I’d like to find out what you all are doing with time and space data, and applications like Simile Timeline, Google Earth, SketchUp, Second Life, or even conventional GIS software. Omeka has some geospatial features now — we could discuss future directions and perhaps do a little hacking. I hope Mikel Maron would be interested in talking about OpenStreetMap and implications for open historical geodata, and Bill Turkel about GeoDJ and that sort of locative exhibit appliance. I’d be surprised if many of you didn’t have equally interesting projects in time and space.

Any interest in such a session?

Somewhat related: I’m experimenting with using the OpenLayers (openlayers.org) javascript library as a tool for study and annotation of images on the Web. My demo is at atlantides.org/inscriptol/. It’s just an inscription tracing toy at the moment, but I’m eager to discuss how it might be enhanced to upload and share captured data with anybody who is interested.

Would anyone else be interested in giving very short presentations on purely-technical matters as a way of introducing us to new languages and libraries? It’s always hard to find the right way to approach a new tool. A brief description and book or code reading recommendation from an expert would certainly help.

I would be reasonably qualified to discuss Ruby. Someone working on Zotero ought to present XUL+JavaScript. If we could get python, a handful of RDF libraries, and maybe some stranger languages in there, everyone might learn something.

Although the conference should certainly focus on technology in the humanities, it’s always good to broaden our horizons of what technology is available and what others are using it for.

.. and they’re sweet!  Every camper whose proposal was accepted for this year’s THATCamp will receive a THATCamp t-shirt and other swag that we’ll have laid out.  Check it out, including the new tent logo!

Hi Everyone!

I’ll add my enthusiasm for the range of projects currently under discussion. It promises to be an exciting and informative weekend.

Here at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (based at Concordia University, in Montreal) we are in the process of creating an in-house, open source, transcribing / archiving / annotating tool that will be geared to meet the specific needs of oral historians. The basic features of the new program are known as many other software programs can be repurposed. However, what is not available is an interface geared specifically to the needs of the oral historian. At THATCamp, I had hoped to demo an early version of the new tool, but it will not be ready yet. I can however demo (if people are interested) how we use Vertov, a media annotating plugin for Zotero, and Interclipper, a proprietary media database program, to manage and analyze oral histories.

The goal is to use technology to move beyond traditional textual analysis of oral history transcripts to a direct examination of the video and audio record. Essentially, we want to maintain the orality of oral history by using technology.

I am hoping to connect with others who use oral histories, or more generally audio or video recordings, and discuss / shared our strategies for using technology to analyze these types of sources. Furthermore, at the Centre we are in the early stages of this project’s development, so I would very much welcome the opportunity to network with others working on their own software projects to get a sense of how one undertakes such a task.

Cheers,
Krissy

Hi Everyone,

The session I proposed is a short demonstration/discussion of a “constraint” developed by the OuLiPo, a mid-Twentieth research group comprised of (mostly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians. They were interested in experimenting with what language could be, and they did it oftentimes with the help of math. The snowball was one of their popular applications. It is essentially a triangular number set that is used as the basis for developing texts/poems. In other words, it’s a text in which an additional element — a letter, a syllable, or a word — is added to each successive line; so,

1

2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10

etc.

Since this is a chapter about which I’m writing for a book on Flash ActionScript 3 and rhetoric/writing, I thought it might interest some of you.

… BUT as I read your posts and bios, I get the impression most of you would already agree and/or probably know the basic arithmetic and algebra I’d show. I’d love to collab with someone who could show me a bunch of interesting math. I’d also be happy to go with the flow and change gears in order to collaborate with others. I enjoy programming in Flash AS3, if anyone wants to try to do something with it. There are a pretty wide range of APIs — from Twitter to Yahoo/Google Maps — to play with as well as stuff we can just make up. In fact, Bill’s post about Arduino got me thinking about Flash and Arduino. Brendan Dawes’ book, Analog In/Digital Out, demonstrates some experiments with Teleo, but it’s no longer available.

David