Author Archives: johnl

Victorian Books: The Frequency of Revolution

Posted on February 1, 2011 by johnl

Opened to the public late last year was the long awaited Victorian Books, ‘a Distant Reading of Victorian Publications.’ Working with data from Google Books,  Dan Cohen and Fred Gibbs are text mining every book published in Britain in the … Continue reading →

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Google Ngram Games

Posted on December 17, 2010 by johnl

Google have just opened up their text mining project, a vast and ambitious project to allow searching their digital library for the frequency of words and phrases. It’s an astonishing resource, not only for its research potential but also for … Continue reading →

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The Return of History Workshop

Posted on December 3, 2010 by johnl

For some time I’ve been considering writing a post entitled “Whatever Happened to History Workshop?” Once it was the flag-bearer of radical history, a product of the struggles of the 60s and 70s, as much a movement as a publication. … Continue reading →

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Simon Schama’s pick of the historical pops

Posted on November 9, 2010 by johnl

Simon Schama, advisor to the government, has outlined his vision of history in schools. Despite the bizarre claim that Hong Kong runs the world and some purple prose, it’s not as facetious as one might fear; certainly, in his choice … Continue reading →

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What I learned from Wu Ming

Posted on October 12, 2010 by johnl

Last night, Wu Ming 1 and Wu Ming 4 visited Dalston. The salient points: 1: Wu Ming is a band. If musicians can group together, why not writers? 2: Wu Ming 6 is the waste paper basket, and a most … Continue reading →

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Visualizing the Gnu GPL

Posted on August 18, 2010 by johnl

My suggestion for the Decoding Digital Humanities meeting has been accepted, by both the London and Melbourne groups, for next Tuesday (24th August) here in the Great Wen, and next Thursday (26th August) down under. I’m feeling the warm glow … Continue reading →

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DH 2010, day four

Posted on July 12, 2010 by johnl

For me, the final day was the important one, with both the geography and history sessions taking place. The former saw three excellent presentations, from the University of North Carolina, Ian Gregory and the Hestia project. But the big news … Continue reading →

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DH 2010, day three

Posted on July 10, 2010 by johnl

Not such an early start, so I missed Joshua Sternfeld’s talk on Digital Historiography. Annoying, but a sign of a good conference is that there’s too much of interest rather than too little. For me, the important presentation in the … Continue reading →

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DH 2010, day two

Posted on July 9, 2010 by johnl

I really don’t do mornings. But somehow I got to Kings on time (8.30!) and started work watching over the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) session in the bowels of the Strand building. Errands meant I only heard the first of … Continue reading →

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DH 2010, day one

Posted on July 7, 2010 by johnl

For the next few days I’m a student assistant at Digital Humanities 2010, doing a bit of everything, from giving directions to waving microphones under people’s noses The first day of the conference proper (there’s been many associated events in … Continue reading →

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