Wednesday Videos: Russian Landscape Edition 24 November 2010

I can't believe it, but its below freezing here in Portland.  Now before everyone collectively rolls their eyes I want to add I did live in Kansas for most of my life so I 'm no stranger to cold, wintery expanses of days passing with no hope of any sun or heat beyond that of your space heater (I was a poor student so no central heat for me!), so I know cold.

Inspired by this chilly morning, I present to you summer scenes of Russia and its landscape by Alex Beloff.

First, Saint Petersburg, where I spent my 2005 Summer studying Russian language at the Smolnii Institute.




The Second comes from the Russian countryside of Vyborg, Priozersk, Koporye.




The last video today is the Russian coast.



Makes me eager to return!

Weekend Reading 19 November 2010

I normally would like to give you only a few articles or texts to read on Friday, as it not only helps increase the chance you will actually read them but also allows me a chance to read ahead of time and provide some guiding commentary.  This week I found quite a few rather nice reading gems and will give you, gasp, more than two choices for your reading pleasure this (if you live in Portland) rainy/maybe snowy weekend.


Ethan Zuckerman's blog, My Heart's in Accra, writes on friend and mentor John Palfrey and his lecture on 'The Path of Legal Information'.  Palfrey argues that the newly emerging digital culture has prompted the emergence of a new form of legal information distribution.  A quote:

The codification of English law began under King Henry II in the 12th century, but a larger second wave of collection came into play with printing in the 16th century, and we began seeing both a collection of law and commentary on laws. A third phase, at the end of the 18th century, came about in part through the work of William Blackstone. Blackstone’s great insight was that these legal books – which could cost a year’s salary – needed to be much cheaper. His inexpensively printed books sold massively in England and in the US.

The fourth phase of legal information comes about with Christopher Columbus Langdell – for whom Harvard’s library is named – who introduced the case system of law. Palfrey suggests we’re now seeing an emergent fifth system, though it’s coming about in desultory fashion.

When a decision comes out, it’s been produced in a digital fashion – that we print it out is an artifact of our current system. We should release this information in an open, interoperable fashion so that we can generate new systems atop the law.

Zuckerman continues to summarize Palfrey's lecture, noting that the next step for the law would be to create a standardized form for digital legal information- thus allowing for enhanced ability to compare laws across legal regimes.  It is an excellent read, both from a digital culture and legal perspective.   


The Chronicle Review has an article by a professional who makes their living on writing academic papers for students at all levels.  When I was a graduate teaching assistant, grading essays became a major souce of my time spent on non-academic work and while I would like to think that I was never 'taken' by a ghost written paper this expose definitely proves it does occur.  A quote:

I've written toward a master's degree in cognitive psychology, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a handful of postgraduate credits in international diplomacy. I've worked on bachelor's degrees in hospitality, business administration, and accounting. I've written for courses in history, cinema, labor relations, pharmacology, theology, sports management, maritime security, airline services, sustainability, municipal budgeting, marketing, philosophy, ethics, Eastern religion, postmodern architecture, anthropology, literature, and public administration. I've attended three dozen online universities. I've completed 12 graduate theses of 50 pages or more. All for someone else.

You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary.

From the International Journal of Design, an article on the Emotional Value of Distal Contact.  Definitely on the theory side of writing, but one that I feel is important nonetheless as design of distance networks that can effectively tap a persons emotional psyche has tremendous impact on the ultimate form of websites, apps, and future interfaces that will be used to facilitate our participation in a fully digital culture.  Once again, a quote:

But what exactly do we mean by “distance” and “proximity” on the level of an emotional relation? It is certainly not a physical proximity, as is indicated by the possibility of an emotional contact at a distance.

In order to bring clearly into focus the figure of touch that is relevant in the description of emotional relations, our key will paradoxically be precisely this situation of distal contact. The very possibility of “entering into contact” at a distance, using a technical interface, will allow us to bring out the important components of interpersonal contact, and in this way its links with the realm of emotions.

Good stuff.  So that's all for today- I guess three things isn't that much more than two.  Read, share and become better informed.

The New, Improved, Fresh Beulah Links!

I know, I know- all two of you were thinking, "Hey, where did Jeremy put all the daily links on his blog?  I need my daily links!"  But the truth, always hard to swallow, is that most people don't want daily links because, really, we are bombarded with links everyday.  So last week or so I decided to group my worthy shareable links for distribution on Thursday- now, instead of eagerly awaiting every day for a few more clicks of internet-inspired bliss, you can just fire up the browser on Thursday and see whats available.  


Also, I changed the banner of the blog in an attempt to bring a little color and design aesthetic to your viewing experience, so if you like it or not let me know in the comments below. 


Time now for......Fresh Beulah Links on 18 November 2010.

From Torrent Freak: A little ditty on the practices of the law firm Davenport Lyons in actively targeting innocent people and accusing them of illegal downloading.  Of course, the firm offered these victims the ability to avoid litigation so long as they paid a fine to the firm directly- which 20%-30% did, even though they were innocent of any charge.  Scummy to the max, this firm is now facing a review from the UK's Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. 


From D-Lib Magazine:  A small intro to a larger project concerning the use of crowd-sourcing in libraries today.  An excerpt:

  When libraries first started delivering digital resources all these social interactions were taken away from users and they simply got an information transaction by downloading content. It has taken libraries a while to realise that users still want more than a simple information transaction and they want the same and more social interactions than they had in the 'pre-digital' days. In our digital library world they want to: review books, share information, add value to our data by adding their own content, add comments and annotations and 'digital post-its' to e-books, correct our data errors, and converse with other users. And now they are telling us they can do even more, they can organise themselves to work together to achieve big goals for libraries and make our information even more accessible, accurate and interesting. Why are we not snapping up this great offer immediately? How and why should we do it?

From CNN Editorial Page: A new action-hero has taken to the streets- Unemployed Man! 

After his confrontation with Superlotto, Unemployed Man goes on to meet many down-but-not-out heroes in Cape Town, USA, a tent city made of stitched-together capes. Together, this band of heroes for hard times goes on to confront larger and larger economic villains, including The Invisible Hand itself.

From Ars Technica: A nice piece on how we lose scientific data in the digital age.  In my lifetime, (not that long to be sure) i've seen large floppy disks, smaller hard floppy disks, zip drives, usb drives, cd's, DVD's, etc...  To make matters worse, the entire brew ha ha over IP rights and internet security often keeps many scientists from releasing their data at all.  I am all for sharing data among researchers- in History it would help tremendously if one could share documents they have analyzed with a larger audience in a manner more efficient than the footnote.  Tremendous challenge but also opportunity for real innovation in solving this problem.    


And last but not least, from Pro Publica: A story they worked on with Washington Post on the 'Man Behind the Mumbai Attacks'.  Pro Publica is a wonderful news resource and they cover, in-depth, many interesting stories and events that really shape our lives today.  If you don't already have it bookmarked, do so now because it will only help you in the quest to stay informed.


Now that's some links.  Get 'em while they're hot!

Wednesday Videos

Wednesday Choices, submitted for your approval:


Robocop like you (probably) never saw him before- badass Ramen noodle maker.  (Thanks to my girlfriend for finding this video)



And just so you don't leave the Muse without some dose of American oratorical culture, the Gettysburg Address done in a creative way.

The Digital Humanities

The New York Times published an article today dealing with the rise of digital sources in Humanities scholarship, a subject I am passionate about and have written on in this blog.  There are those who see this increasing trend of 'data mining' as just that, a trend, and dismiss such efforts as quantifiably impressive but lacking in qualitative analysis.  Here is a quote from the article that exemplifies this point:

Digital humanities scholars also face a more practical test: What knowledge can they produce that their predecessors could not? “I call it the ‘Where’s the beef?’ question said Tom Scheinfeldt, managing director of the Center for New History and Media at George Mason University. 

What amazes me is that this question is being asked at all.  If I told you that the volume of a potential source base will increase to proportions only dreamed about in past generations, would that make you question the validity and applicability of the increase in sources simply because there was an increase?  Scholars who are quick to dismiss these new archives and digital sources are akin to those who upon discovering a back room in an archive refuse to enter the room or view its contents simply because previous knowledge of the room didn't exist.  Another quote to show how this attitude is prevalent in my own profession:

Most humanities professors remain unaware, uninterested or unconvinced that digital humanities has much to offer. Even historians, who have used databases before, have been slow to embrace the trend. Just one of the nearly 300 main panels scheduled for next year’s annual meeting of the American Historical Association covers digital matters.

 This is ridiculous!  We finally have the capability to view larger networks of human interaction and thought, and only one panel will even discuss digital sources.  Yet the article goes on to discuss Humanities projects that are using digitization to great effect.  Martin K. Foys, medievalist, undertook a project to bring the Bayeux Tapestry to the digital realm, and his efforts have made this traditionally difficult source to view easily viewable by anyone with interest.  Or take this example:

When the collected published works of Abraham Lincoln were posted online a few years ago, the director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Daniel W. Stowell, said he expected historians to be the most frequent visitors to his project’s site. But he was surprised to discover that the heaviest users were connected to Oxford University Press; editors of the Oxford English Dictionary had been searching the papers to track down the first appearance of particular words.

Bingo- in my post on the Geocities Archive I mentioned that with the increasing nature of available, digitized sources, the 'expertise' of the traditional historian is quickly being surmounted by the efforts of several 'citizen' historians.    I believe we will discover that in-depth knowledge cultivated by professional historians will be degraded to a large extent by the ability of the 'crowd-sourced' model to, over time, produce equally quality interpretation of available sources.  Historians need to step up and take charge in this newly emerging digital humanities, if only to ensure that our work and ideas are fed by the most up-to-date sources.  


I will leave you with a small example of how digital humanities could impact a field near and dear to my own heart- Russian peasant studies.  Recently in Science magazine an article appeared explaining the workings of an online social networking experiment that used an online health community to bring participants in and monitor their networking activities.  They concluded that 'clustered networks', containing several duplicating or reinforcing links, spread information much faster than de-centralized, or random, networks.  This kind of data has relevance today, as everybody knows, because social networking is very hot in terms of user participation and potential advertising targeting.  


But guess what?  This behavior is not new and easily could have been studied by looking at Russian peasant activities in the 19th century during a rent hike or other, similar, social crisis.  My own studies into the Inventory Law Reform of 1848 in the right-bank Ukrainian provinces demonstrated networking behavior in the organization of collective defense, when villagers from several neighboring locales gathered in one village to pressure reform, or spread of rumor, such as the often presented complaint that peasants in other Ukrainian villages paid less in rent or were free from labor obligations.  I would love to have a project that goes through known printed reports on peasant disturbances and maps out the location of disputes, the area of 'collective defense' evidenced by gathering of neighbors, the travel distance and speed of rumors vs. the post, etc...  Digital Humanities could greatly impact Russian scholars interpretation of a group of people often considered backwards and immobile; an interpretation I believe to be largely false and one that could be decisively argued with the introduction of mapping models and digital databases.     


Digital Humanities, for me, is more than a passing fad or trend.  It is the force that will reshape the profession of History and the practice of its craft at a fundamental level.