Comparing Word Clouds

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The folks at Many Eyes recently introduced their new comparison cloud tool. Basically, it lets you visualise two fragments of text displaying word frequency for each in the same cloud. It’s an interesting addition to the more familiar word cloud. cloud3.jpg Using a standard word cloud you get a matrix of words with relative size, weight or colour highlighting frequency in a selected text. This quickly allows you to visually perceive an author or speaker’s emphasis on a particular theme or style of writing or speaking. With Many Eyes hybrid tool, words which occur in both text are abutted. You can now visually compare two texts from the same author for similar empahsis or quickly determine a difference between texts. In the example presented at Many Eyes, they compare the US presidential State of the Union addresses from 2002 and 2003. In this example they note the less frequent mention of Afghanistan and the increase in mention of Saddam. Whether this allows one to conclude a change in policy or not, it does demonstrate the use of the tool for provoking questions for further exploration.

On Saturday, the Ontario government officially announced how much funding each university in Ontario is to receive for maintenance and renewal of facilities. I just happened to see announcements from a few institutions appear simultaneously in my RSS reader and was struck by the rather different ways in which they presented this news.


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Tags: How To, Info Architecture, McMaster, Text Analysis

Kathy Garay on Manufacturing Majesty, 1207-2007

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Dr. Kathy Garay of the McMaster Library gave a lively and fast-paced talk exploring the nature of majesty to the Medieval and Early Modern Research Group. Her paper,”Manufacturing Majesty: Elizabeth of Hungary, Diana of England and the Construction of Royal Saints, 1207-2007,” reflected on the rather striking similarities between St. Elizabeth of Hungary and Lady Diana Spencer. stelizabethsmall.jpgParticularly:

  • Lineage
  • Texts
  • Marital Love
  • In-Laws
  • Beauty
  • Motherhood
  • The Third Person
  • Charity
  • Agency
  • Funeral Rites
  • Legacy


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Tags: History, McMaster

Shiode on Dynamic Urban Visualization

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Naru Shiode from the University at Buffalo gave a spellbinding presentation on spatial-temporal analysis at the Centre for Spatial Analysis (CSpA) on Friday. buffaloisometric.jpgShiode is trained as architect and urban planner and finds himself in the Geography department at Buffalo. He has been associated with projects such as Digital Egypt and the Virtual Ryoanji projects exploring ancient historical reconstruction as well as time-based recremorphing. His current project is the 3D Buffalo project which allows a user to interact via a chronoslider that triggers time points for each building within a multi-block area surrounding downtown Buffalo. This project is only in its early stages, but the potential for historical analysis is tremendously promising.

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Tags: Architecture, McMaster, Speakers

Reaume: From Activists to Archivists

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Geoffrey Reaume from York and University of Toronto gave a fascinating talk in the History of Health and Medicine Lunchtime Seminar Series today. “From Activists to Archivists: Documenting Mad People’s History Since the 1970s,” explored both the formation of psychiatric survivors organizations reaumewall.jpgfrom the 1970s as well as the collection of artifacts allowing for study of these movements.
His talk reminded us of Allen Markman in NY, Kenneth Donaldson in Portland then more directly of local personalities such as Mel Starkman and Don Weitz. Reaume’s talk provided me with a wonderful exposure to the more human side of the mental health world and also put it into the context of other groups within society that battle with naming conventions. Very poignantly, Reaume also exposed the tremendously contentious area of attempting to remember the past when treatment has often been undertaken to eliminate such remembrances.
Reaume is currently engaged in two ongoing attempts to ensure that those that have been participants (willingly or unwillingly) in Toronto asylums past are not forgotten. The walls of the old Queen Street Asylum have been the site of local development over the past decade.
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Tags: McMaster, Speakers

Chimpanzees, Wasps and Functionless Functionality

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When is a tool, not a tool? Apparently when it is a quasi-tool or a proto-tool. A tool provides functionless functionality. ballen.jpg
These were a couple of the epigramatics Barry Allen shared during a talk on technology, culture and civilization.1
I could not possibly do justice to philosophical reflections on the nature of a tool, so I stop there on the philosophical and refer you to my footnote, but as an economist I was particularly drawn into his discussion of the progression from first to second order machines. First order being ‘devices that extend human capacities by exploiting a mechanical advantage’ and second-order featuring ‘an assembly of first-order machines, coupled to produce a multiplying effect.’ This form of organization seemed to dovetail with a similar discussion that Allen raised about our ability to effectively fix prices, but our seeming imability to determine the true cost of a tool.
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  1. Quasi-tools as I understand are objects used by beings without conscious or intelligent awareness that the object provides any particular function. Innate use of a pebble by a wasp to block the entrance to a birth chamber for example. In contrast, a proto-tool, is consciously chosen for use, but has not be fashioned to perform that function, lacking deliberate design to enable that function. A ‘tool’ per se shares two descriptive aspects: that its function is manifold and not limited by purpose, instead extended by technique to form cultural technology. Secondly, the tool is an artifact that lacks definition without having a place within an economy - that is, it has been previously linked to others in an economy of socially complimentary action (design, manufacture, sale, license, etc.) when we engage with it. []
Tags: Ethics, McMaster, Speakers

Melnick, Cruikshank and Bouchier Weave Magic on the Bay

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The Wilson Centre in Canadian History officially launched an awesome new learning tool dvdcover.gifdestined for the classrooms of local schools last night. The People and the the Bay is an historical environmental documentary created by Nancy Bouchier, Ken Cruikshank and the wizards from Pixel Dust Studios This stunning production brings a vivacity, zest, and probing depth to explore the unique relationship between the Hamilton harbour and the lives of people in the area and the city itself. The occasion was celebrated at the Canada Marine Discovery Centre, a uniquely appropriate site for presenting this production. The centre sits on the harbour and is an interpretative museum dedicated to Canada’s rich aquatic heritage.
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Tags: Canada, Environment, Hamilton, McMaster

Herring and Lockerbie on The Coming Plague

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The History of Health and Medicine Seminar series continued today with a rather provocative paper by Dr. Ann Herring and Stacey Lockerbie.herring.gif “The Coming Plague: Global panic, local repercussions and avian influenza,” contends that globalization and spread of information has preceded the potential epidemic with outcomes that alarm potentially unduly and have enormous local economic and social impact.
Herring is well known for her work on the history of infectious disease and very specifically on its impact on native populations. Lockerbie work involves the transition of aquaculture in central Vietnam from local to a global commodity. Their work coincides as a result of Lockerbie’s first-hand experience in Vietnam with the impact of poultry culls and the movement towards larger state-controlled factory operations as the government (over)reacted to the bird flu.
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Tags: McMaster, Speakers

Heathorn on Film and the Kitchener Conspiracy

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To a standing room only audience, Dr. Stephen Heathorn kicked off the Fall Thursday Seminar series in the Department of History with a talk entitled ‘Long Before Oliver Stone…Conspiracy Theory and the ’Kitchener Films’ 1921-26.’ kitchenthorn.jpg Heathorn’s talk centred on the backstory to a half-decade struggle to bring the movie ‘How Kitchener Was Betrayed’ to British screens during the early 20s. He used this episode to demonstrate how official policy perpetuated the Kitchener myth and avoided questions of professional competence. This paper comes from a larger exploration of how memory and reputation of martial leaders is manipulated over the space of the 20thC.
In 1916, Kitchener drowned on a mission to Russia when the ship he was aboard struck a mine off the Orkneys. Public grief was intense over the loss of the man who symbolized the fighting spirit of the nation and led many to question the culpability of military and politicians in the tragedy.
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Tags: McMaster

Hernández-Sáenz on Mexican Healers

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The History of Health and Medicine Seminar series welcomed Luz Maria Hernández-Sáenz today, who presented the lively story of Dona Maria Tiburcia Reynantes. hernandez-saenz.gifHer paper “Between Medicine and Magic: the Story of an 18th century Mexican healer,” explored the rather fascinating case of a travelling healer in eighteenth century Mexico who combined magic and medicine with religiously ordained healing practice. In the case of Tiburcia, Dr. Hernández-Sáenz, utilized Inquisition records to explore the tale of a women who claimed to be able to cure illness, reunite the divorced and to even resuscitate the dead.
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Tags: McMaster, Speakers

Alan Taylor on the Vision of Joseph Brant

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I attended a SRO lecture by Alan Taylor last week. He delivered a wonderful narrative on the life of Joseph Brant couched in the currently contentious discussion over native land rights in the Grand River basin. Taylor is the author of a variety of books, the most pertinent being The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution. taylormac.gifFollowing a concise, if rather softly spoken, brief on the various parties playing in the story, he moved to the meat of the matter. The key element that Taylor seemed to want the audience to appreciate was that the Six Nations themselves were by no means homogeneous. Additionally, the area into which they moved was by no means dominated by one party or another and was a populated by a collection of diverse groups already: pre-existing natives such as the Mississauga, recent settlers from either the US or from the British Isles and significantly, a small, but vocal cadre of British military forces. The result is an intermixed culturally diverse people in this area.
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Tags: Canada, McMaster
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