The 2017 Jackie Chan movie “Kung Fu Yoga” features professor Jack Chan, most famous archaeologist of China, on his quest to find the treasure of Magadha. During his adventure, he uses a couple of interesting (fictional) technologies, which we will take a closer look on…
Together with Florian Thiery I gave a talk on a side project by the Research Squirrel Engineers, a working group of Research Software Engineers. Our aim in this project is to digitize a catalogue on Ogham stones and put it online in a linked and open way. At the Graph Technologies in the Humanities conference we were invited to present our work. Here is a short version.
I’ve been writing an article in which I use a one-dimensional kernel density estimation (KDE). After some thought (and peer review ;-P ) I decided, I needed to visualise how it works. I couldn’t find any R-code on how to do this online, soooo here it is: My R-code on how to produce a graph which may help explaining KDEs.
Ever since we started experimenting with an RTI Dome, I developed the idea of improving the control unit of the dome. With our second dome on the way, we are experimenting with some changes to the original software to improve the unit.
There are some things that are great in theory. In practice, though…
It’s actually cool, too. I just need to learn how to use it.
It is 2018! Time to document our archaeological digs digitally, wouldn’t you say? We have it all: CAD to draw plans; GIS for maps; photogrammetry / structure from motion for 3D models and rectified photos; databases to connect all this with feature description… why use paper at all?
Well…
Why use such complicated stuff, which is concerned with numbers, probability, density, tests, and all that which we hated in school? Why oh why?!
Fact is, archaeologists produce huge amounts of data.
Some time ago, I made a speed video of a Structure from Motion process. It is still a valid and entertaining video.
The well known Austrian information scientiest Gerhard Chroust wrote an article “Software-Archäologie: Eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung” (“software-archaeology: an interdisciplinary view”) in which he compares the maintenance of software with archaeology. It is a kinda cool and funny article, really.