Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with plot

What software can plot non-trivial functions?

tasty — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:22:47 -0800

What software can I use to plot functions? Excel and matplotlib seem to only plot data points. gnuplot plots simple functions but not the generalized harmonic number, which I need, e.g., H(n,1.5). It would be great if this software can also plot inverse functions, e.g. x=f(y) on a normal x-y axis to overlay on a normal y=f(x) plot.

This sounds really familiar...

amicamentis — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:56:56 -0800

How do authors ensure that they aren't copying older stories? Is there a process that authors go through when fleshing out (fictional) works? Is this the publisher's responsibility? Do they ask around?

I would imagine that an author would want to know as soon as possible whether or not the plot of his story resembled a film or book already published. And while he or she may know of many works, it's impossible to be familiar with all of them.

For example, if a writer says "I know! I'll write a book about a nerdy journalist who goes back to high school and gets a second chance at love!". Hopefully they have a friend that says, "Dude, that was Never Been Kissed. Try again". But what if they don't? Does this happen often? Is there some sort of "plot database" in existence?

I'm not referring to deliberate parody or spoofs on classic works, more of a general and unintentional similarity.

What is a triangular graph with axes perpendicular to the sides called?

Peter Petridish — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:59:52 -0800

What is the graph or plot called which: - is an equilateral triangle - has three axes - each axes is perpendicular to a side of the triangle? Here is an example, but searching for "likelihood triangle" turns up nothing. I've never heard of that term before.

A triangle plot seems similar, but the axes are at 60 degree angles. Everyone in my laboratory agrees that they are difficult to easily interpret without practice.

Bonus question: Is there an R package which would create such a graph?

Thanks!

Hayfield to vegetable garden - how?

unSane — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:39:45 -0800

How to turn an abandoned field into a productive vegetable garden? We built a house in an old hayfield. Last year I tried planting a vegetable garden (about 100' x 20'). I used a rototiller to break up the soil and planted lots of good stuff but the produce was drowned by the grass which grew up around it -- far too much to weed out by hand.

How do I kill the weeds and grasses before planting next time? It's not just the plants -- the ground is absolutely full of seed. I would rather not use a herbicide if possible.

I've considered laying down tarp but it is a pretty big area. I could get a neighbor to plough it over but I'm concerned that's not gonna solve the seed problem.

Things I have -- 40 Hp tractor, rototiller. I can rent most any implement.

The weeds are mostly hay grasses, alfalfa, clover, vetch, ragweed and canada thistle.

PS3 franchises with story but little backstory?

Riki tiki — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:01:21 -0800

What video game franchises in the current generation would be good to pick up for the first time? I like games with a decent focus on story or lore. I just bought a PS3 and am looking to build up my library a bit. Problem is, I look around and see a lot of those types of games with large numbers at the end of their titles... Metal Gear Solid 4, Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry 4. Not having played the earlier titles in these series, I'm hesitant to buy them for fear that the plot will make little to no sense to me or that I'll end up with a cruddy cash-in sequel that only appeals to people who had their minds blown by the early entries.

Which franchises justify that fear and which don't? Of the ones that have a rolling storyline, do the earlier games hold up well enough to be worth playing now (and would I be able to play them on a new PS3)?

The above were just examples, I'm open to any other franchises you can think of. Also feel free to assume a fairly loose definition of "story", I just mean it to exclude franchises where the plot is just a flimsy framework to justify the gameplay, like Street Fighter.

(also no need to talk about the following: Fallout 3, Oblivion, GTAIV, or the Final Fantasy series)

I need examples of multi-threaded narratives in film and video games.

ga$money — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:46:31 -0800

Looking for multi-threaded narratives in film and video games, such as Pulp Fiction or Go. I'm looking for examples of films that have multi-threaded narratives, particularly ones where the narrative lines loop back to their starting points or intersect with each other. Two examples are Go and Pulp Fiction, where we follow one character's storyline, but it intersects with other storylines or characters that are presented elsewhere in the movie. So we see Jules and Vincent in the background during the opening sequence of Pulp Fiction, when Honey Bunny and Pumpkin discuss holding up the diner. Or in Go, where we see the gay couple at the checkout stand while following the erstwhile drug dealer's storyline. So far as other examples, I have Timecode (though really something different), Run Lola Run (sort of), and Rashomon (sort of, but the whole notion of each character telling the story in flashback mediates the plot device more than I want). I know there are more examples out there, but I'm drawing a blank.

Extra bonus credit if you can give an examples of video games that attempt the same thing.

Believe it or not, this is a work-related question, so I guess I must have a really awesome job.

Brought to you by the Nilbog Chamber of Commerce

Countess Elena — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:09:30 -0800

Inspired by a recent question about the Seven Basic Plots and so forth: Can you tell me what the origin of the "Creepy Little Town" or "Something's Not Right Here" story type is? I'm wondering if it's a uniquely American trope in origin. It's about a town that preserves a surface normality, sometimes total and saccharine, sometimes odd and off-kilter. A traveler, a former resident, or a suspicious outsider inside the town detects that something is strange and soon discovers a big old vat of hidden evil. All the townspeople are complicit, either because they're frightened, they're deluded, or they too are evil.

Salem's Lot is a good example, and I'm certain Stephen King wrote plenty of others along the same line; The Stepford Wives is a different kind. The Wicker Man is also a classic (of course it isn't an American movie, at least not the good one from the '70s). Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is another. (I wouldn't exactly count the "Seven Samurai" or "Shane" type of plot, in which there is a powerful enemy that controls the town, but there is not supposed to be anything wrong with the whole place.)

I am interested to know how old this type of story is, and where, if anyone knows, its earliest examples came from.

Seeking air tight caper flicks or thrillers

IndigoJones — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:33:22 -0800

Seeking first rate caper flicks or thrillers. (Books also acceptable) AIR TIGHT PLOT ESSENTIAL! Stylish is nice, but I hate, hate, a cheat. Cheats include long cons requiring highly unlikely coincidence (I’m talking to you, David Mamet), or incriminating documents that no thought to burn years earlier (Little Dorrit, of all things, seems to have started this). Or the vital search warrant that no judge on earth would grant. Crap like that. I want the hinges to be silent, the joinery to be tight, the gears to mesh precisely, the ending to be truly surprising and solution to be satisfying and capable of withstanding close scrutiny.

How to sell/market cemetery plots?

dorgla — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:13:17 -0800

Trying to sell four adjacent cemetery plots. Funeral home suggested Craigslist ads, which I am currently running with pictures and *very* competitive pricing. No nibbles. Unconvinced that people in the market for such things actually read Craigslist. Need brilliant ideas on how and where to reach potential customers for cemetery plots in greater Seattle area. (Skywriting is out.)

Looking for stories about unhappy people living happily ever after...

GraceCathedral — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:02:00 -0800

Looking for stories about unhappy people living happily ever after... There's a certain type of plotline that makes me happy, even if it's a bit contrived, and I'm looking for more examples of the genre.

Basically, the story starts with an unhappy, unlucky, and more-or-less unlikable character who hates their life. Various bad things happen to them, and they do not react well like Job or Cinderella, but instead flail around and dig themselves in deeper. Then miraculously, their life becomes much better, as though the author had finally taken pity on them and relented. By the end of the book, everything that has been lost in the early chapters is restored. For instance, a character whose child has died might adopt an orphan; a character on the edge of bankruptcy might win the lottery; a character who has never been loved might find companionship.

I'm going to list a few examples in a minute, so if you want to remain unspoiled about which books in a particular author's repertoire utilize this device, you should stop reading. Authors: Atkinson, Amis, Bujold, Lamb, Proulx

Some examples of novels that contain this device are Case Histories (Atkison), Success (Amis), The Curse of Chalion (Bujold), I Know This Much is True (Lamb) and The Shipping News (Proulx).

Anyone have any additional selections I should check out? In general, I prefer books to movies, fiction to nonfiction, and adult to young adult. But I'm willing to consider anything, as long as it has a happily-ever-after twist.

[R] you experienced with plot() and barplot() ?

bengarland — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:39:39 -0800

How do I graph these data using R's plot() and barplot() commands? I have data that I need to graph using R. Unfortunately, the examples I have found in books and on the web are too simplistic and do not give me much insight into the process. I have never used R before, and have been trying for hours and hours to figure out how to do what I need to do. I also already read the previous posts about R here on Ask MeFi, but I am still stumped.

I've made a fake set of data that represents the structure of my real data (which you don't want to see, it's too confusing).

Here is my sample data.

Take a quick look at that.

There is a main factor/category, Factor1 with values of "BOB" and "JILL", and a grouping within that called SubFactor with values "Q" and "P". I also have blocked reps of everything, labeled A, B, C, D. My measurements are Measurement1, Measurement2, Measurement3, etc which I will abbreviate as M1, M2, M3, etc.

To cut to the chase, I made a few hand drawings of the graphs I need. Please note that the graphs are illustrative only, and do not correspond to the data above.

Please walk me through this step-by-step and assume I know absolutely nothing about how to get my data into R, how to manipulate it as needed, and finally, how to produce the following graphs.

ALSO if any of you R graphing experts want to take me under your wing and help me learn more than I have outlined here (surely I will have future questions), please send me a MeMail.

----------

GRAPH 1...

In the first, I want to make a bar graph of just the average of the M1 measurements for each treatment, split into categories "BOB" and "JILL" with the grouped "P" and "Q" subfactors.

So that we're on the same page here, the mean of BOB(Q) for M1 = (100+500+200+300)/4 = 275, for example.

Here is my drawing for this: Bar Graph 1

----------

GRAPH 2...

In the second, I want a plot of the measurements for "BOB", with M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5 on the X-axis. The lines will represent the "P" and "Q" subfactors.

Here is my drawing for this: Plot 1

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GRAPH 3...

In another bar graph, I want to have M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 be the bars, and have them grouped by BOB (Q, P) and JILL (Q, P) on the x-axis. The Y-axis would show the means.

Here is my drawing for this: Bar Graph 2

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GRAPH 4...

In the final plot, I want to graph only the mean measurements for "BOB" sub-level "P" over time. Let's say that each M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 was taken at unique times T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 where the times could have values T1=15, T2=45, T3=55, T4=65, T5=70 and they need to be spaced properly on a timeline (i.e. the distance between T1 and T2 should be 30 units, T2 and T3 10 units, T3 and T4 10 units, T4 and T5 5 units) -- I spaced them evenly on the graph, so ignore that.

Here is my drawing for this: Plot 2

----------

THANKS!!!

What movie was this plot element in?

0xFCAF — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:49:33 -0800

Plot identification: "X should have never been made a Y, but I pulled some strings to get him through and he got { killed | maimed | lost } while Ying! Oh noes!" It's in BSG with Y = Pilot, but I could swear I've seen this elsewhere (most likely in a movie). Any ideas?

Movies like Ocean's 11?

phunniemee — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:53:40 -0800

Recommend to me some movies similar in style and pace to Ocean's 11, please! I haven't seen the original, so we're talking about the remake here. Specifically what I like about it is how as something is being described, the scene will cut to what they're describing, moving the plot along at a nice, fast clip. Does that make sense? Now that I've typed it out it really doesn't sound all that helpful. Surely this style has a name (does anyone know what it's called?--someone help me out here).

Anyway, I would like more movies that tell their story in a smilar way. Clearly the style lends itself well to heist plots, but maybe not necessarily. (And The Sting, while it's awesome and has those similar "gotcha, this was our plan all along!" plot twists that Ocean's 11 has, it doesn't set up the story in the same way.)

And, sorry. This question didn't come out like I was hoping it would. I have a very clear picture in my head of what I'm looking for, but I can't seem to verbalize it. Maybe it's just one of those you know it when you see it things.

Movie with plot and running times that match

punkfloyd — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:04:45 -0800

Are there any non-documentary films where the duration of the plot matches the length of the film? For example, a 90 minute snapshot of a relationship, a journey, a battle... or whatever.

Help me ID this book - I only remember one plot point

dyerfr — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:28:53 -0800

Single plot point - can you help me remember this book? OK - so I am drawing on the meta-mind for a book I read when I was young. What I remember in addition to the single plot point below is 1) that it was a children's or young teens book, 2) it was science fiction, and 3) it must have been published before 1985, since I think I read it before then.

Here's (drum roll) the single plot I remember:

- children in a spaceship heading for the Cygnus constellation (nebula, 'system,' black hole, etc... but definitely Cygnus).

I was reading a book not too long ago and it mentioned Cygnus - and I immediately was hiy by the single memory of a book - the memory is what I wrote above...

Thanks, all - am on a search to re-read some of my favorite books from childhood and this mighta shoulda coulda been on the list!

Movies with multiple plot twists

®@ — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:31:06 -0800

Tell me thriller/mystery movies have lots of plot twists, like in "The Game." Spoilers inside as examples. I don't mean end-of-movie-twists specifically-- but my favorite movies in the thriller genre have "Switches" (not sure of the proper term), where the audience becomes convinced of one thing, then convinced of a different thing. Obviously the degree of being "convinced" will apply to different individuals, but a particularly good one was "The Game," where the movie's plot made a reasonable "case" for it being serious/being a game at several different points. A less successful example was "The Village," where after we learn that the creatures are fake, there's a sequence in the forest where the movie implies (through voiceover and camera angles) that a *real* creature is stalking Bryce, until it turns out it was a person after all. I can't for the life of me think of other movies with these "switches" in them (other than single Twist Ending switches, like 6th Sense).

Anyone?

Iron Man plot holes?

Cosine — Sat, 24 May 2008 12:39:13 -0800

Movie Filter: I can't believe I am saying this but I couldn't follow the plot of Iron Man, or it just didn't make sense... ***SPOILERS INSIDE*** Ok so, Obadiah Stane hires terrorists to kill Tony, no reason for this is ever given as far as I could tell, the terrorists don't kill Tony but instead decide to have him make weapons for them... weapons that they appear to already have as it is revealed that Obadiah has already been dealing to them. Can anyone straighten this out?

Here are some possible ideas, none of them good:

1. Obadiah wants Tony dead for some general unspoken reason, like greed (weak!).

2. We are supposed to think Obadiah wants Tony dead for turning pacifist, despite the later revelation that he was trying to kill him BEFORE Tony changed (also weak).

3. The terrorists not killing Tony as instructed also makes no sense, Obadiah has agreed to give them Stark weapons in exchange for killing Tony so why do they need Tony to hand build them a missle?

How to print high resolution county/street maps

passtehbrainz — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:33:08 -0800

I need to print a huge map, but I need a high resolution source, or vector graphics. I will be printing this on a large 64" color plotter. I found a place that sells pdf/vector files, but they are wanting near $100 dollars, and I don't think they even cover our County. I was hoping there was some software out there that allows this, or better yet, some way to output large images from google maps. Any suggestions? Thanks!

are red herrings overdone at this point in the movies?

Lucinda — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:12:48 -0800

Are movie audiences today too trained to anticipate a plot twist? (OP does not contain spoilers. Future comments might.) Say you have a character who is mysteriously ill. Everything presented in the movie leads the audience to believe that the character is being poisoned by Character X.

Would most people figure that the clues provided to the audience are red herrings? Would they assume that there will be a twist and the character is ill because of previously unknown food allergies, or an innocuous food poisoning incident? At that point, would it be a shocking twist to discover that the person is actually being poisoned by Character X?

In a past life I was a sylph.

dorothy humbird — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:09:29 -0800

How common a trope is reincarnation within the fantasy genre? [spoilers inside] For reference, the only book series I've seen this used in is Katherine Kerr's Deverry Cycle. I'm looking for answers particularly regarding mass market type paperback fantasy series (Sword of Truth, Game of Thrones, Mercedes Lackey etc.) and interesting oddities like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

If there are works more along the lines of speculative fiction/magical realism and what have you, I'd like to hear about those too.

Oh, would you look at the time? It's almost NaNoWriMo'clock.

Eastern Promises Plot

billysumday — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:27:03 -0800

Question about a plot point in Eastern Promises [SPOILERS INSIDE] Why did Semyon order the hit on Nikolai and not Kirill? Or, did he actually intend to order the hit on Kirill and Yuri just misinterpreted it to mean that he wanted to kill Nikolai? Even Wikipedia's explanation is murky: The hit [on an earlier character] was not approved by Semyon and was ill-advised with the Chechen gang now coming to London to seek vengeance. Semyon, impressed by Nikolai's knowledge of the criminal underworld and tolerance and protection of his son, hatches a plan to trick Nikolai, now a full member of the vory, so that Nikolai would temporarily take Kirill's place during the meeting with the Chechens at the baths.

This is what I don't get. Semyon did seem impressed by Nikolai. And he did seem to think his son was a fuck-up, a homo, an alcoholic, and out of control. So why would he "hatch a plan" to kill Nikolai? It only makes sense that he'd sacrifice his son and groom Nikolai to be the next in line. So why the switcheroo? Are we to simply believe that he decided at the last minute to save his son? Did I black out for five minutes? I can believe that he suspected Nikolai was a [youknowhat], and that makes the most sense but there didn't seem to be any indication of Semyon discovering anything like that.

Question about the plot of The Bourne Ultimatum

sparrows — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:38:57 -0800

Question about the plot of The Bourne Ultimatum, specifically about Bourne's memories of his early training (SPOILERS INSIDE, probably for all three Bourne movies). I only saw it in a theater; I don't have a video copy to refer to yet (and I haven't read the book).

I'm wondering if I'm missing the point of the climactic scene where he's returned to the training facility and is confronting the guy who oversaw his training.

All through the movie we watch him have memories of torture that was part of his training -- sleep deprivation, water torture, psychological conditioning.

Then we get to that climactic moment where it's going to be revealed "what really happened to him," and it's just the footage of him choosing to shoot the prisoner, then the overseer guy telling him this was his moment of transformation from David Webb to Jason Bourne.

So in his dreams that we see, is he *inventing* those memories of all the torture -- like conflating it with real experiences (for example, in the flashes when we see him remembering his head being held underwater at the same time he's remembering Marie drowning) as a defense mechanism, to try to make himself think he was more forced into this life than he actually was?

Or did all that torture really happen, as the means of getting him from the initial point of idealistic volunteering to do "anything" for his country to that later point of actually choosing to shoot the defenseless prisoner?

Am I just reaching for extra implications behind that talking scene in the training facility, because it wasn't the big revealing climax I expected?

Yeah, but why.

517 — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:34:58 -0800

Eastern Promise plot explanation. (spoilers) At what point and why does Semyon decide to kill Nikolai?

I stepped out briefly and missed something in the film. I saw the scene where Semyon is standing on the loading dock and asked if the Chechens knew what his son looked like but I'm assuming there is a little bit more set up that I missed.

The Borne Curiosity

rentalkarma — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:02:53 -0800

At the beginning of "The Borne Identity", why did Jason have a bank account number implanted in his hip? I'm late to the game on the Borne series, but finally watched the first two last night. I am confused about a crucial detail, however.

At the beginning of "The Borne Identity", Jason is fished from the sea with two bullets in his back and a Swiss bank account number implanted in his hip.

Why was there a Swiss bank account number implanted in his hip?

1.) According to "The Borne Supremacy", Jason is the first Treadstone agent to be stricken with amnesia, so it would make little sense for Treadstone to implant it as a safety precaution. ("If you happen to lose your brain -- though it has never happened before -- just remember to carve into your hip and get the account number and figure things out.")

2.) It makes little sense for the CIA to have implanted it as standard operating procedure. ("We always implant super-secret Swiss bank account info in laser pointers (!) in our super-secret agents' bodies. It just makes sense!")

3.) It makes little sense for Jason to have implanted the device himself. ("Just in case my photographic memory fails -- as I have noticed it starting to do -- I will surely remember to carve into a random point in my body and dig out a Swiss bank account number and piece everything together.")

4.) If it WAS implanted for amnesiac reasons, why not stick a note in the box stating, "By the way, in case you forget everything, your name is Bill Smith and you work for the CIA. Call Sally at 555-555-5555.")

5.) If it was implanted to aide fellow agents in "cleaning up" the details of a covert agent's life in the event he is KIA, why? Since the CIA likely would have done the implanting, they already know the number, or could get it with little difficulty. Plus they've already got a guy working in the bank for convenience. ("Agent X, this is Agent Y. Agent Z is dead. Since you work at the bank, call Langley, get his account number, and empty his box.") But since we already know that Treadstone agents work alone, it should not have been implanted for this reason, anyway.

6.) Why implant a laser pointer beneath the skin FOR ANY REASON?? ("Er, did my account end in a 1 or a 7? Time to break out the machete and start digging!")

---

I did enjoy the films very much, but my satisfaction would double if a convincing reason for that implant could be offered. Perhaps from the book? Or a line in the movie I missed? Something logical, that's just made up?

HELP!

The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.

Memo — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:50:50 -0800

plotplanningfilter: By what means could an immortal human manage to build up a fortune and be able to use it through the ages? What if he reincarnated? In the Middle Ages and before it would be easy to fake his own death and claim to be his own son by moving around and disappearing a few years. However in the present how would that work? What about the tax recollection agency? I'm thinking that a Trust company would work but I'm not sure and I would like to make it as realistic as I can.

However what if the man wasn't immortal in the literal sense and simply reincarnated with full awareness of his past lives? Would a trust still work? Maybe building up a company and manage to get employed there every time would work?

I'm more interested in the second escenario but both are useful for my purposes. Thanks.