Archive Page 2
Algorithms and Orwell
As I watched the video of Peter Norvig discuss Algorithm and interpreting data in the video. Most of it was out of my realm of comprehension, but I tried to be a trooper and hang in. Some of the more interesting comments, that I understood was near the end of the Q& A session when Norvig is asked about how some of the language algorithms have been implemented to help the OCR process (around the 52:00 minute mark). His statement that Google is using some of the language models to improve the OCR system has been a help to the scanning process. Quite impressive, indeed, consider the size of the book scanning project. Though I wonder how the impliationof the settlement Prof. Cohen’s discusses here may change the project- or in this case the ancillary work around better OCR scanning?
What I have taken away from this video is how meticulous Google seems to be to bridge the gap between math and information. It is a little frightening in the Orwellian sense to think about how big Google has become. This video shows less of an Orwellian angle and a more imaginative way to gather and synthesize data. I’m still not completely comfortable with the how big or bow far Google will infiltrate our lives, but I am somewhat comforted by the fact that there is this sense of navigating a new frontier- more Lewis and Clark and less 1984.
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Preserving my Past
When we talked about this in class I immediately thought, about the rubbermaid bins I own. Over the past 16 years I have moved a total of 12 times. 4 of those being over 1200 miles at least. So I have learned to try to keep the things I really cherish in as safe a container as possible.
Having said that I have not done anything in particular, from a preservation perspective to keep the items safe. There have been things that have meant a lot thatI have lost- I still do not know where I lost them- somewhere between LA and New Jersey I think.
I am still struggling a bit with my technical preservation. As you may recall, I migrated to a new Mac and ran into some issues with the migration. I still can not access my data from the old Mac. Sadly, I think it may be lost forever. The things that I was most interested in saving were my digital images. Luckily for me, I can view the on Flickr.
I think about with preservation is how I care for things that have been handed down to me. Today, I just unpacked and put together the curio cabinet my grandmother left me after she passed. She liked her collection of Chokin art, certainly not something that I would normally keep on display in my house. As I was putting things together I found myself thinking about how important these things were to my grandmother, so I found myself handling things with a bit more care. It is interesting how her things still make me feel a connection to her.
One of the more interesting thoughts about personal history is why something is kept or why it is discarded. From my own perspective I understand what something means to me and why I keep it. But that’s not true for looking into the life and history of others. As I was putting together my grandmother’s belongings today I was struck by how much these things meant to her. They reminded her of her a large part of the life she lived in Hawai’i. Having that perspective gave me a sense of importance with these objects. I’m glad I was able to understand my grandmother’s history as I handled these items today, it gave me a great opportunity to think about how I can make changes to preserve my history.
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Abstract: The Footsteps of History will be a social research tool for all those who wish to gain a better understanding of the history of a battlefield site to put them in the sites virtual location. To achieve this experience I plan to create tool (page) that can brings together elements of Google Earth, Flickr Maps, Flickr Photo sharing and to compare more current photos of a battlefield to a battlefield photo or map that is dated around the historical event (or as close as possible). The main objective is to create an environment to a “then and now” experience of these battlefields to help the individual gain a more comprehensive experience and a broader context of the battlefield to learn about the battle itself in the footsteps of history. The site will also create a social research community of amateur historians and enthusiasts who can contribute and create a community that can share, evaluate materials that create a social layer of historical study.
This project is necessary to provide battle history in a more contextual sense and the social element can create a community of historians and enthusiasts. As an example, I will be using the Battle of Little Bighorn as my “mock up” battle site experience. I hope to utilize tools such as Google Earth, Flickr Photo sharing, Flickr Maps that can aggregate data where enthusiasts are sharing use generated content about these topics.
As I survey the landscape of the web, I have found some resources that have certain aspects of my idea, but nothing that is exactly what I have in mind. I will continue to root around and see what else is out there. This could be a very interesting – or I’m either not finding the sites that I’m looking for or they do not exist, as of yet. There are sites that exist about the Battle itself (Eyewitness to History is one example), some with maps imbedded, but there are very few that fit with what I am thinking about. The potential peril of this specific battlefield example is that there is some debate over the “facts” of the Battle itself. Even the National Park Service site is limited in it’s presentation of media (about 7 total pics and two web cams) on the battlefield site.
I’ve given a lot of thought around the possibilities that tools such as Google Earth and Flickr can provide in this endeavor. One of the more interesting examples that I posted about earlier was the Civil War Preservation and there is also some good examples at Arm Chair General. For this site to function, the challenge will be to set up a user interface that is first easy to use, easy to follow and read, and creates an opportunity to gather information and experience. In the longer term, the implementation of of video content, especially using tools such as Kaltura video can allow the user to manage video, and to interact and collaborate by remixing content.
The biggest change in my idea is to make this tool more social-based.
As I try to think about how this tool could exists, I think that this could be a site that connects people to create dialogue and I look forward to developing this idea into a useful tool and know that there will be a some adjusting, or shifting things here or there, but I’m excited to try to put this together.
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how to generate traffic…
to your site.
Just put Wikipedia in the headline. According to the magic graph I got 48 views to that post and 117 views to the blog after that blog post published. Maybe not a big deal to many bloggers, but for my little page here, that’s cool!
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Google announcement
The full settlement without attachments: here
Our groundbreaking agreement with authors and publishers.
Three years ago, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a handful of authors and publishers filed a class action lawsuit against Google Book Search.
Today we’re delighted to announce that we’ve settled that lawsuit and will be working closely with these industry partners to bring even more of the world’s books online. Together we’ll accomplish far more than any of us could have individually, to the enduring benefit of authors, publishers, researchers and readers alike.
It will take some time for this agreement to be approved and finalized by the Court. For now, here’s a peek at the changes we hope you’ll soon see.
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Hide the kids
it’s all fun and games until someone gets an eye out, and watch your backs..Twitter is a threat. wha…?
Catching up on my favorite Rachel Maddow bits and came across a note about Twitter as a possible “threat”. I’ve linked to the report, thanks to Wired’s write up here.
Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.
You have to watchout for those communist vegetarians.
Really?
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Give ‘em a NINCH
Ok so, I just lost an entire blog post. I love this medium- though, right now, I’m not a fan.
Basically, here’s my repost:
Chapters V-VIII are interesting reading, but for me I have little exposure to the digitization process other than what I learned in my “Management of Archives” Class last semester. My thoughts on the scanning process remain unchanged, especially after reading my Google Reader versus Internet Archive analysis. It is interesting to understand the technical process better, but I feel a little like a fish out of water based on my complete lack of exposure.
What I did find interesting was the First Chapter (not technically a part of the readings this week) because it provided a helpful guide for me as I work on my project idea.
It is worth remembering that analog holdings constitute intellectual capital, and that as digital surrogates are created, the research, teaching or economic value of the originals should not be depleted. This may affect the material you choose to make accessible, the standard to which you do so, and what types of use and access arrangements you will put in place. Requiring those who work with your collections to follow good practices can minimize risks to the analog sources through their digitization.
So the first questions to ask include:
- Where is the audience for my collections?
- What types of individuals does that audience include?
- Will digitization enable me to meet the needs of existing communities better?
- Will digitization enable me to create new audiences for both the digital surrogates and the analog sources?
- What do I mean by “audience” in the digital world? Am I referring only to those individuals to whom I can deliver digital materials or am I also giving consideration to those who would like to produce digital surrogates for business, personal and research purposes?
Addendum:
After tonight’s class I was very interested in the kinds of questions we talked about. I though Curtis had a great point about Facebook and what people would find embarrassing in 30 years. What is interesting to me, though, is that while Curtis is absolutely correct, Facebook (or Myspace) and the experience of connecting to each other in this fashion is indicative of the culture in which we live. We live in a come-see- my world anytime, all-the-time existence. So while we are thinking about how we have more accessibilty to books and knowledge via Google reader or the internet archive, we are also much more exposed to the “regular” life moments of everyone.
Is this good or bad? I am leanig more towards good. As with anything, the “newness” will wear off and we will find ourselves distracted by something else. Invariably, the things that “stick” are usually the things that we find a more use for. Remember the Laserdisc? That platform didn’t last, but the DVD did and now we are moving towards Blu-ray. To this point, Gayle echoed a point that was made in Chapter 8 of the reading about the technology not holding up. How, for example, do we consider the best way to format data so it has the longest “half-life” as Tracy mentioned?
How does this effect scholarship and how we “do history”? I look forward to next week’s discussion.
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For my analysis of Google Reader versus The Archive project, I chose an older text.
I chose The History of England (Volume I) By Thomas Keightley, Joshua Toulmin Smith Published by Hilliard, Gray, and Co., 1840.
The Google reader version is here.
The Internet Archive version is here.
Navigating around each site I’d have to say that I prefer the Google interface over the Internet archive.
While there is certainly a cool factor with the Internet archive interface- that page turn is impressive it seems to me that the scanned copy quality of this text is much better on Google. Google has more elements that help you with the text. You can view the pages as one or more as a book for. There are other interesting things about google reader that make the experience much more interactive. You can navigate through different tools on Google where as the Internet archive is a more bare-bones experience.
Perhaps it is indicative of what we are used to in this digital platform. It seems odd to think that a book online can be considered anything but a tribute to the idea of digitization itself. As technology evolves, we find that we have more expectations with respect to this digital experience. It’s not enough that I can look at a text from 1840 online- I want to have a more interactive experience- that is what Google Reader offers.
Notes from class: I really liked the discussion on this topic tonight. I would agree with Brian and Nicole in that there is no replacement for a real book. I’m sure that having a kindle would be a great thing to have and the capabilities of having a more interactive experience is exciting and useful, there are times when shutting out the rest of the world and diving into a book is a good thing. It is that reason why I do not think we would ever make it to 100 % digital book environment. Perhaps I’m being more luddite in my thinking on this topic but I wonder, how will we preserve digital texts? Gayle mention the Library of Congress has two copies of every book published, where do digital texts go? The digtial landscape seems like such a vast frontier that I’m not sure I have any answers, only more questions.
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Wikipedia
Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose.
This quote from Roy Rosenzweig’ s JAH article was the most impactful to me as I was considering when thinking about Wikipedia and it’s usefulness as a tool for Historians. I think that as a research tool Wiki can be a good “starting point” but perhaps not the most effective research tool given its issues with accuracy.
I looked at three different pages to try to a diverse look at what Wiki can do.
1) Little Bighorn
2) D-Day
3) Betsy Ross
1) The first page is directly related to my project idea. The Battle of Little Bighorn Battlefield site in Montana. I thought it would be interesting to look at the Wiki page and see what information is contained therein.
Looking over the history of the page on this topic is interesting. Started in 2006, it seems to have a few people who like to tweak and add. One interesting thing in the history section is an early note about a note that Edgar Rice Burroughs mentioned he was a survivor of the Battle. There are of course a myriad of smaller edits. I am surprised by the amount of information you can find in the additional discussion and history tabs.
2) D-Day. This page, as you can imagine is a popular one. The earliest date in August 2002, but it didn’t seem to pick up any real traffic until 2006. But these is alot of traffic here. One of the more interesting pointsin the discussion area was what the “D” meant in “D-day”. Some think is means “Disembarkation” while other say it meant nothing. The discussion for topic was surprisingly short- only 16 topics. Interesting.
3) Betsy Ross – I had no idea she was so popular. The most interesting part about this page is the discussions page where there is some discussion of her past marriages . This page was started in 2005 and like the previous two pages, traffic seems to pickup after a few years.
These three pages show a distinctive growth in use of Wikipedia as a resource- and one that you could contribute to as well. One of the things I have been thinking is changing my project to include more social utility of some sort. The examples of how users can contribute to a certain event and have it disseminated by a community of people would be an interesting aspect of how my project site could grow and become a more useful resource.
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Political Blogs
I usually spend some time lurking around some political sites, Daily kos and Politico are among them. As Marcella stated in her blog, NPR always seems a good resource as well. For me one of the more interesting blogs is from TPM Cafe, talking points memo. I like the different elements of this site. The election center is a great area as well. Check it out here.
Along with the reporting you get to read blogs posts from individuals such as Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. His posts are often insightful an interesting read. (Full disclosure, he’s my boss).
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