John Melmoth

Wish to remain nameless, faceless, unknown to everyone. Opinions are not my own.

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

Perhaps dating apps have made dating seem unpleasantly random and uncertain (who knows how you’ll feel about this stranger when you finally meet?), so people are attracted to this comforting notion that people they already know (friends) would be ideal lovers. @TinkeringHuman

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

My impression is that the conventional wisdom concerning dating has shifted, and most people now believe that the best way to find love is to date a friend. I’d like to see a DH project that tries to quantify these shifting perceptions…. @TinkeringHuman

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

(1) a friend, (2) a colleague, (3) a boss, (4) a stranger, (5) someone previously disliked, or (6) an ex. I suspect that since 1990 the percentage of films in which love is found in a friend has dramatically increased…. @TinkeringHuman

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

This is for you @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

Indeed, I think DH is changing the way I view literary studies. The preferred approach in the humanities (hide the "data," push the narrative) now feels heavy handed to me and oppressive. Do you trust your reader to make sense of the data or the raw text? @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

I wish there were a DH project analyzing dreams. Not a psychological study, but a straightforward attempt at quantification. What percentage of remembered dreams involve anxiety or fear or persecution? How much of our dream scenery is universal? @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

Some scholars lambast DH for its (perceived) lack of analysis, but what they don't understand is that not all of us want to be constantly bombarded with outside narratives and interpretations. Sometimes, I just want to see the data. I can interpret it for myself. @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

Last week, at the library, I spent 3 hours working on a DH paper. During that time, I produced ... one graph.

Working with data is a slow process, and it dictates what you can and can't argue. It's much easier to just bloviate. @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

"We find words, with their halos of meaning, better suited for describing the complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty we see in our subjects. . . ."

Do we? Working with words certainly requires less labor than working with data.

@collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

The doom and gloom that pervades the humanities is tiresome. The Web has shown us that the world is, and probably always was, filled with brilliant, curious people eager to discuss literature, history, human behavior.... This is the golden age of the humanities.

@collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

"Instead of musing about how we can get humanists to adopt GIS. . . ."

But, I would respond, humanists use GIS all the time, as a quick search on Twitter will show you.

Oh, by "humanists," you mean professional academics employed by universities. I see.

@collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

"Wrangling APIs, scraping, and analyzing big swathes of data is a skill set generally restricted to those with a computational background." True, but success lies in finding areas inaccessible to others but not to you. Barriers to entry protect you from ruinous competition.

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

If a Cray supercomputer tells you that you'd be happier if you married your third cousin, are you going to listen? No, you're only going to trust an AI if it tells you something you already know. @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

Big data and AI face the same problem: trust. Even if big data and AI stumble upon earth-shattering revelations, they won't change anything because the public will simply assume that they're broken. @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

I'm writing my first DH paper. It's really more of a typical English paper with a DH component. I'm not sure if it's satisfactory or not. Not knowing stresses me out. @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

This sentence stood out to me: "Data sets that were once obscure and difficult to manage–and, thus, only of interest to social scientists–are now being aggregated and made easily accessible to anyone who is curious, regardless of their training." The horror! @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

In a twist no one could have seen coming, he ran afoul of the Soviet authorities and was exiled to Central Asia. @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

@collective_dh How did I not know that Soviet scientist Ilya Ivanov tried to create a human/chimpanzee hybrid in the 1920s by artificially inseminating three chimpanzees with human sperm? https://t.co/jslYKfvuzs

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

65. There's a thesis there somewhere. Why was the early 20th century dominated by horror writers uninterested in—if not actively hostile to—domestic issues? Just a coincidence? @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

63. I would like to see a topic-modeling project that compares the topics found in horror stories to the topics found in an anthology of mainstream short stories. I suspect that horror stories are unique in that they are less interested in love and family. . . . @collective_dh

[John Melmoth @MelmothJohn]

64. If you selected 3 collections of horror stories (one from the 1800s, one from 1900-1950, and one from 1951-2022), I suspect that you would see interest in domestic topics like love and courtship rise, fall, then rise again. @collective_dh