Skip to content

words
speeches

Mining for meanings

Yes, I have a suit. On 8 May at the National Library of Australia I gave my suit an outing as I delivered my Harold White Fellowship presentation. Thanks to everyone who came along.

If you missed it or want to relive the fun, the NLA has made a podcast available. My slides are also online, so you can follow along for the full audio-visual-not-quite-3D experience.

Use your arrow keys to navigate through the slides, and yes the first page is intentionally left blank. If you linger for a bit on slide two or three, you’ll see the Trove API in action. The presentation itself was constructed using deck.js.

The slides also include links to lots of different examples and demos, and introduce my new favourite plaything. I don’t really know what to call it yet, or what it’s actually for, but it makes me happy, and it makes me think. TF-IDF FTW. I’ll write up some more details shortly.

Posted 09 May 2012 † tim § digital humanities ‡ Comments (1) °

Confessions of an impatient historian

Here’s the slides from the talk I gave recently in the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia. Thanks to everyone who came and to the Scholars’ Lab for their hospitality.

A podcast version is now available.

View on SlideShare
Posted 16 June 2011 † tim § digital humanities ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Wragge

On 26 September 1902, exactly 100 years ago today, the people of Charleville tried to make rain.

Stationed around the town were six Stiger Vortex guns, their long, funnel-shaped barrels aimed skywards.

At noon the guns were manned, and at the direction of the Mayor, ten shots were fired from each in quick succession’.

Charleville’s assault on the weather was marshalled by Queensland’s energetic, but irascible meteorologist, Clement Wragge.

[Wragge enters reading from paper]

‘Soon after the firing a few drops of rain fell, and at 2 o’clock a slight shower fell. At the time of firing the guns a strong wind was blowing, which doubtless interfered with the force of the vortices’.

Doubtless…

‘Later – A second experiment with the Stiger Vortex guns was made at half-past four this afternoon, but without any visible results. An accident happened to two of the guns, one stationed at Mr Ormiston’s paddock, and the other at Mr Spence’s residence; each of these guns had a large piece of iron blown out of the sides, making them worthless…’

[Slams down paper, takes up pen]

To the editor, Brisbane Courier, dear sir… Continue reading »

Posted 26 September 2002 † tim § weather ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

A conspiracy reveal’d

Cabinet of Curiosities

The Cabinet of Curiosities

Learned friends, a little over twelve months ago, I had the honour of addressing another distinguished gathering. My subject on that occasion was a rather unusual artefact that my colleagues and I had discovered – an item we came to call ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities‘. In the intervening months we have continued our researches into this object and have uncovered some disturbing facts. To be blunt, I believe that we have unearthed evidence of a widespread and long-standing conspiracy. Continue reading »

Posted 03 May 1998 † tim § history of australian science ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Unsung heroes

On Sunday I was listening to the local ABC station, 2CN, when a bloke came on talking about “unsung heroes” of Australian history. Apparently it’s a regular spot, and it so happened that the two heroes being sung on Sunday were scientists – Ferdinand von Mueller the botanist, and John Tebbutt, the astronomer. However, my initial pleasure at having scientists included in such a forum, quickly turned to frustration. Continue reading »

Posted 03 March 1998 † tim § history of australian science ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

En-visioning ASAP

On behalf of ASAP I’d like to welcome you all here to help celebrate our 10th birthday. This is a milestone that, at times, it seemed we might never reach, but here we are, stronger than ever. If you haven’t already guessed, this is a night of rampant self-congratulation, mixed with some myth-making, and perhaps also a little reflection – just how did we make it this far? I believe it had a lot to do with the ‘V’ word – vision. Continue reading »

Posted 15 June 1995 † tim § archives ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: