Free stats software

I know we tend to focus on the less prosaic methodological approaches here, but this is a pretty cool resource.

Harvard's Micah Altman has put together The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources, which is exactly what it sounds like.

From R to Bayesian simulation to Matlab clones, it's all here folks.

Open source espionage

Who'd a thunk it? According to the Boston Globe, the US government has begun posting millions of documents seized from Iraq on the Interweb, in hopes that Arabic speakers the world over will help with the translation task.

The docs have apparently been skimmed by professionals, so they're not expecting to find any secret diaries.

I'm frankly a bit shocked, myself. Does this mean the administration is rethinking the merits of open-source production?

Text analysis for OS X

First, let me say that I'm not a Mac user (not by conviction, it's just a convenience thing).

Still, Matthew Weinstein has recently posted releases of TAMS Analyzer, an open source qualitative text analysis software.

Of course, not being a Mac user, I can't tell you much more. But now you know it's there.

First Monday, still

What can I say? I was distracted, with all the writing and the stressing. But now that I'm digging out my inbox, I'm reminded that First Monday for March has been available for three weeks.

Of interest in this month's issue: use and abuse of online recommendation systems; copyright law in US and Australia; and the digital divide in Mexico.

Let the reading begin.

ad indicia spectate

This could be a great find. The folks over at Empirical Legal Studies just posted on a new addition to the syllabi collection of the Society for Political Methodology.

Broken out by undergraduate and grad-level course, as well as content.

Yet for some bizarre reason, I can't get the links to work. It keeps triggering iTunes instead. Odd.

The web of life

The artist Francisco Devante Mibigatti has made a fascinating (and informative) network representation of discretionary spending, which he calls Death and Taxes.

This quite different than Marc Lombardi's work, but still makes compelling use of network visualization to communicate otherwise overly complex material.

Fascinating, beautiful, informative.

D-Lib Magazine

The March 2006 issue of D-Lib Magazine is now available.

This is a special issue on the theme of "Digital Library Evolution" with guest editor, Gregory Crane, Tufts University. The issue contains six articles, a conference report, the 'In Brief' column, excerpts from recent press releases, and news of upcoming conferences and other items of interest in 'Clips and Pointers'. This month, in conjunction with the special theme of this month's issue, D-Lib features the Perseus Digital Library 19th-Century American Collection.

A fine Canadian Merlot

Of course, MERLOT is Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, a FREE open-source content resource for educators and students.

Their 6th International Conference will be held this August 8-11th, in Ottawa.

Deadline for submissions is March 20th.

MyFatwah

On a related note, over the weekend ABC News reported that "Al Qaeda's Web of Terror" is apparently using social networking sites like MySpace and Orkut for its online organizing and information sharing.

Wonder how many friends Mr. bin Laden has...

Networked terror

Patrick Radden Keefe has a piece in yesterday's New York Times "Can Network Theory Thwart Terrorists?" that gives an idea of what the NSA may be up to, as well as a general sense of what network analysis is all about.

While I take exception to some of Keefe's characterizations (he seems to equate "networks" with a particular organizational form, rather than distinguishing between hierarchical or concentrated networks, and those which are more distributed and dispersed), I recommend the piece to anyone wondering "what the hell is network theory?"

Hi-res founding docs

Those interested in seeing hi-resolution digital images of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, or the Bill of Rights are in luck.

There are plenty of other supporting documents and images, as well. Kudos to the folks down at the National Archives.

Teenage repellant

This may seem to fit more properly into "news of the weird" than social science research, but stick with me for a moment.

The news aggregator Ananova is reporting on The Mosquito (also known as the Sonic Teenager Deterrent), which is allegedly capable of producing an annoying, 80-decibel sound that only teenagers can hear. Apparently, as we enter adulthood, we gradually lose our ability to hear tones in that range. The device was supposedly invented by a UK shopkeeper, annoyed at the teens malingering near his shop.

Once you stop chuckling, try imagining it was possible to develop other technologies capable of causing discomfort to other social groups, based on gender, ethnicity, etc. Sound trucks are one thing, but what are the implications of creating targeted "public nuisances"?

Non-violent conflict

Those interested in using game simulations as pedagogical tools may want to take a look at A Force More Powerful. Not unlike the ICONS simulator developed here at UM, but focused more on street-level strategies and tactics, rather than negotiations, per se.

The really neat thing is that game scenarios can be customized (even based on real-world events), which could offer a really interesting tool to help engage students more directly in the study of civil and political struggles.

The (Windows only) game is available for $20.

Methods of Educational and Social Science Research

David Krathwohl has placed two chapters from his Methods of Educational and Social Science Research (2nd Ed.) on the web "to keep them up-to-date since they deal extensively with the Internet".

The chapters include a wealth of information on web-based literature searches (Ch. 6) and computer assisted qualitative data analysis (Ch. 14).

Cooperation Blog

This is novel - yesterday saw the birth of CooperationCommons, a wiki-like blog on the science, technology, and politics of cooperation.

I hope this takes off - this could be a great resource for teachers and practitioners alike.

Add their RSS feed and consider joining the club.

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

An anonymous grad student in Drexel's Library and Information Science program has put together a broad-ranging guide to Civil Liberties and National Security e-Pathfinder. Many are web-based sources, others print media.

A good place to start, for those interested in expanding their understanding of surveillance, national security, and constitutional protections.

SNA at ICPSR

This is fortunate - for those unable to attend ICPSR's annual Summer Program in Quantiative Methods, Stanley Wasserman will be leading a condensed, 3-day Introduction to Social Network Analysis from April 7-9th.

Registration is $500, and limited to the first 20 applicants.

Wish me luck!

Addendum: Got in! Huzzah!

Monitors of the future

Okay, time to think creatively about how we use computers. Some very bright people at NYU's Media Research Lab have come up with several proof-of-concept examples of Multi-touch interaction computing.

I recommend watching the video, then also catching Apple's much older Knowledge Navigator video. How might these sorts of interfaces affect the way we use computers for research, writing, teaching?

Fascinating.

Addendum: for another take on GUIs, check out Lowfat, a prototype of some pretty fascinating software. See especially the video of it in action.

Speed = power

National Geographic is reporting that a team of scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science have created the first DNA and Enzyme computer, capable of 330 trillion operations per second. That's over 100,000 times faster than the faster PC.

Why should this matter to you and me? Well, it means the eventual end of functional digital encryption and a qualitative shift in our surveillance capabilities.

Granted, we have a long way to go before our programming capabilities are able to make use of such astronomical computing power, and there are other computing bottlenecks that will have to be addressed. But just consider what is possible now - then multiply it 100,000 times.

'Tis a brave new world indeed.

Addendum 1: By the way, I'm sure there are folks who have thought longer and harder about this than me - any commentary would be greatly appreciated.

Addendum 2: Turns out, this happened nearly three years ago. I need to get out more.

Inter-coder agreement

Jason Czarnezki (Empirical Legal Studies) has started an interesting discussion on Inter-coder Reliability, the degree to which multiple analysts (or the same analyst over time - i.e., intra-coder reliability) characterize data similarly.

The problem is not as simple as merely calculating the ratio of agreement within overlapping observations. I'm slogging through a lot of this myself these days, so am keenly interested in the responses ELS generates on the subject.

Searchable podcasting

The number of available sources is still somewhat small (~76K), but Podzinger offers the ability to search for words or phrases within podcasts.

Groovy. I've gotten hooked on podcasts such as This Week in Tech and the Congressional Internet Caucus, but it will be interesting to see what other content I can listen to during my commute.

Copyright shakedown

Interesting. UM will be hosting Copyright at a Crossroads: the Impact of Mass Digitization on Copyright and Higher Education on June 14-16th.

While I find the topic fascinating, what's really interesting to me is the price of admission: $425 is the discounted rate for UM-affiliated faculty and staff.

That should produce a cozy little discussion.

Pajek 1.12

My apologies for the late notice, but while digging through my inbox, I noticed that a new version of Pajek is now available.

Most anyone who does network analysis will know about Pajek already, but for those interested in learning more, I highly recommend de Nooy, Mrvar and Batagelj's "Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek."

It's got quirks, but we've found this to be a very useful text for learning the basics of both network analytics and the Pajek software.

TWiT Conference

On March 31st, the University of Maryland will host the 13th annual Teaching With Technology Conference at Stamp Student Union.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence and the Office of Information Technology, the conference will feature a keynot by Diana Oblinger, VP of EDUCAUSE.

UM peeps get in free, other registration is a sliding scale (but includes parking).

Welcome to QSR International

NVIVO 7 is now available from QSR International.