The Dictionary of Words in the Wild

Image of Word Cloud The Dictionary of Words in the Wild is an experiment in public textuality that I’m leading. Andrew MacDonald has done the programming and is contributing images (along with others). You can get an account and upload pictures of words or phrases. We have an application programming interface that you can use to then create web applications that call the dictionary. Join, sample, load! We need pictures.

Try a phrase:


James pointed me to a similar experiment, The Visual Dictionary – a visual exploration of words in the real world. This focuses on single words and has a ranking/rating system. It doesn’t, however, have the API we have. I wonder how we can interoperate? Can such dictionaries be a movement?

Castronova: A midsummer nights virtual world

Newsmaker: A midsummer night’s virtual world is an interview on CNET news with Edward Castronova about the MacArthur Foundation grand he got to develop an online game, “Arden: The World of Shakespeare.” The game is not about the world Shakespeare lived in – it is a world based on his plays and it will be designed to study the social science of game worlds. Interesting … I wonder if it will work as an idea.

Thanks to Bart for this.

Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men

Shakespeare and Queen's Men ImageI went to the first Hamilton performance of the Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men project. SQM is a SSHRC funded Research/Creation project that is reconstructing how plays would have been put on in the late 16th century during Shakespeare’s apprenticeship. I will be involved in the internet research site where we hope to put up streaming video footage from the project that documents the reconstruction research. The play I saw, King Leir, directed by Peter Cockett, was terrific. The procession of dignitaries included McMaster’s president and AVP (Academic) Fred Hall. They sat at the back of the stage where us less important types could see if they fell asleep during the performance. King Leir repeatedly addressed them when talking about the evils of flattery (the main theme of this version.)

A review in the National Post discusses the Toronto performance of the King Leir which I saw.

A more stimulating sidelight on Shakespeare in general and King Lear in particular can be had from Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men, a joint theatrical-academic project on view at the Glen Morris Theatre, on the University of Toronto campus, and subsequently beyond. The Queen’s Men were an Elizabethan theatre company who flourished briefly in the 1580s, in London and on tour, before disappearing from the record in mysterious, and conceivably sinister, circumstances. This was just before Shakespeare began his career, and the present enterprise is staging and discussing three plays that definitely or conceivably influenced him.

National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data

The National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data produced a final report (PDF is here) calling for a national research data “archive” called Data Canada. This report has a deja vu feel about it as I was on the National Data Archive Consultation (SSHRC and then National Archive project) that produced a Needs Assessment Report (PDF) in 2001 and then a Final Report (PDF) in 2002. Nothing happened as a result of these, so I think SSHRC is now working with the sciences and health to make the case across the disciplines. Why do we need the sciences to make our case?

We recommend the creation of a task force, dubbed Data Force, to prepare a full national implementation strategy, and mount a pilot project to show the value and impact of multi-person and multidisciplinary access to research data. Once such a national strategy is broadly supported and has obtained appropriate funding commitments, we propose the establishment of a dedicated national infrastructure, tentatively called Data Canada, to assume overall leadership in the development and execution of a strategic plan. The plan would encompass and presumably extend the NCASRD‚Äôs recommendations. (p. 3 of the “Executive Summary”)