I just came across this website: It calculates how many times a word, a phrase is mentioned on the google books archive. But the catch is, it can be used also as a form of verification.
I was trying to understand the difference between "finish" and "have finished". On one of the blog sites, the guy supported his argument with a link to ngrams saying that the one used the most would be the correct usage (or the most correct usage). So my question is what if all these books use it wrong? Do numbers really tell whether something is true or not? Are we going to decide on the correct usage of a term by looking at its popular usage rather than looking at grammar rules?
https://books.google.com/ngrams
24 Mart 2017 Cuma
The last BigData175 Seminar - Evelyn Ruppert and Frank Pasquale
To the ones reading this post: I did not have the time to double check the grammar, so there are definitely some grammar mistakes. It is written in hurry! I will double check later.
We had the last BigData175 Seminar today. The speakers were Evelyn Ruppert (from Goldsmith University, UK) and Frank Pasquale (from University of Maryland). It was a pleasure listening to both of them who are experts in their field.
Frank Pasquale - the author of the book "Black Box Society"- talked about the possibilities of algorithms and its possible consequences. As a law professor, he went over possible implications of algorithms in all fields, but especially in health, through studying cases. The first case was the usage of voice analysis in order to help in disease diagnosis. Imagine that a program would analyze your voice and then will be able to conclude whether you are healthy or not, or what kind of a problem you might have. (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603200/voice-analysis-tech-could-diagnose-disease/ - This is a link I have found - he did not give this website). They will be able to screen you for depression or understand how you feel through the way you speak. He also referred to the use of algorithms for social and behavioral determinants of health. The second case he explored was about the usage of algorithms in the prediction of mental health data (Samaritans Radar - http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/supporting-someone-online/samaritans-radar - The app checks the twits of your friends and warn you when one of them seems to write unhealthy messages. vs. Durkheim Project - http://www.durkheimproject.org/ - "automated flagging for Psychological Health". the difference of this project is that they take the consent of the users and they also involve health scientists such as psychologists or doctors.) Pasquale was underlining the importance of involving professionals in the analysis of algorithms (could be psychologist or doctors for health issues, or sociologist, economists, political scientists in other issues). It is like Facebook integrating human for news vetting. The main takeaways from the talk were: "We need to think of our data practices other than consent + how professions can help us navigate information overload".
Evelyn Ruppert - the author of "Being Digital Citizens" (with Engin Isın) and editor of the book "Modes of Knowing" (with John Law) - talked about Data Politics specifically being a digital citizen. As opposed to the viewpoints that consider the internet users as passive, she contends that we claim our rights on the internet in various ways. As a critical citizenship studies scholar, she highlights that we are not just obeying ones, we also contribute and claim rights. She puts forward an active internet user. The internet citizenship she offers is not the classical citizenship understanding that is referred in political science. A digital citizen is the one who claims his/her data rights. She divides them into two:
- through methods such as using alternative platforms, blocking cookies
- demanding rights to data. Such as through data rescue events (groups coming together to collect data that is to be destroyed by companies or institutions).
The takeaway from her talk is that there are different ways of claiming our data rights and we should look into the way to move data subjects (who are conceptualized as passive) to data citizens (who are conceptualized as having agency). She actually answers the question whether people really care that their data is being shared. She says that users are not passive as they are conceptualized. We need to reclaim and define the future of our data or the internet.
One of the things I liked in her talk was that she emphasized the importance of understanding the users as they are more nuanced than it is understood by the big data.
I have been constantly noticing the news about the penetration of algorithms in our daily life since I started studying at Queen's University. But, the most important takeaway points for me were the emphasis on the incompatibility of the consent model. (My deliberation on the issue: Users/Patients/Customers give consent for techniques that they actually don't know the details of. This actually means that they are not very conscious about what they are consenting to. Thus brings the questions of whether the consent given in these situations is valid or not.). In relation to consent model, the other issue was the data overload due to the consent model through the proliferation of data brokers. After their talk, one person from the audience asked a very interesting question, also in harmony with what I been thinking about quite lately. So the questions were something along the lines of "So we have been on the internet for the last 20 years, and there are a vast amount of data accumulated about us. Do companies and governments consider that we change over time and that what who we were when we were 6 years old is different than who we are now. Or do they consider it as a whole?". this was a very important question since as consumers, we are constantly profiled by the commercial companies on the internet, so if they take who I was 10 years ago as their indicative, then this means the information that is used for decision making about me is not reliable and not correct. I have been thinking about it in relation to how we accumulate data and how we do not remember where we put our data. We forget but the systems do not. Or most countries do not have the laws as in Europe or UK that gives people impose companies to use their "right to be forgotten".
We had the last BigData175 Seminar today. The speakers were Evelyn Ruppert (from Goldsmith University, UK) and Frank Pasquale (from University of Maryland). It was a pleasure listening to both of them who are experts in their field.
Frank Pasquale - the author of the book "Black Box Society"- talked about the possibilities of algorithms and its possible consequences. As a law professor, he went over possible implications of algorithms in all fields, but especially in health, through studying cases. The first case was the usage of voice analysis in order to help in disease diagnosis. Imagine that a program would analyze your voice and then will be able to conclude whether you are healthy or not, or what kind of a problem you might have. (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603200/voice-analysis-tech-could-diagnose-disease/ - This is a link I have found - he did not give this website). They will be able to screen you for depression or understand how you feel through the way you speak. He also referred to the use of algorithms for social and behavioral determinants of health. The second case he explored was about the usage of algorithms in the prediction of mental health data (Samaritans Radar - http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/supporting-someone-online/samaritans-radar - The app checks the twits of your friends and warn you when one of them seems to write unhealthy messages. vs. Durkheim Project - http://www.durkheimproject.org/ - "automated flagging for Psychological Health". the difference of this project is that they take the consent of the users and they also involve health scientists such as psychologists or doctors.) Pasquale was underlining the importance of involving professionals in the analysis of algorithms (could be psychologist or doctors for health issues, or sociologist, economists, political scientists in other issues). It is like Facebook integrating human for news vetting. The main takeaways from the talk were: "We need to think of our data practices other than consent + how professions can help us navigate information overload".
Evelyn Ruppert - the author of "Being Digital Citizens" (with Engin Isın) and editor of the book "Modes of Knowing" (with John Law) - talked about Data Politics specifically being a digital citizen. As opposed to the viewpoints that consider the internet users as passive, she contends that we claim our rights on the internet in various ways. As a critical citizenship studies scholar, she highlights that we are not just obeying ones, we also contribute and claim rights. She puts forward an active internet user. The internet citizenship she offers is not the classical citizenship understanding that is referred in political science. A digital citizen is the one who claims his/her data rights. She divides them into two:
- through methods such as using alternative platforms, blocking cookies
- demanding rights to data. Such as through data rescue events (groups coming together to collect data that is to be destroyed by companies or institutions).
The takeaway from her talk is that there are different ways of claiming our data rights and we should look into the way to move data subjects (who are conceptualized as passive) to data citizens (who are conceptualized as having agency). She actually answers the question whether people really care that their data is being shared. She says that users are not passive as they are conceptualized. We need to reclaim and define the future of our data or the internet.
One of the things I liked in her talk was that she emphasized the importance of understanding the users as they are more nuanced than it is understood by the big data.
I have been constantly noticing the news about the penetration of algorithms in our daily life since I started studying at Queen's University. But, the most important takeaway points for me were the emphasis on the incompatibility of the consent model. (My deliberation on the issue: Users/Patients/Customers give consent for techniques that they actually don't know the details of. This actually means that they are not very conscious about what they are consenting to. Thus brings the questions of whether the consent given in these situations is valid or not.). In relation to consent model, the other issue was the data overload due to the consent model through the proliferation of data brokers. After their talk, one person from the audience asked a very interesting question, also in harmony with what I been thinking about quite lately. So the questions were something along the lines of "So we have been on the internet for the last 20 years, and there are a vast amount of data accumulated about us. Do companies and governments consider that we change over time and that what who we were when we were 6 years old is different than who we are now. Or do they consider it as a whole?". this was a very important question since as consumers, we are constantly profiled by the commercial companies on the internet, so if they take who I was 10 years ago as their indicative, then this means the information that is used for decision making about me is not reliable and not correct. I have been thinking about it in relation to how we accumulate data and how we do not remember where we put our data. We forget but the systems do not. Or most countries do not have the laws as in Europe or UK that gives people impose companies to use their "right to be forgotten".
David Lyon (Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre - and my supervisor) opening the talk and introducing Evelyn Ruppert and Frank Pasquale.
After the individual presentations, Panel discussion began under the leadership of David Lyon.
19 Mart 2017 Pazar
Colliding Scopes Theatre - Immersive theatre
I have been informed about a new type of theatre yesterday, Immersive or site-specific theatre. It has various differences compared with a stage theatre. Each scene is acted in a different location, so the audience moves around a building in order to watch the scenes, or follow the actors as they move around the building. The aim here is to involve the audience in the play, let them also take part in the scene. So there is no stage. The audience becomes part of the stage, stands two meters away from the actors while they are acting, or sit on the couches placed there as part of the scene. The play becomes more engaging. The actors become more like your friends who you are eavesdropping on.
We did not know beforehand that the play we were going to watch was an immersive (or site-specific) one. I was even surprised at the beginning to see that the audience comprised of only 15 people. But then all started making sense after a while. It would have been very difficult to move in between the locations with more than 15 people.
The play we (Jenny, Derya and I) watched was called "Holy" by a student collective "Colliding Scopes Theatre". The play was adapted from Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain. I have neither read the book nor watched the movie, so I cannot really tell how well of an adaptation it is but I really liked the play the way we saw it. It was about the weekend the lesbian couple who impulsively got married in Las Vegas, spent with one of their parents. The actors and the director were very successful in translating the homophobia and racism faced by the couple in the small town where one of them have grown up in.
The play was staged in a local church in Kingston (The St.James Anglican Church), but true to the nature of immersive theater, the scenes were not acted just in the main area of the church. We followed the actors around the building, from the kitchen to the living room, to children drawing room. We changed locations for 11 times as I counted after the show (there were in total 6 locations).
Even though it was more on the amateur side, I really liked the play. It was much more sincere and the actors were much more vulnerable as there was not the boundary between the actors and the audience imposed by the stage. I will definitely try to see a similar play in the future.
We did not know beforehand that the play we were going to watch was an immersive (or site-specific) one. I was even surprised at the beginning to see that the audience comprised of only 15 people. But then all started making sense after a while. It would have been very difficult to move in between the locations with more than 15 people.
The play we (Jenny, Derya and I) watched was called "Holy" by a student collective "Colliding Scopes Theatre". The play was adapted from Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain. I have neither read the book nor watched the movie, so I cannot really tell how well of an adaptation it is but I really liked the play the way we saw it. It was about the weekend the lesbian couple who impulsively got married in Las Vegas, spent with one of their parents. The actors and the director were very successful in translating the homophobia and racism faced by the couple in the small town where one of them have grown up in.
The play was staged in a local church in Kingston (The St.James Anglican Church), but true to the nature of immersive theater, the scenes were not acted just in the main area of the church. We followed the actors around the building, from the kitchen to the living room, to children drawing room. We changed locations for 11 times as I counted after the show (there were in total 6 locations).
Even though it was more on the amateur side, I really liked the play. It was much more sincere and the actors were much more vulnerable as there was not the boundary between the actors and the audience imposed by the stage. I will definitely try to see a similar play in the future.
Bought the tickets on Tilt. first time using it. It was very convenient, but its surcharge was quite expensive. $0.90 for an $8 ticket.
Elvis on the stage. The first scene sets in a church in Vegas. The couple gets married.
We are at the celebration :) A good opportunity to take a picture.You don't have the chance to dance in a church every day.
They were asking us (the audience) to prepare the room for the gathering. There were real cookies and blackberries on the table that we all ate. The blackbarries were delicious.
We were sitting in the play as well. See Derya on the right sitting on one of the couches. Jenny and I were also sitting on the two couches opposite to the actors.
I was standing leaning against the refrigerator. I dropped one of the magnets on the refrigerator. Quite funny that we were interacting with the props (actually it was a real refrigerator!).
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