Programming with dates and times are always fun. I had hoped that after some time working with them at JISCmail on a central service that I could be forgiven their gory details. Sadly some work with pandas bit me again in this area… I have been updating my Digital Humanities Summer School talk on Reproducibility […]
I’ve been thinking a little about Theresa May’s latest clarification of what her Government wants from Brexit and borders. I come at this merely as curious about some of the underlying models. A line in Dan Roberts’ analysis sums up part of what is bothering me: May’s convoluted proposals for avoiding a customs union would […]
I’m currently reading Videocracy (Allocca, 2018). As the Head of Culture and Trends, there is a clear bias but the breathlessness of the writing is intriguing. Has YouTube style become writing style? Allocca highlights some interesting videos and extrapolates these into trends and themes. Some are long lasting such as the power and use of […]
Ticketmaster, a large purveyor of tickets, appear to be attempting to suggest how a genuine fan might be constructed: Tickets: is this the system to finally beat the touts? Having taken the email address, they want other details to check if a purchaser is a Verified Fan via social media. I do wonder how long […]
The Guardian has a story on insurance companies refusing life insurance cover for those with mental illness. A concern is raised that: The suspicion is that insurers are cherry-picking customers to minimise risk and boost the bottom line. (Marsh, 2018) So are the algorithm’s health being shown by human health? It may or may not […]
The Guardian ran a piece by Tim Burrows on Facebook’s Safety Check feature, Safety Check: is Facebook becoming fear’s administrator-in-chief? I do find the social media platform increasingly fascinating, especially as it comes under critique for its social and technical choices. There’s an increasing creakiness that is coming to the fore now. Ruminating on the […]
I presented a poster on Joshua Steele at the Digital Music Research Network (DMRN) workshop this week. More on the poster in another post but the day did provide a range of talks. Much enjoyed the keynote by Augusto Sardi about capturing and rendering spatial audio. It reflected on techniques from computer vision and the […]
I’m a fan of prototyping. Not all the time but I strongly believe that it has a place within the toolkit. If I am unsure of how something might be put together then I might put together a quick version to test out a current approach. If I am working with a team who know […]
I attended the Digitizing the Stage conference, jointly between the Bodleian libraries and Folger Shakespeare library. A basic storify exists here for the various tweets. A mix of performance, textual, makers, and doers, this was a chance to consider the needs of archives, scholars and the data for ongoing scholarship. I noticed a disenchantment with […]
A Facebook friend had a link to an NY Times piece on Jane Austen’s word choices. Using Franco Moretti’s techniques, it begins showing how Digital Humanities can be useful. There are one of two of his books that I am waiting for before I can get into the pros and cons but I do have […]
