smells—all with the same iPod earbuds. It really gets me. At any rate, the official MUNI maps might be helpful. Of course, if you’re more of a bicycler, walker, or excited to get a pair of his and her matching electric scooters powered by your residential solar panels and zoom around the city like Italy in the 60s… You should check out the SF Bicycle Coalition Bike Map & Walking Guide.

That’s just what I’ve picked up so far. It’s been working for me. Of course, I’ve only just recently started looking and haven’t actually found a place yet… but not for lack of finding possibilities. It’s just that sometimes they forget to mention that the bathroom has a brick wall in the middle of it or that they’ve used four different kinds of tiling for each room or that the house was built before refrigerators were invented so it sits in the middle of the living room. Stuff like that you can’t enter into Craigslist searches. As my friend Brianna mentioned the other day, “Each time I post an opening for a roommate, I have to add more things that I would’ve never thought I had to put in a roommate ad—like, please don’t cook kimchi at 4am.”

I take personal delight in pointing out typefaces to friends and family. “Excellent use of Garamond in this menu, don’t you think?” or “Wow, Adelaide for a law firm. That’s ballsy.” It comes across as terribly geeky, though it’s perhaps no different than a mechanic pointing out a custom tailpipe or a doctor noting that you really should have that Subdural Hematoma looked at. Still, my favorite of all fonts to note is Papyrus, if only for its incredible breath in usage.

To illustrate my point, I’ve just googled (oh my, the spell checker in Firefox 2.0 doesn’t recognize “google” as a word) some general categories that I thought might show a little Papyrus and, sure enough, they have.

Yoga is a no brainer. Spas, meditation centers, health clubs all use Papyrus out the proverbial wazoo. Its weathered outline conjures up an organic frame in stark contrast to a more modern font like Futura (which ironically was created 55 years previous to Papyrus).

This thread takes us through earthy endeavors such as landscaping, plant nurseries, or even local hippie gatherings. Papyrus is the perfect font to announce that save the oak tree grove benefit concert you’ve been planning. And the green grass grows all around, all around. And the green grass grows all around.

Since we’re getting back to nature, we might as well include Native Americans, right? Because, of course, the Cherokee probably just used the Roman alphabet but with kinda messy letters, right?

By now you may start to see my point. What exactly does Papyrus say about Africa other than that we think of it as an underdeveloped and rustic continent? Okay, barring the fact that papyrus was first popularized by usage throughout the Egyptian Kingdom—in which case it’s actually much more relevant to Africa than it is to Navajo yoga hippies.

In short, Papyrus is our font for The Noble Savage. It is unrefined and uncivilized without being barbaric, connoting health and/or righteous purpose. The incredible variety of things that is categorized in the American brain in just such a way is astounding, and entire sites exist just to watch where it might pop-up next.

With that, I’ll leave you to do some hunting on your own. Throw a link into the comments if you’ve found an especially telling use of Papyrus as indicator of “uncivilized” status. I’m not sure if this counts or not.

I am off for Japan and Korea for two weeks of “VacAsian”, to continue my sociological analysis of typography. Let’s see what typefaces they use to represent the West, shall we?

It’s not the first time O’Reilly has expressed his unmitigated hate toward the city of San Francisco. Almost exactly a year ago, he told Al Qaeda, “You want to blow up Coit Tower? Go ahead.” This time, his current rhetoric is more aimed at our gay pride parades, “pot shops”, and mocking of Christianity.

I should know better than to assume anything O’Reilly says is rooted in reality, but assertions that San Francisco is some sort of secular playground is ridiculous. I’ve attended services at Glide with a Jewish friend and managed to make it to a Solstice or Beltane party every once in a while, too. Further, the Mission District is very Catholic and there are neighborhood celebrations around Confirmations or Baptisms every week.

So what exactly are “San Francisco Values”?

He’s hitting on something with the gay pride parades. San Francisco definitely values diversity. The tremendous Chinese New Year Parade has been named one of the world’s top ten parades. I loved going last year and seeing all the little kids dressed like puppies for the Year of the Dog. Last week’s Dia de los Muertos celebration was a beautiful colored stone in the mosaic of cultures that is San Francisco.

The “pot shops” crack may be a crack at our hippie heritage and I’m pleased to say that the treehugger’s have left a lasting legacy. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland are all in the Top 20 greenest cities in the U.S. according to the Green Guide. Personally, I take one of the four excellent forms of mass transit San Francisco has (none of which use gasoline) to work every day.

One thing that Bill has left out, however, is San Francisco’s value of innovation. I’ve long said that the DNA of San Francisco contains, across the board, the “I wonder what’s West of here?” gene. That spirit of imagination and adventure has given the world some amazing things. Considering just the illustrious internet marvels, the Bay Area is home to Apple, Craigslist, Flickr, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube among many, many others. Let’s not forget popsicles and fortune cookies!

One more invention that had its root in San Francisco that Bill O’Reilly may be especially thankful for and not even know it. On a foggy day in September, back in 1927, Philo T. Farnsworth brought to life a device without which the world would never come to know the No Spin Zone, the motherfucking television.

Diversity, sustainability, and innovation? Those are San Francisco values and Congress could sure use all of them.

The cover of the latest Fortune blasts the bold headline: “Chaos@Google!” But before you sell your favorite stock, read the subtitle: “The inside story of disorder, disarray, and uncertainty at Google. And why it’s all part of the plan.” Indeed, the article implies that the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA is closer to a raucous playground than the austere sanctuary one might expect as the home of arguably the internet’s biggest success story. That’s how they want it. VP for Business Operations Shona Brown even wrote a book on the subject, “Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos“.

But it’s not just talk. Consider what Larry Page’s response to an employee that cost the company millions of dollars:

I’m so glad you made this mistake. Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.

That’s crazy talk! Millions of dollars and he’s practically happy about it. To the asylum with him!

But he’s not the only one milking madness. Business Week this week (I really don’t normally read so many mainstream, Wall Street-y type magazines, but my officemate had some around) has a whole section called “Inside Innovation“, which seems to be basically a list of crazy ways for suits to get creative—and they’re good! Some of them:

1. Pairing sensible engineers with wacky artists to co-generate ideas.
2. Important rules for brainstorming from Bob Sutton, who has previously suggested ignoring your boss to promote innovation.
3. Apple Designer Jonathan Ive suggests that an innovative idea will likely change the company that produces it.
4. Or just steal good ideas from places like TED, which I’m shocked I haven’t linked to previously.

I feel kind of dirty linking to Fortune and Business Week as proof that chaos, anarchy, and noise have a vital place in the world today. Could it be that Corporate America is making the slow transition from Orange to Green?

First, you’re hardly the first corporation to get turned into a word. Just the other day I was xeroxing a pile of résumés and noticed “LOSER!” written in sharpie on one of them, so I fixed it with white out. I dropped the stack on my boss’s desk with a post it on the best applicant, saying “put this guy in your rolodex“. Unfortunately, I got an awful paper cut and needed a band aid for my finger and a kleenex to wipe away the tears.

Also, now that you are public domain, unlike your dad “Google”, its up to the people to determine how you’ll be remembered. They say that history is written by the victors, but the dictionaries are a different situation entirely (except in science-fiction novels). It excites me to think that crass wielders of power today (Limbaugh and Santorum, for instance) will have legacies that reflect their crassitude but perhaps not their power (Limbaugh and Santorum, again). It’s happened before, you know.

Finally, as my parting advice to you, “google”, I’d just like to remind you to stay humble. You may think yourself the top of your class (especially since you were added to the dictionary along with “spyware” and “unibrow”), but think of all the words that were on top before you. People may be talking about you right now, but that can change. It was only yesterday when newspapers were in a tizzy about “bling”, “blog”, and—oh yeah, I almost forgot—”googol“.