Final Project Progress Report Dec 2

This week I have worked on finalyzing my visual data presentations, text analysis and timeline. Next I will work on my reflective narrative and final essay, outlining my process through this project and describes the failures and successes I have encountered.

In class I was effectively able to create a wordle and tag cloud for the official script of the movie. Unfortunaley I have been trying to make a word tree and phrase net for the movie's official theme song but have been having problems using many eyes.

Outside of class I will work on creating both an outline and rough draft for my essay in order to effectivley stay on my schedule layed out in class.

Blog Update

What did you work on in class (and out of class) this week?

I worked on and finished my timeline this week.  I also located a bunch of images showing digital remediaton and translation.

What problems or challenges have you encountered?

The timeline was challenge as the program didn't work completely smoothly and didn't save some of my work.

Are you sticking to the schedule you set on your project management worksheet?

I am more or less on schedule although I don't think I will make a google map as it provides nearly the exact same information as the timeline.

What will you work on this weekend / next week?

Next week will be focused mostly on my essay and a few word and theme analysis projects.

Final Project Proposal

My final project proposal is a page dedicated to the Godfather Trilogy of movies. The trilogy consists of, you guessed it, 3 movies. All 3 are considered some of the most influential and famous works of American film ever produced. Despite the first 2 films being made in the 1970s and the third in the early 1990s, their relevance today is as vast and visible as ever.

Techniques I plan on using that we have learned in class include word clouds, word trees and timelines to document relationships between characters, word themes and order of events throughout the movies. By using these tools I can show the relevance between classic film and today's digital humanities. Using pictures and sound boards on the site would create a more interactive setting and because of the extreme popularity of the movies, sub topics could constantly be added to cover new material and insights.

Our map: http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&vps=3&jsv=291b&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111626940125441892074.000494198b250836ce965

• What historical event did you choose to map? 

We chose the Invention of Flight and more specifically focusing on the Wright brothers and their trials and tribulations.

• Why? 

I chose this topic for a few different reasons. First the Wright brothers have always interested me as their contribution to today's modern world is so vast. Secondly because, believe it or not, there is currently a commercial for Johnny Walker whiskey playing on tv which features a clip of the Wright brothers, I really like this particular commercial. Finally in my 20th century history course while studying WW1 I wanted to establish an accurate time frame of the history of flight compared to aerial warfare during WW1 and how advanced aviation was at the time.

• What kinds of information (data and metadata) did you include on your map? 

Our formost type of metadata was descriptive metadata. Each point on the map is categorized by a title, keywords and a picture. Structural metadata was used in the organized of each event into points on the map, and by providing copyright and sources we used, administrative data is also used.

• Where did you find information about the historical event?

Almost all of our information was gathered from wikipedia. Although it is sometimes not considered an accurate souce, the indepth detials of the information and mulitple  citiations made us believe the info to be correct. We also briefly used the offical musem and the official memorial sites of the Wright brothers.

• What text and images did you use and where did you find them? Why did you choose this particular kind of information? 

All our texts and images were from the previously mentioned sites.  We selected them mostly because they were relevant to the topics and events we covered in our map. The images are very recognizable and have historic significance.

• What information would you like to have included on the map, but couldn’t? 

It would have been nice to inter correct all the dots on the map and show the relationships and time frames occurring between each event.

• How do you think creating a map for this event helps other people to understand history (and this event specifically)? 

For people who find it easier to learn visually, using a map is definitely an asset. Its nice to be able to see exactly where an event took place. The use of a map for the Wright brothers showed how strong their influence was throughout the Eastern United States and why both Ohio and North Carolina claim the Wright's as their own.

• Take a quick look at History Pin (http://www.historypin.com/), Community Walk (http://www.communitywalk.com/), and Trippermap (http://www.flickrmap.com/). What are the differences between these services? What kinds of projects would you make using each one? Who do you think is most likely to use each of these services? 

History pin is used for historical photos in the past 150 years, you could put together collages and many different visual projects using it. The most likely people to use it would be historians, more specifically European historians and the photos could be used in museums or textbooks.
Flickrmap is a more general map which can document peoples travels or social update's picture locations. There is no specific reasoning for a map to be created. I think it would be used by younger people in the US to further expand ideas displayed on social networking sites.
Community walk is a simple site used for creating interactive maps on specific interests or locations. It seems more social and world orientated then the other two sites. The creators mom used it to display house listings for her real estate business and its easy to use in a way that anyone could enjoy it and make maps on personal interests. The differences are that history pin is more historical and visually oriented and comunity walk and flickrmap are more social, current and broader in their uses.

 Poem: The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.



Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide.


And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
    By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
    That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
    But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
    I cremated Sam McGee.

This is a word cloud generated from the text of the poem I selected. There is cleary a distinguishable character named Sam Mcgee although his exact purpose is slightly unclear. The setting using words such as cold, trail, gold and nothern suggest a colder, northern town possibly in Canada.

 

 

 

 

This is the world tree of the poem. I selected the word Sam as the tree's starting point. The word following Sam is not suprisngly the last name of the main character; Mcgee. After the name Sam Mcgee is listed the remainder of the sentences are various actions that Sam is doing and makes multiple references to Tennessee, where Sam is from.

This tag cloud is a visual representation of the word frencquencies listed below. The larger the size of the word the most frenquently it is listed throughout the text. The tags are also listed in alphabetical order.

Most common words: and(63 times), the (43), I (41)
Most common content words: Sam(8), cold (7), Mcgee (7)

This text contains a total of 893 words and 385 unique words.


Review of web tools I used:


Many eyes:

Many eyes remains my favorite tool to use, it is incomparable to others the amount of different ways to explore data. Data can be displayed visually through images such as word trees, word clouds and phrase nets. It can be displayed mathematicaly through charts, graphs and tree maps. In addition many eyes the relationship amongst the data by the use of scatterplots, matrix charts and network diagrams.

Voyeur Tools;

Voyeur tools is very good at what it is assigned to do but is more specific and limited then Many eyes. Although I was unable to take a screen shot or image of that data displayed, voyeur tools focuses on the word frequencies and trends displayed by the word throughout the text. Although the list of words given in the text is great and easy to use, I found the word charts an graphs slightly difficult and confusing to use.

TaPoR tools:

I found TaPoR tools similar to Voyeur, great for specific occasions but not as general and broad as many eyes. I liked the easy to use website design and the tool of being able to find complex word patterns that were often hidden when casually reading the poem. By using the word pattern tool I was able to further understand and appreciate the amazing poetic skills of Robert Service.

• Why did your group choose the (type of) data/texts that you did? 

Our group chose Hyms and Humms of Denmark because it was one of the first and most popular topics we came across. In addition, it appeared to have a variety of subtopics that were search-able.

• What parts of the tool did you use? 

Our group primarily focused on the word tree tool. It was visually interesting and was really cool being able to track entire topics and themes into specific words and sentences.

• What did you find out about these texts? 

The text was definitely a historical piece of literature. It was slightly difficult to understand its main ideas as the language used was difficult to understand but it appeared to be about old poetry and writings of Danish history.

• Which elements of the tools produced the deepest kinds of analysis (i.e. which were the most useful)? 

The deepest analysis was possible through the searching of the most frequently used words in the word tree and tracking their progression throughout the text and following sub topics and sentences.

• Provide a brief description of what you plan to do for your Text Analysis and Data Visualization Exercise. 

As of right now I'm not entirely sure what my plans are for my text and data excersise but I think a well known piece of poetry or short story would be something that would be neat to explore.

Topic: What's the point of a College Education?

My guess of most common words: college, education, my, opinion, school, job
Most frequent word: education 26, first content word: education
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: allows for a very vague theme that is clearly an argument on something but it is not possible to make on the argument's specific topic. The random historical references from the article make the word cloud's topic very confusing.
Words deleted: college, education, job
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout
Summary: The worldle is about some type of arguement or reasoning on educatuon which matches what I listed as the text's topic. My word-frequency hypotheses were for the most part correct although I did not account for the strong use of the word "different"  I was surprised by the words "different" and "something" appearing so often. Removing words made the cloud confusing because of the involvement of the words Boethius and philosopher.

Topic: My most recent blog

My guess of most common words: books, video, music, eminem, picture, painting
Most frequent word: examines 17 times, first content word: ken/dryden
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: Since the top is so vast and all the subtopics are very different the deletion of a few common words doesn't change much. The cloud still clearly shows some type of review on a variety of types of media and shows many different sources have been consulted although the true subjects of the research are hard to distinguish.
Words deleted: computer, mac, eminem, dryden
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout, custom colour template
Summary: According to the wordle the text is about a variety of pop culture references and medias. For the most part it matches with what I listed as the topic of the text.The world is neutral from a postive/negative perspective. Were your word-frequency hypotheses correct?  I wasn't very suprised by the words that appeared most frequently as I knew the general themes of my project. Word removal made form minimal changes do to the large variety of words and subjects.

Topic: George Orwell's 1984
My guess of most common words: winston, party, depression, newspeak, 
Most frequent word: party 98 times, first content word: winston
Words deleted: winston, newspeak, party
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: Since only a few words are fully specific to the topic, the words remaining in the cloud are very general and posses only minimal reference to the Orwell novel although there still remains a clear topic of war, peace and life in general.
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout, font size
Summary: According to the wordle this text is about George Orwell's classic novel.  Since I have read the novel it does match with what I listed as the topic of the text. The words suggest a negative overall theme which is constant with that of the book. Again, as I have read the book general words and themes didn`t suprise. Removing certain words changed the specific 1984 setting to a more common totalitarian state setting.

Topic: Steve Job's college speech
My guess of most common words: apple. job. success, college, life
Most frequent word: college 12 times, first content word: life
Words deleted: apple, imac, college, great
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: The wordcloud's subject is as a result slightly blurred. There is clearly a motivional theme but the source of inspiration at the identity of the speak is unclear.
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout, font size
Summary: This text is about some sort of motivating speech towards life goals and matches what I listed as a topic. The words suggest an overall postive theme and my most frenceqcy guesses were correct as I had skimmed the article before creating its cloud. Changes made the speakers role and occupation less clear.

Topic:   The Burden of Time. Frederick George Scott

My guess of most common words: poetry, nature, land, air
Most frequent word: life 8 times, first content word: mountains
Words deleted: one, mountains, life
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: In this wordcloud the deletion of key subjects had minimal interfence with the general idea of the word cloud. It is still able to identify the subject as something about nature and would be an usual assumption to assume writtent style is that of a poem.
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout
Summary: According to the wordle this text is a description of nature and its surrondings. It matches my pre topic list and suggest a postive, organic theme. I had read the poem before and was not suprised by its common words.Word deletion had minimal effect.

 

Topic: Montreal Canadiens Facebook Fan Page

My guess of most common words: montreal, canadiens, hockey, gametime, like, status
Most frequent word: Canadiens 27 times, first content word: feedback
Words deleted: montreal, canadiens, nhl.com
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: The removal of words makes this word cloud both very general and very vague. It is cleary something invovlving a newer forum of social media but what its exact purpose is unknown.
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout, custom colour template
Summary According to the wordle, this text is about the Montreal Canadiens and their fans. The text is postive as the uses of words such as feedback and like are common. Changes made the cloud into a non specific social net work site.

Topic: The Second Coming performed by Juelz Santana
My guess of most common words: push, drive, goals, try, motivation
Most frequent word: try 16 times, first content word: victory
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout
Words deleted: huh, yup, try
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: By removing several small words the cloud's topic isn't significantly changed. It is still clearly an inspirational peice and involves some sort of overcoming of odds and completion of goals.
Summary: According to the wordle, this text is about motivation and goal setting which matches my themes as I have listed to the song many times previously. The text is postive and inspirtational and can still be seen even with the removal of certain words.

Topic: My essay on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
My guess of most common words: marlow, kurtz, congo, slave, belgian, book, natives, imperialism
Most frequent word: Marlow 141 time, first content word: darkness
Words deleted: Marlow, darkness, primary
Deleting of the more frequent words changes the topic by: Removing keywords changes the cloud from clearly being about the famous book Heart of Darkness to a more general theme of history an the the use of imperialism throughout history.
Changes made: colour, font, horizontal/vertical layout, font size

Summary: According to the wordle, this text is about the novel Heart of Darkness and matches my preselected topic. Does it match with what you listed as the topic of the text? The words imply a negative image of torture an slavery and the removal of words reduces the text to a general historical theme on imperialism.

E.)


1. Yes tag cloud's display differs from that of wordle as it displays only the more concentrated and more frequently used words.

2.  Tag crowd has a variety of different options that are not available on wordle and some that are. Both sites allow you to select the language that your text is displayed and make it easy to copy texts off different websites, but that is more or less where the similarities end. Wordle is more concerned on the visual side with options to change font, colour, horitzontal or vertical display amd custom colour templates. Tagcrowd is more focused on the systematic structure with options such as word frequencies, word range and groupings of similar words.

3. It would be nice if both sites could add the features not currently available on their own site but that are available on their competitors. As mentioned for wordle that would involve more options relating to the systematic groupings of words and common themes and for tag crowd it would include more visual options ask to how the text is presented.
4. A stoplist is a custom set of words designed by the author that will not be displayed in the word cloud. This allows for greater emphasis on specfic words, themes or ideas.