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Abstract
Database
Dilemma
Installation
h|u|m|b|o|t
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"Towards the
end of our
journey this
last collection
formed
|forty-two
boxes
containing a
herbal of 6,000
equinoctial
seeds, shells
and insects ...
Often, to add
new geological
specimens we
had to throw
away others
long before.
Such sacrifices
were no less
painful than
what we lost
through
accidents."
Source: A.v.
Humboldt,
"Personal
Narrative of a
Journey to the
Equinoctial
Regions of the
New Continent
1799 - 1804".
Kohonen Mapping
of Humboldt's
book "Personal
Narrative..."
taken passage
by passage and
marked-up
subjectively by
h|u|m|b|o|t
readers
according to 4
parameters emotion and
modifier,
http://www.humbot.org/static/new/content2.html
keyword and
commentary,
location and
position, and
time.
The number of
squares are the
result of the
number of
primary
concepts
contained in
Humboldt's
entire book,
cover to cover.
The color of
each square
indicates, in
ascending order
- opaque to
bright yellow the number of
passages
associated
within a single
concept. The
arrangement of
the squares
indicates
'neighborhoods'
of concepts those in
proximity share
similar content
and those
distant,
disparate
content.
The Kohonen
Self-Organizing
Mapping carried
out on
Humboldt's text
looks for
crucial
markings 'read
into' his text
by h|u|m|b|o|t
readers. The 4
markers
indicating,
passage by
passage, a
subjective view
of Humboldt's
emotion and a
modifier,
keywords and
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commentaries,
position (GPS)
and location,
as well as a
chronicles
standard
parameter of
time, in this
case
interpreted
through the
prose, i.e. "We
set off at
dawn...",
"Minutes
later", or
"After
lunch..." to an
exactness
approaching
hours, minutes
and seconds.
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