My Department of Communication Studies & Multimedia has a new web site designed by two of our multimedia students and organized by Robert Hamilton. Bravoe.
ESCI LiveCoda
Steve Ramsay sent me this link about esci (livecoda) – a realtime coding competition that was run in a bar in Australia. The teams were given a graphics stream problem (where they had to correct color problems) and timed. Teams of 4 could work in their favorite language. The winners were the team that took the last time. Not surprisingly teams that drank didn’t do as well. Reminds me a bit of Rebecca, but more fun.
TshwaneDJe
TshwaneDJe Human Language Technology is a company with an interesting unicode XML dictionary building program called TshwaneLex. It is Windows software that lets you compile multilingual dictionaries and publish them. Here is an example of an Online Swahili – English Dictionary creted with TshwaneLex.
Academic Blogging
The Chronicle of Higher Education has two online stories related to scholars who blog. The first by Ivan Tribble (a pseudonym), Bloggers Need Not Apply (July 8, 2005) asks “What is it with job seekers who also write blogs?” It goes on to suggest that, “More often that not, however, the blog was a negative, and job seekers need to eliminate as many negatives as possible.”
The other by David Glenn from the issue of June 6, 2003, is titled, Scholars Who Blog. It starts with the question “Is this a revolution in academic discourse, or is it CB radio?” Glenn goes on describe actual cases of scholars who blog and provides a case study of one that took off. Glenn is more sympathetic:
Blogging also offers speed; the opportunity to interact with diverse audiences both inside and outside academe; and the freedom to adopt a persona more playful than those generally available to people with Ph.D.’s.
I would add that blogging can also be a way of connecting to unanticipated other researchers and a way of opening/sharing the process.
Google Book Search: Opinion
To scan or not to scan? (Guardian Unlimited, March 8, 2006) is an blog entry by Culture Vulture Victor Keegan in defense of Google’s scanning of millions of books, including books still under copyright. The comments are good too. The key issue seems to be whether this is covered by “fair use”.
Technically, as Charles Arthur points out, this is blatant infringement. Turn to the front of any book and you will find a paragraph that states that no part of it shall be copied or stored without the publisher’s permission. The University of Michigan is keeping material that is still within copyright “dark” until the copyright runs out, while Google argues that letting people read snippets of copyrighted books is covered by “fair use” provisions of the kind that mean we don’t go to jail for sneaking into Waterstone’s to look up a reference.
I found this from the Google Book Search – News & Views – Media Coverage page.
Amazon Text Analysis
Amazon has recently added a neat feature to the pages on certain books. If you go, for example to, Amazon.com: The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture: Books: John Battelle and mouse-over the image of the book it gives you:
- SIPs: Statistically Improbably Phrases
- CAPs: Capitalized Phrases
- and the ability to search inside the book and get a concordance.
They are providing a simple form of text analysis right on the book page. You can click on a SIP and see what other books (for sale on Amazon) have a high frequency of that improbable phrase.
UK Children Go Online
UK Children Go Online: Emerging Opportunities and Dangers is a large and systematic study of the “nature and meaning of children’s internet use and maps emerging paterns of attitudes and practices across diverse contexts and social groups in the UK.” The report has some interesting stuff about the risks of children encountering porn (57% of 9-19 regular users have come across porn) and the risks of online communication (“parents underestimate” it).
At the site you can get copies of their reports and links to comparable reports elsewhere.
Tools to the Rescue?
A Kaleidoscope of Digital American Literature by Martha Brogan with assistance from DaphnÈe Rentfrow (Council on Library and Information Resources, Digital Library Federation, Washington, D.C., Sept. 2005) is a deep report on the state digital resources for the study of American literature. It concludes that while there are some excellent resources, things are fragmented and there need to be better tools. The MLA is criticized as “missing in action” compared to other organizations, which is probably not fair, but indicates an a problem of perception. The MLA isn’t viewed as leading in this area.
Continue reading Tools to the Rescue?
Study of RuneScape Game
How gaming is all work and no play (Marcgh 14, 2006) is a summary of a study by two Brunel University academics about online playing on RuneScape. Simon Bradford and Nic Crowe explain their findings from their 3 year study in the BBC story:
The stark fact is that many young people spend as much time playing video games as they do doing their homework.
Concerned parents reading these statistics may have a sharp intake of breath. To them, this is proof that their children spend too much time being “anti-social” in front of a screen.
It is not that simple. Having researched gamers for three years, we have found that it is far from an anti-social activity.
Alice Programming Language
Alice is a programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon that is designed for teaching programming, especially to girls. It uses a drag-and-drop interface and it focuses on creating virtual worlds, animated movies and simple games that can be exported to the web. They have just recieved support from Electronic Arts to use The Sims content (characters) to enahce the sophistication of the resulting animations. The development of Alice is driven by research into teaching programming.