Not Forgetting Sarah Marshall anytime soon.

A couple of nights ago, Team Awesome went to see an advance screening of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." What little information I could find about the release indicated that it was made by the "guys who brought you 'Knocked Up' and 'The 40-year Old Virgin'." Since I really enjoyed seeing both of those movies, this one had some expectations to live up to.

And it did. Sort of.

Allow me to explain.

There has been a bit of a viral marketing campaign appearing on street corners and on the TTC, running ads about how much Sarah Marshall sucks, and how "I am so over you, Sarah Marshall." Here's an example:

A better ad that I could not find an image of was the "I am so over you, Sarah Marshall." Based on the choice of phrase on these posters I was expecting a sort of 'disastrously immature campaign of emotionally masochistic demonstrations of 'moving on' with the goal of regaining lost love.' Well, I was only partly right.

After being dumped by his five year girlfriend, now a famous actress, Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) sets out on a campaign of debauchery to try to ease his aching heart. He whirls through a series of intimate encounters: ranging from the humiliating to just plain strange. But hey! At least he's getting action, right? Well, Peter admits to his brother-in-law that he is still feeling depressed and uncomfortable, as well completely heart-broken. So, he figures that the best cure for his melancholy is to do the one thing the two of them always talked about doing: take a trip to Hawaii.

Well, as any RomCom veteran should know, it just so happens that the (in)famous ex-girlfriend has also decided to do the whole 'Hawaii vacation' thing- with her new beau, an outrageous British rock star (played by the scene stealing Russel Brand- just wait for the serenade). Of course, awkwardness and hilarity ensue.

In between scenes of emotional breakdown, Peter makes some new friends: a newly-wed husband who experience failure anxiety during sex because of his sense of spiritual cleanliness; a surfer-dude who suffers (albeit unknowingly) from anterograde amnesia; a massive native Hawaiian; and others. Of course, among the 'others' is the new love-interest: free-spirited Rachel (played by Mila Kunis).

I'm pretty sure that you can figure out the rest from there: Boy goes on vacation to forget lost love, encounters lost love, pines, gets comforted by new friend, realizes new friend is hot chick and promptly falls for her...blah blah blah...just wait for the dinner scene, because it is great.

That said, here are the (IMHO) highlights:

The Good:

• Full frontal male nudity. There's no better way to combine humiliation and anguish than to have a man dumped while he is butt-naked;
  
• The music. The soundtrack is good, the original soundtrack is fantastic. I can't do it justice by trying to describe it here;
  
• Ridiculous segues from drinking with the buddies to crying alone on the balcony. Well, not so ridiculous;
  
• Rachel's fight with her ex-boyfriend. It's funny and very effective character-building;
  
• The dinner scene. Fantastic. It's too bad it comes so late in the movie;
  
• And, a vampire puppet rock opera. 'Nuff said
  

The Bad:

• Marketing really did not do a good job on this one, as I was expecting something else before I could get comfortable with this story.
  
• Too long. The movie is 2 hours, where there could have been about 20 minutes less.
  

All said, if you liked Knocked Up, you'll definitely enjoy this one. The humour is very similar, especially considering the number of appearances by actors from other Apatow productions. It's a very funny movie, just get ready to be in there for a while.

Boring? Surely Not Canadian History!

Part 1: Wherein your author rants about the geopolitical relevance of Canadian history.

I was speaking with some work colleagues the other day, and the conversation turned towards my area of historical specialty. I did the usual "I studied this in grad school", which leads to "so I am very knowledgeable of A, B, and C", which is why today I am doing (X). Usually, turning to this area tends to be a bit of a conversation killer. My area of specialty is rather esoteric, so most hear about it, nod their heads, agree that it is quite interesting and that I must have done a lot of work, and then: silence.

This time, however, a rather interesting remark was made: "well, it makes sense that you don't do Canadian history, because it is just so boring." I was more than a little taken aback. First, I thought I had made it clear that although I am not a Canadian-ist, I am very familiar with Canadian history. I have studied events in Canadian history for the purposes of comparative analysis, as well as for case studies. So in a way, although I may not identify as a Canadian historian, I certainly do believe that there is merit to the study.

My response to the statement was a little long-winded, but I'll summarize it here: Canadian history is more than just about Canada, it is a case study of modern state building. Now, a quick definition for a "State": a political entity with clearly defined geographical borders, autonomous authority over that territory, and effective power with which to coerce its population. "Modern States", IMHO, are characterized by a central government with a complex bureaucracy, having the power to levy tax(es) and legislate policy. In Europe, the "Modern State" GREW out of the ancien regime. Parliamentary democracy and bureaucratic institutions came about through a slow trial and error process.

Canada, on the other hand, came into existence with the entire arsenal of a modern state. Parliament and various federal ministries came into being with the ratification of a single document, the BNA Act. Now, quibbling about the nature of the ruling British authority aside (not to mention the transfer of power from the colonial office), the Canadian state came into existence with all of its modern machinery intact.

This is different from the experience of the United States (equally interesting, but different) where the people making up a territorial region chose the incarnation of their state, and determined its structure and powers.

Is Canadian history boring? Certainly no one who has studied any of it would say it is. I think, however, that the intent of the person from whom the original statement emerged was to conflate uninteresting and irrelevant into one term: boring.

As far as the relevance of Canadian history is concerned, I tend to think that it is more relevant than the histories of most other nations. This is not just because I am both Canadian and an historian. If you just look at Canadian history "from afar", you are looking at the colonial and post-colonial experience of the people living in Canada. The fact that Canada came into being with a fully-formed modern State, and continues to exist today is incredible considering the problems that the nation has had to face: uniting an ethnically and religiously divided population, as well as uniting and maintaining control over a vast geographic area.

I think that if you want to find out what has gone wrong in other areas of the world where a post-colonial modern state has crumbled, it is more than useful to compare that story to the Canadian one. By understanding what went right in Canada, and what made the Canadian state as successful as it has been; one can gain a useful understanding of the problems facing other regions and other peoples today.

Mansy Fool's


I came across this little ad in a local paper last week. My initial reaction was "What the shit"? What could be a rather serene picture, unfortunately involving yoga, is ruined by a modified lady's speedo. The main thing that disturbed me: why did my eyes keep getting drawn to the crotch? My original title for this post was going to be: "Why I am never moving to the West Coast."

However, something about the ad just did not sit right with me. First of all, it was too outrageous for a Lululemon ad; I might expect this from American Apparel, but not Lululemon. Then there is the "Mansy available April 1" note down in bottom left. Unfortunately, you can not see it clearly in the photo I found here, but trust me: it is there.

So I did a little bit of searching on the net. Aside from a hack at the National Post treating the ad as though it was a real shock campaign, the general consensus seems to be that it is just some plain ol' viral marketing. For an April Fool's joke to be delivered well, a company has to show great brand awareness, and be able to communicate it well enough that people will get the joke. At the same time, I think that there is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek poke at recent American Apparel ads. This is probably why some people look at it and still think that lululemon is trying to 'set a new trend.'

So kudos to Lulu, despite the fact that I still hate them and the yuppie crap that they stand for.

Photo by Tobyvs from Flickr.

Evil Dead: the Musical


Some rumors have been circulating for the last week-or-so, and I think that it is time an annoucement was made to clear things up.

It's official: Team Awesome is going to see "Evil Dead: The Musical".




I'm stoked about this show, because the movie franchise is one of my favourites. I'll admit that when I first heard about the show, I was a little concerned. However, after some consideration I became baffled by my initial response. The movies basically have one set, the Cabin, where all of the action takes place. Talk about ideal for moving it onto the stage.

Then I did a little research, and came across this little quote in the FAQ section on the show's website: "...we cannot guarantee you won’t get blood on you (so perhaps you should save the white cashmere sweater for another outing)."
...
Cannot guarantee that you won't get blood on you?

Intrigued, I read on: "What do I need to wear in the Splatter zone? Can I bring a raincoat/umbrella?"

Hells yeah. Basically, I am expecting this show to be like a trip to SeaWorld, but with blood. A whole ton of it.

Unfortunately, SheWhoMustBeObeyed forbade the purchase of tickets in the splatter section. Something about 'not wanting to be covered in blood when we go out for dinner that evening.'
Obviously I am considering a renegotiation of SWMBO's position on Team Awesome.

Luckily, SheWhoMustBeObeyed does not know that:
the spraying, splashing, pouring, and splattering of blood into the audience is not an exact science, so if you are sitting in the first few rows, it is entirely possible you will get some blood on you.

I'm hoping that our tickets, which are in 221-224, are still close enough to get some action.

If the show rocks (I think it will), Team Awesome will be returning at a later date. In the splatter zone.

Since we are not going until April 18th; if anyone has a review or any comments that they would like to share, feel free to let me know what you thought of the production.

This week's LCBO gem.


Alright, I'll admit that I am a bit of a wine-o. I grew up in a household where wine accompanying a meal was chosen according to its characteristics and flavours. So, aside from being a wine-o, I am also a bit of a wine snob.


But, that does not mean that I believe that good wine is only found in the vintages section. In fact, I prefer to pick out bottles from the variety found in the aisles. Sometimes I will try out something cheap, sometimes it will be a bit expensive.


Admittedly, I tend to drift towards the cheaper bottles, as it is easier to buy 2 or 3 at a time, and not feel as though I am taking a dent out my budget. After being a student for so long, these considerations tend to come naturally.


So, I recently came across this little gem at the LCBO:




It's the 2007 "Astica" Sauvignon/Semillón bottled by Trapiche. The wine is described as a "remarkably fresh with soft tropical fruit flavours." Now, I am not so sure about the "tropical fruit" descriptor, since the dominant flavour seemed to be peach: a fruit local to the Niagara region.

Quibbles about the tropical-ness of the fruit flavour aside, the wine went really well with stuffed chicken breast, accompanied by rice and a creamy mushroom sauce. Although the recommended serving temperature is 10-16°C, I find that serving it in the 6-10° range compensates for the acidity that follows each sip.

The best part about this find: the price. At $8.10, it is a deal. The wine can be served casually, or you can also keep it around for special occasions. It’s probably best with chicken or white fish, but it is also pretty good along with nachos and mango salsa.

So: Peachy, cheap, and a little dry.

Details:
Trapiche (Argentina)
Sauvignon/Semillón
LCBO#: 359083
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 8.10

White wine, slight dryness with mild peach flavour

Obay This


For the last couple of weeks I have noticed some rather peculiar ads while riding the TTC.
Here's an example:



If the "From the makers of WhyBecauseISaidSo" did not jump out at you, the subtle tongue-in-cheek humour of the ads implies that something else is going on here. I think that most people would immediately suspect some kind of viral marketing campaign, but the immediate question was: whose?

My own suspicions were that it was some kind of "anti-ritalin" awareness campaign.
Turns out that the campaign source is a little more mundane. According to a recent article, the guys at Torontoist managed to trace the campaign to (get this) Colleges Ontario, a group representing 24 colleges across Ontario.

Kudos to Colleges Ontario for the creative campaign. I will be keeping an eye peeled for any more details surrounding Obay and its "side-effects for Ontario's Post-Secondary education."

Photo by Mark Belvis, from the Obay Marketing Flickr Pool.

The (triumphant) Return. Of me. To the blogosphere.

Whew...better blow the dust off of this before I do any writing...

It has been a little over a year since I last published anything. Main reason: laziness.
Second reason: school.
Third reason: I could not log onto my blogger account. I suck. Neglect and forgetfulness combined to thwart my attempts to reclaim the blog, as I could not remember my password and username.
Months passed, and I thought: “no point in starting a new blog, I just need to remember the old one…”
Then, out of the blue, I found an innocuous little slip of paper in the back of my desk drawer. Sure enough, I had scribbled all of my relevant blogger information on it. For once, my inability to throw away anything on my desk worked to my benefit!
I’m back!
Today’s lesson: Don’t throw out anything. No matter how trivial. Ever.

Update

It turns out that I have some borken links on my blog, so I am going to take a couple of articles down, and find a new path to the information that I wanted to link to the entry.

Also, there are still a couple of posts that I have yet to finish. They concern my attempts at tagging digital media. If you are interested: I am getting butt-whooped by the code.

Greek Computers

A recent article in Archaeoastronomy describes a study performed on an ancient lump of metal. It turns out that the Antikythera Mechanism is the equaivalent of an ancient Greek computer. Now, images of a P4 logo etched on face aside, this article leaves a few questions unanswered.

First, the device is supposed to be able to 'calculate' "the position of the sun, moon and planets against the celestial sphere". What the article does not specify is what version of the solar system it is employing. The ancient greeks had competing models of the universe: geo-centricism and helicentricism. Now, most people are familiar with the ancient geocentric model because most textbooks like to bash it to show how "stupid" everyone was until Copernicus.

So, which model does the device use? I am going to assume that it is the geo-centric model, but that is only because the Arab world and the medieval West both had similar devices that used it: the astrolabe and the armillary sphere.

The origins of the mouth-breather.




Alright. One post on how much I detest mouthbreathing was just not enough for me. So, herein I am going to try to investigate the historical status of the mouthbreather. I just want to understand where we went wrong.

Wikipedia has a useful entry on mouthbreathing, covering both the medical definition and the common impression of the behaviour. Note that I am obviously not the only one on this most-just crusade. Actually, I have found at least one supporter on the net.

However, wikipedia does not give me any information on when the term first entered use. So, I checked out dictionary.com…that veritable treasure-trove of idiomatic knowledge…and I got bupkis. Nadda. There was one definition, and it was simply concerning the mechanical/medical status of mouth breathing. There was nothing on the social appearances, or the negative impact of the behaviour.

I started to suspect a conspiracy. Could the mouthbreathers have allies high-up enough that they are preventing common-knowledge from being recorded? Could The Man be a mouth-breather?

Worried, I decided to re-start my search with a resource that features the “common” usages of terms. That’s right- the Double-Tongued Dictionary. I was delighted to find that the definition for “mouth-breather” was (rightly so):
mouth-breather n. a stupid person; a moron, dolt, imbecile. Related: English, Derogatory, Slang

What is even more useful about the DTD is the fact that the site provides a list of citations supporting their definition. This way, one can get a sense of when the term started to take on its meaning. In this case, the earliest citation of “mouth-breather” used in the manner described by the definition (after all, what is the definition of a word other than how it is used in a phrase?) was from 1944.

I was a little doubtful of this date, so I decided to check if it appeared at all earlier. Much earlier. I decided to search for “mouth breather” on EEBO. And once again, I got bupkis.

So it seems that the pathology of mouth-breathing was not discovered (or, dare I say it: created) until the current century. There was an etymology discussion on washingtonmonthly.com surrounding where the term may have originated. The earliest that this author could find of the use of the term was with regards to the physical effects of mouth breathing on hearing.

So I tried using FindForward’s “early century” search counter. The results gathered by the search for “mouth breather” suggest that the use of the term peaked during the 1940s. However, since this search does not allow me to actually see the data gathered, I can not say for sure if the results are relevant to my search.

The “later century” search saw some interesting variation in the use of the term (peaking in the early 80s), but once again, since it does not actually allow you to access the data, I can not determine the relevance. However, what is interesting is if you compare these results to a search of the term “mouthbreather” (one-word). The results peak around the same years. Once again, though, the fact that I cannot examine the data for myself makes the results dubious.

I hate mouthbreathers.


I know that this is definately not a post about using digital sources to do historical research, but I really have to say something. While doing some crowd wathcing over lunch this afternoon, I must have counted something like 20 mouthbreathers. Some were even

In the new regime, I am going to put a public tax on mouth-breathers.

Seriously. I think that there are one or two other things that one could do to successfully tell the world that they are barely thinking. Now, before writing this off as just another diatribe- which, admittedly it is- just stop to think about it. Have you not ever seen someone walking on campus with their mouth half open? Haven't you also noticed the fixed-forward stare of these people? Honestly, it looks as though they are asleep on two feet. What's worse, is the dull, glazed-over expression that dominates the face. Why don't these people take a look in the mirror? Moreover: the sound. I swear that whenever I go to a movie theatre, in that moment when the lights go down and the audience quietly awaits the film to start (or, properly, the commercials), I can always hear a cacophany of mouth breathing. That's right. It's this not-quite-a-snore-but-damn-louder-than-NORMAL-breathing sound.

Well, it could just be that they are living down a long evening, or they are suffering through a long day, and they really are starting to fall asleep on their feet. But I doubt that that is always the case. This seems to me to be an abnormality that is fostered by our health-care-centric, lazy, sedentary lifestyle. If people were more active, breathing through their noses would become normal. Yes, it is true that you can draw more air through your mouth. So when you are exercising it makes sense to inhale through the mouth. However, it is also very effective to exhale slowly. Come on, everyone has done those calming exercises where they are told to "breathe in 1-2-3, hold, and exhale 1-2-3-4".

This is not just some yoga-new-age-mumbo-voodoo. There is a physiological rationale here. When you exhale too quickly, you throw off the CO2 balance in your blood. This is usually referred to as hyperventillation. Not healthy, to say the least. When your CO2 balance is off, your body stops functioning properly. This results in the fatigued I'm-so-tired-that-can't-even-find-the-strength-to-close-my-mouth look.

Aside from leaving the body in a panic-response mode, imbalances in blood pH can lead to immune deficiencies, and increase sensitivities to allergens and other air-borne pollutants. There are also several other points about the detriments of mouth-breathing, but the last one that I will bring up is that mouth breathers are obviously bad kissers.

Take running, for instance. Hmmm....now that I think of it, running may be a bad example of nose-breathing vs. mouth breathing since most people do not have to worry about breathing rythm. Also, I think that the general consensus among runners is that whatever works is good for you.

But that doesn't help to prove that nose breathing is better. Swimming: there's a sport where your breathing rythm affects performance. Try swimming while exhaling through the mouth, and then through the nose. You should find that you need to take fewer breaths/length when exhaling through the nose. Inhaling through the nose is a bit more difficult due to (proper) head position, so a combination of mouth-inhaling and nose-exhaling is probably best.

My bottom line here is that mouth breathing is just ugly, aside from being un-healthy. Especially when not exercising. Now, as a nose breather I know that nose-breathers can be equally loud. I am pretty sure that everyone has had that experience where they go from walking outdoors and sit down inside and then their nose starts running. If you don't have a bunch of tissues on you, you end up making sniffing sounds every couple of minutes. Believe it or not, but I find that this sound is much more tolerable than the slightly-audible grating of a mouth breather.

So, to all of the mouth breathers out there: there is hope for you. Admit you have a problem, and seek some rehabilitation.

Throwing Swords for Dummies

Alright, admittedly this post is not in keeping with my previous ones, in that I am not going to be strictly commenting on internet tools for historians.

I'm not sure if I am the only movie-buff in the world who has noticed this, but sometimes it just seems this way. Have you ever watched a movie where the main character throws their sword? The most recent flick that I had seen it done in was "The Last Samurai" where Tom Cruise throws his sword, and it impales some guy like a spear.

Honestly, I can't help but start laughing whenever I see this. What strikes me as so funny is, first: the idea of using a sword as a spear sometimes seems to be a result of not actually having a spear in the prop department.

It kind of makes me think that our civilization does not actually remember what sword is for.

Second: (and I admit that I could be flat-out wrong on this one) Swords cannot be thrown like spears/javelins. Trust me, I have tried throwing any number of sword-like objects in the past (hey, we were all kids once!), and swords are just not balanced like spears, or knives.

Now, I have tried searching the web for this topic, but it seems to me that no one has actually posted on the real-world physics behind throwing swords. When performing a search on the google, the main hits returned were from a bunch of RPG-players trying to come up with the stats for "throwing swords", and sword manufacturers. There was one site that seemed as though the author had done some credible empirical research, until he made the following statement:

"...pointed out that there's a LOT more momentum behind a missile from a horse. Partly because of the extra height, partly because you've got that extra 30 mph to add to the missile. So, yes, a thrown big knife will do enough damage to be noticed."

Once again, demonstrating to me that scienticians (my definition: non-science people commenting on science) should take some physics.

So to end of this rant, I am going to start a list of movies that incorporate a scene where the hero throws a sword and impales his/her enemy, or cuts some object at the last possible moment to stop a chain of (possibly deadly) events from unfolding:

1) The Last Samurai; Tom Cruise impales the racist American colonel, from horseback.
2) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; Morgan Freeman throws his bizarre scimitar at the witch just before she stabs Robin in the back.
3) Any Movie with Schwarzenegger holding a sword; Conan, Red Sonja, the Conan Sequels, Predator (apparently this a machete, but hey!)
4) Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail: The Black Knight, anyone?
5) Gladiator: Russel Crowe gets one of the riders in the colosseum (who is on horseback)

If anyone would like to add to the list, please feel free.

I (heart) Python


So I have finally decided to sit down and try to learn some of this programming mumbo-jumbo. After glancing over a couple of the beginner's guides, I have settled on Guido Van Rossum's Python Tutorial. I find that his guide is much clearer on indenting than some of the others, but the one thing that I would really appreciate is a syntax guide. Even if it was just a list of the most basic functions would be helpful, as it would spare me from constantly growling at the computer.

Context-hunting computers?


During an in-class discussion the other day, a question was posited about how a computer program could be made to search a digitized text for its context (or was it subtext?)

This got me thinking about a tool that can be easily accessed on the internet: the linguist's search engine. Basically, it is a program that can break down a phrase/sentence into its syntactic parts. So, if you enter the statement: "The Chinese community was blamed for the 2003 SARS pandemic", the program will identify that the subject of the statment is the "chinese community".

What I think would be pretty awesome is a tool that can take a search query (like the one stated above) and first identify the syntactic role of the various word-strings. Following this, it could create an ad hoc storage base not only of the separate word-strings, but also for word-strings semantically related (re:synonyms (probably the first three entries of an on-line dictionary)) to those data pieces. This way, you could have a program that can perform a broad non-specific search for a particular phrase.

I had always wondered if there was a way to graphically represent people's reactions following a particular event in the news. With a program like this, I believe that it would be possible to find out how many people thought, e.g., that the Michigan Militia (re: T. McVeigh) was responsible for the attacks of Sep 11/2001, before al-qaeda released a video taking responsability.

I'm not too sure how to make a program like this work, or even if it is feasible. BUT, in theory it seems sort of cool.

Any thoughts?

Faking it on the Web


The proliferation of internet "digital hoaxes" brings several things to mind:

First: the urban legends

These popular pictures spread as attachments that were forwarded a billion times across the web. Some of them were just obviously ridiculuous, such as the "Bert is Evil" campaign. However, there were others that seemed at least slightly plausible. They were often grotesque images with an accompanying explanation. I’m pretty sure that everyone got at least one of them: the “eye-infecting dust-worms”, “breast infection”, and “contaminated sushi” seemed to be the most famous. In the instance of the breast infection, a doctored photograph did the trick, but the other two used actual pictures. The stories describing them were invented.

I believe that our fascination with this sort of spectacle can be connected to the 18th century fascination with cabinets of curiosities. The only difference is that the ‘curiosities’ can now come to us. In the past, people would question the veracity of an exhibit simply because of what it was presented with. Now that these curiosities are coming to us via email, it seems that the onus of determining a thing’s “truthiness” depends on the viewer’s own ability to check sources, as well as their ability to be skeptical, or at least agnostic.

Second: Mechanical Objectivity

I think that our visual gullibility can be connected to a cultural acceptance of what Lorraine Datson and Peter Galison have termed “mechanical objectivity”. Basically, with the invention of the camera, people believed that they finally had a way to present reality without worrying about bias in the presentation. Now, this was back in the 19th century: since then we have also learned to be skeptical of photographs. However, we can’t forget that the idiom: “Pictures don’t lie” is based on the assumption that a camera always discloses the truth.

Third: Political manipulation of imagery

Once the public accepted the notion that “pictures don’t lie”, various groups/individuals/institutions have tried to use this belief against us for their own rhetorical ends. During the 2004 election campaign, John Kerry’s picture appeared in an image with “Hanoi Jane” Fonda at an anti-vietnam rally. Now, I do not necessarily believe that this sort of manipulation resulted in Kerry’s defeat…the man did it to himself (or rather, did not do it)…but it is clear that whoever doctored the image did it for propagandist ends.
As an historian, I tend to historicize things. In this case, doctoring photographs for propagandistic ends has been an old tactic, and does not depend on digital technology. The case of Trotsky disappearing from Lenin’s side was accomplished, after all, through analog methods.

Fourth: Coded Objectivity?

The article on Farid’s truth-seeking algorithms makes me think about our own era’s notions of objectivity. If the truth is no longer in the camera (which can be manipulated), does this mean that the truth is in the code?

Spiders crawling all over the web...


JavaWorld.com has a very interesting article on creating web spiders. The article is pretty technical, however, after parcing through it there is alot of useful information to be gleamed. Using a web spider is kind of like using google. However, as I understand it, the information returned by a webspider follows a directed path of links starting from the "root"; whatever website you choose to have the spider start following links from.

At the bottom of the article there is a downloadable Demo program of a spider. Very fun program to play around with. Once I became used to the advantages/disadvantages of using various breadth and depth settings, I was able to return some intereseting results.

For instance, if you set the maximum search depth to "100", this particular program will follow each link until it has travelled 100 links from the root. At that point it will start the "breadth" field of the search, which involves travelling along each of the links found on each website, until it can travel no farther.

So, it seems as though the Demo Spider has two modes: first, the depth mode, it travels along the first link it encounters until it can not travel any farther, or it reaches the maximum number of sites to travel along. Following this, it "backtracks" to each site, and explores any other links available, until there are no more, or it reaches the maximum depth specified.

As a tool, this strikes me as extremely useful since it searches the entire website for you. Rather than try to search through a site map for specific content and links on a website, one can make the spider do it for you! If one wanted to create a database of links on a particular subject, this program performs an exhaustive search. Granted, you have to go through the material yourself. However, there is an added tool in the program to make that task much easier.

You can enter keywords for it to pay attention to, so the program will highlite any webpages that match the criteria that you specify. This is not like a key word search on google as it does not isolate the sites that return the keyword. However, it is useful for "seeing" the shape of the net.

Tagging and the Natural History of Art


While going over a couple of readings on the current project to make museum catalogues more searchable by generating non-expert keywords, I was reminded of a book by John Pickstone (Manchester) called "Ways of Knowing".

The book is essentially a history of Science, Technology and Medicine from the Renaissance to the present. Pickstone addresses the limits of local history (local referring to a particular time, place and theme), by experimenting with a novel historiographic approach. This approach is intended to outline the larger features of the history of science, technology and medicine (STM) without limiting his narrative to only one tradition.

So what does WoK have to do with Museum tagging? Pickstone distinguishes between 3 types, or ways of knowing in the history of STM: natural history, analysis, and experimentalism. He includes the way of “technoscinece” to analyze relations between science, technology, industry and policy.

What struck me as very interesting was the similarity between tagging and the tradition of "natural history". Pickstone describes natural history as the tradition which “covers all the things that can be named and collected”, and all forms of “collecting, describing and displaying". Basically, taking a natural history of a thing involves the naming and describing of it. Essentially, one has to "create" a place in their world-system by naming a thing. Although natural hsitory was most prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries in the history of STM, Pickstone suggets that natural history as a way of knowing can be seen in the world wide web: a place where things are categorized by their names, not by an hierarchical categorization.

Update

I just went through my old posts and did some spell-checking, and I also added some titles to the posts. The presentation of the blog seems a bit more coherent for the moment...

Don't try this one if you have a life (if you're like me, then it's okay...)

After an in-class discussion about open-source software, I was reminded of one of my favorite video-games, The Battle for Wesnoth.

Basically, it is a combination Strategy/RPG where you lead an army against your enemies. Not very original, neh? What I believe makes this game quite unique is the fact that- aside from the fact that it is free to download and play!- the source-code is not protected. Basically, people who play the game are free to edit it and to add to it as they please. The programming language used for the editor is not simple, but it is also not impossible to learn (actually, a little experience with Deductive Logic may go a bit farther than computer programming language here). The only expectation of the players is that if they make some change to the maps/scenarios/sprites/etc, they should share it. That is it.

It's encouraging that there are communities like this on the intra-web. My only real wish is that someone would make the Reseau-Lu software open-source...and free!

P.S.: I do not accept any liability for time lost becuase you get addicted to the game.

ANT, Reseau-Lu, and a wish-list


There is a particularly useful lesson on datastructures posted on this online computer science tutorial. The reason that the lesson is particularly useful to me is that it provided some answers concerning some new technologies being in science studies(made up philosophers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists- mostly the last group.)

Actually, I think that the wiki on science studies provides a pretty useful tool if you want to find out what it is all about. Since the history of medicine oftentimes converges with the history of science, I have had some experience with this sort of literature.

Of my experience, I have found that one of the most interesting (-and dare I say useful?-) tools to come out of this field is the Actor-Network Theory. Once again, the wiki provides a decent over-view of the theory, but it also leaves out the more recent changes and developments.

This theory is particularly useful as the basis for schematizing the spread of scientific knowledge. Recently, some science studies articles have used certain computer programs to create a two-dimensional representation of these scientific networks. The most current co-citation software being used is Reseau-Lu.

The program was used by Alberto Cambrosio (McGill), Peter Keating (UQAM), and A. Mogoutov (Aguidel) in an analysis of antibody reagent workshops (Social Studies of Science 34/3 (2004):325-64). By using Reseau-Lu, the authors were able to create a two-dimensional map of the cluster-designation workshops that was not limited to just the relationships between people: the map included the relationships between workshop groups, molecules, cell markers, and equipment. Interestingly, the methods employed by the authors to analyze the heterogeneous map were similar to those used by the scientists to develop a cluster designation nomenclature. Here is one of the maps used in the analysis:


Now, back to data structures. The lesson that I mentioned at the beginning of this page helped me to visualize just how this sort of software operates. The nodes seen on the map are basically the nodes described in the lesson. It strikes me that the Graphing Data Structure lesson can help one to appreciate how a program like Reseau-Lu operates. This sort of program could be extremely useful to historians who want a way to represent complex interactions between people, places and objects in the past. With a little tweaking, the program could even be used to represent various periods (years, decades, etc) of the network.

The only thing that I can see preventing me from using this sort of software is price. As I understand it, it happens to be pretty expensive, and it does require some training. Then again, it's not as though my weekends are completely booked these days, so that is not much of an excuse. Money...now that is certainly holding me back...