Category Archives: Algorithmic Literacy

The Thermal Conductivity of Tungsten is an Argument

We all have our favorite pieces of information visualization, and many have been presented by Edward Tufte, but I prefer this more than any other, and more for the content than the representation. For those unfamiliar with Tufte’s The Visual … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Amusing Historical Map Features, Visualization | Comments Off

Pragmatism, Practicality, and the Anti-Sublime

Imagine an interactive JavaScript globe. It could take many forms. This one is built in D3, based off Mike Bostock’s excellent example and, like most interesting JavaScript visualization, runs smoothly in Chrome and Safari and poorly in Firefox (I haven’t … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Visualization | Comments Off

An Unsatisfying Intro to D3.js

Last week I had the opportunity to give a short introduction to the JavaScript information visualization library D3. The intro, which took place at the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) here at Stanford, was directed at an extremely … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, D3, Visualization | Comments Off

Population Intensification, Agricultural Intensification, Ecological Degradation, the Game

Looking back over some old notes of mine, I was reminded that I made this game in Flash three years ago: You control a small early historical site surrounded by virgin woodland. The forest provides lumber, but if you burn … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Digital Scholarly Work, Gaming, New Aesthetic, Pedagogy | Comments Off

CC-BY for Icons?!?!

I just submitted a few nouns to the Noun Project, which is the right thing to do considering I’m using a few of their nouns in a new project. When you submit your icons to NP, you have two options: … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Natural Law, Visualization | Comments Off

Metrics of Success

  After two weeks, ORBIS has received over 36,000 visitors, with 4000 return visitors and over 45,000 route queries to the map.  People are downloading the traditional PDF version of the article, as well as CSVs and KMLs of their … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, ORBIS, Social Media Literacy | Comments Off

A Week’s Worth of Travel in the Roman World

ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World has been up and running for a week now and the response has been simply incredible. While we all expected it to be well-received, especially among the particular scholarly community … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Natural Law, New Aesthetic, ORBIS | Comments Off

My Definition of Topic Modeling

Understanding topic modeling is, to borrow a phrase from George W. Bush, “the war that never ends”. And as I was re-reading the excellent posts by Matt Jockers, Scott Weingart and Ted Underwood, I realized that I may never have … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Visualization | Comments Off

Dynamic Distance Cartogram in D3

One of the features of ORBIS that I’ll be demonstrating next Wednesday is this dynamic distance cartogram, which is on Github as a gist and can be seen using bl.ocks here. It’s been written in D3 and uses a few … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Graph Data Model, HGIS, Spatial Humanities, Visualization | Comments Off

A Model of and for Digital Publication

As the digital humanities produces new methods of research, so does it produce new forms in which that research can be published. Rather than just using linear narrative text to present their theories, humanities scholars can create rich, digital scholarly … Continue reading

Posted in Algorithmic Literacy, Digital Humanities at Stanford, Digital Scholarly Work | Comments Off