Saturday, March 26, 2011

On Simple Structure and Factor Analysis

"I had become increasingly unhappy with L. L. Thurstone's principle of so-called simple structure and his widely accepted idea that variables are best explained if based on a minimum number of "factors", on only one "factor" if possible. As far as I can see, varieties in nature are nowhere put on single poles, phenomena generally arise from relations of underlying building blocks, from interaction of components and complex combinations. On all levels of inanimate and animate organization wholes emerge from interweaving parts. I could not understand why factor analysts were doggedly attempting to construe a world of utterly independent "dimensions" and associated constructs in splendid isolation." (David M. Glover)

Monday, March 7, 2011

notepad ++ special characters as replace string

While copy over a newline special character will show up in the "find" field of the "find & replace" dialog if one of these is present in a highlight, these cannot be copied/pasted into the "replace" field notepad ++ allows an extended set of special characters to be used both in the find AND replace fields ... so for example if you replace ";" with ";\r\n", with the "extended" option checked on, you will get a new line after every ";"