Preparing training data for prototype

One of the challenges of our project is putting diplomatic editions of manuscripts into an XML database for corpus linguistics.  Here I’m formatting training data for our prototype, data that is a pain in the ass because words and morphemes cut across line and page breaks.  Usually you’d see spaces where I have underscores between words and punctuation.  But since there aren’t spaces in the manuscript between words (there are spaces elsewhere), we are using a different character to show word breaks.

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Grading, grading, grading

Moving to all electronic submissions and a scaffolded deadline system for my papers (see http://nt13.carrieschroeder.net/assignments/papers/, hat tip, David Brakke of OSU) means that I graded about 16 papers on the plane yesterday and still had hours for research. Finishing up those papers today.  Inspirational music:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_uujKuJMI

 

Challenges of Digital Coptic

Day of DH is over half over on the east coast, but here in CA it’s just getting going.  Spent this morning before breakfast dealing with emails all circling around the challenges my project, and then post-breakfast at physical therapy. Physical pain IS a dh challenge, because it kills motivation, and I’ve been in pretty much non-stop pain since January. Like many working moms, I shoved it to the side, prioritizing my children’s health and my work before my own health.  Finally could put it off no more, and it’s a good thing too.

The email landslide included the latest in a 6-week correspondence with a library in Great Britain about how to acquire manuscript images.  We need the images to digitize text.  Either our text is unpublished, available in an edition under copyright, or published in public domain form with some significant errors.  Ergo, the “manuscript turn” in our digital humanities project.  Actually, this correspondence is more like two months.  Another library sent me the wrong images and is not sure if they can find the manuscripts I am asking for; they’ve got a research intern on it.  Oy.

Meanwhile, a key collaborator to the project reported last week that his motherboard died, taking with it a couple of scripts he’d been working on for me.  No progress yet.

It was a joy to receive an email from my collaborator in Berlin, a prep email for our Skype meeting later today.  But it too points to one of the biggest challenges we have: 9 hour time zone difference.  Email and Skype bridge it, barely.  It means if I get an email from him in the morning, pretty much I can reply right away but can’t expect another reply from him until the next day.  Have to always remember that if I hit a road bump, I need to have a lot of padding before deadlines, because we have to assume we cannot provide each other immediate responses during a working day. Digital communication <> instant communication!

Inspirational music for this morning:  Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad albums.  Innovation and beauty that transformed the medium forever.

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Day of DH and the Digital Classics Association

This year’s Day of DH 2013 comes fast on the heels of the fantastic first annual Digital Classics Association conference at the University of Buffalo.  Lots of inspirational presentations on visualization, mapping, teaching, conducting research with existing tools, and creating new tools.  The closing address reminded us all of how innovative Classics is.  It is interdisciplinary and cutting edge, not fusty musty like its reputation.  Antiquarians have been doing digital humanities long before it ever had a name.

For me, it was exciting to get such positive feedback for a project I’ve started with my collaborator, Amir Zeldes, that’s been long needed in the field but is a boat load of work.  Thanks to Neil Coffee and all the other amazing folks at Buffalo for a great conference.