randomosity

Reuters released the API for their Calais web service last week. I dabbled with it quickly last week, and then was reminded about it earlier today. I took a closer look and come away very impressed and thoughtful about the application of this technology. Calais accepts text and quickly extracts a variety of meta data about your content or as they phrase it : “automatically annotates your content with rich semantic metadata.” Currently it attempts to determine references to:

• Entities: city, company, continent, country, industryTerm, MoneyAmount, Organization, Person, ProvinceOrState, Region and URL;
• Events/Facts: acquisition, alliance, bankruptcy, businessRelation, buybacks, companyEarningsAnnoucement, companyEarningsGuidance, companyInvestments, compantLegalIssues, jointVenture, ManagementChange, merger, personPolitical, personPoliticalPast, PersonProfession, PersonProfessionalPast, stockSplit

This is a rather rich collection of metadata - and they target expanding from here.
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Susan Nance, professor of US history at the University of Guelph, presented a fascinating paper “A Star is Born to Buck: On the Development of Rodeo Bulls in the 1990s” at the Rural History Roundtable today. Although Nance’s past work has touched on topics such as tourism under the Ottoman Empire and religious parades in interwar Chicago, her more recent work has focussed on accounting for the absence of animal’s stories in historical scholarship. The subject of her talk today is a transnational study of rodeo’s and performance with an emphasis on the contribution of the animal - most specifically ‘Bodacious’, the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Bull.

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A good friend of mine has arranged access to the digitised records of the New York Emigrant Savings Bank for 1850-1883. What a wondrous treasure trove of information! These records contain the deposit details for thousands of newly-arrived immigrants to New York from 1850. The bank was established by the Irish Emigrants Society and served a largely Irish population. Amazingly, the Emigrant Savings Bank is still around, holding about $15 billion in assets.
These older records are an immediate resource for genealogists. In addition to transaction details, the records include a ‘test book’ which contains information on place of residence, spouse and children, occupation, and additional other nuggets of information¹. This information was compiled when a depositor wished to send money back home to Ireland. I am particularly fascinated by the ledgers which record deposits and withdrawals for a large groups of people over a substantial period of time. There is a huge further digitisation project here to continue to enter data from these records into formats allowing for further study.
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1. Check out the finding aid from the NYPL referenced above for more details [↩]

In my continuing effort to direct you away from my blog, I am compelled to note Bill Turkel’s follow-up to a post I referenced last week. In this one he ponders our conscious creation of “islands of stasis” and why an anachronistic mode of research practise persists. More importantly his ‘punchline’ refers briefly to how to make use of tools, such as Zotero, efficiently to comprehend our private research processes. He muses “that measurements of your Zotero bibliography will be most useful to the extent that they are fed back into your research in a useful way.” This is very powerful observation and activity, but also dangerous.
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In times past, December visits to Munich have been warmed by new fallen snow and the glowing booths of the Christkindlmarkt. Munich this year had yet to see snow and the temperatures of 7/8C and rain seemed somehow less festive. People were still out in huge numbers socialising at the various markets about town, but the lack of snow was a literal damperon the occassion. So when I decided that the day was nigh to head off south to make my very first visit to the Konigschloss’s in the Schwangau, I was hopeful. I expected similar weather, but also enchanting architecture and scenery.
As the slow regional train departed Munich first thing in the morning, Munich was a little grey, dry, but grey and overcast.

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Bill Turkel has written a thought provoking post at Digital History Hacks calling for a re-conception of how we ‘do’ history. He summarizes his understanding of the conventional process involving measured, concrete steps, that unfortunately presuppose that time essentially stands still as we practise our craft. Here I learn about Parmenides. Turkel proposes a radical new model that accounts, not only for the aspect of continual change, but to my mind also suggests that the future of our practise is in greater real-time collective research products. I would normally point directly at a notable post, but this one warranted particular acknowledgement in hope that you will check it out. Great points to ponder.

I just discovered at the HNN that George Macdonald Fraser, author of the acclaimed Flashman series of historical fiction novel, passed away yesterday. His ribald contributions to a true appreciation of the nuances of Victorian military and social history will be missed. I have always looked forward to the next installment of the Flashman papers. The obits remind that he was author, journalist and screenwriter. When Octopussy with Roger Moore as James Bond came out I remember thinking that it had a rather different feel than other bonds. The Indian scenes were exotic and there even seemed to be a different pace. Shortly thereafter I found out that Fraser had done the screen play and I should have sensed the familiar had at work.
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Atzinger Gästhaus - 12 December 2007 - 14:00
I happened across some notes I jotted down while enjoying some wonderful pork stew at this little restaurant.
Munich is rather wet this year. It is a bit of a dampener - literally. The thing about this place though is the wonderful bustle. There’s people out and about. Certainly at the times of day that I am. It’s not crazy crowded - that would bother me a tad - it’s what I would describe as comfortably kinetic and a very diverse crowd. I am in the university area of Schwabbing today and there is a very discernible undergrad aged presence, but not overwhelmingly so. There always seems to be a younger component about, but it tends to be younger than university age in the core. There seems to be less English spoken since I was last here. Not a bad thing, merely an observation. Am finding that I am struggling with German - this also more of a struggle than a decade ago. Strangely have been mistaken for French on a number of occassions - strange. Guess it’s why my research people thought I speak Chinese with a Korean accent ;-)
The architecture in the area is a strange dichotomy of kitschy-southern German Alpine - some more ornate with stucco or francy brick pediments and towers - opposing ultra-modern glass and steel brutality. The steel always dark with a bronzy patina. The food is all so rich. How do these people stay thin???

Naru Shiode from the University at Buffalo gave a spellbinding presentation on spatial-temporal analysis at the Centre for Spatial Analysis (CSpA) on Friday. Shiode 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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Was out to the kino to catch something that I could claim as some degree of exposure to the German media scene. The redlight district probably could have provided some special, ;-) experiences, but went the other way. What are the kids watching - something German only. I found ‘Lissi und der wilde kaiser. It advertises itself as a parodie of the classic ‘Sissi’. I can only say that it takes serious license. As it turns out, it’s aimed at a little more mature audience than the normal animated show goer. I booked early. Circumstances. And with German efficiency had an assigned aisle and seat. Showed up close to time as I recalled that there is a sufficient period in advance with commercials, not trailers. Inside there’s three people in a 150 person theatre. My seat if right beside them. Another couple girls 13-15 come in and sit on the otherside of my 13-15 year old male friends.
Two adults come in. They are the seats in front of my colleagues. I can see that there is a system in the seat assignment process…but it sucks. Its starts from best seat and starts assigning in all directions. so you get 15 people all sitting right adjacent to one another despite 100 extra seats. And my German cimenagoers just went with it.
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