Monthly Archives: August 2010

Quick Review: The Field Museum

Posted on by

My wife and I recently visited the Field Museum in Chicago. She had never been there and while I have been there a number of times, my most recent visit was about 10 years ago. We didn’t see everything but there was a lot of variety in our five hours. Some quick thoughts about one of the major museums in Chicago:

1. The museum has a range of exhibits, from ancient Egypt to modern Africa to animals to dinosaurs to gemstones to plants. There is a lot to take in and hold the interest of a variety of people.

2. We both agreed on the best exhibit: a temporary exhibit titled “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age.” While the main attraction here was a recently discovered young mammoth named Lyuba, the whole exhibit was informative and interesting. We saw plenty of tusks, video presentations about different kinds of research involving these animals, bone and tooth casts we could touch, and more. This exhibit it well worth seeing.

3. We both felt some exhibits were much more interesting (and modern) than others. The exhibit “The Ancient Americas” was great from early peoples through Northwest and Arctic peoples. However, the displays for Native Americans was stuck in the 1960s (or perhaps earlier) and is lacking compared to the others. The gemstone exhibit had been updated since I last saw it and both the modern Africa and Pacific Spirits galleries were interesting. The stuffed animals on the first floor from Africa and Asia look dated plus a number of the animals are in local zoos. Overall, it looks like the museum has worked hard to update a number of exhibits but some still need some work.

4. The price seems to be getting out of hand. We paid $22 a person for the Discovery Pass, a ticket that allows you into one special exhibit (and we choose the Mammoths and Mastodons). Even the Basic Admission is $15. If one were taking the family of four to the museum, it would cost at $60 for tickets (up to $116 for four All Access tickets) plus $19 for parking in one of the museum’s lots. Add in a quick meal at the Corner Bakery or McDonald’s (both inside the museum) and this is an expensive day at the museum.

For those looking to learn more about other cultures, animals, and nature, the Field Museum is an enjoyable place to visit.

Using Twitter as a data source; examining emotions and more

Posted on by

In April, the Library of Congress announced plans to archive all public tweets since the start of Twitter in March 2006. So what might researchers do with this data?

A recent study provides an example. Scholars from Northeastern and Harvard examined the emotions of Americans through their Tweets. By coding certain words as having positive or negative emotional value, researchers were able to map out data. According to New Scientist:

[T]hese “tweets” suggest that the west coast is happier than the east coast, and across the country happiness peaks each Sunday morning, with a trough on Thursday evenings.

The mood map is cool.

While the findings about when people are happy may not be too surprising, the research does bring up the question about the value of Tweets as a data source. Since it is likely skewed to a younger sample and also perhaps a wealthier and more educated group, it is not representative data. But it could provide some insights into reactions to certain events or for seeing the beginning and end of certain trends.

So what else will researchers study using tweets?

Making money online by tracking consumers

Posted on by

The Wall Street Journal starts a series on what companies are doing to track consumers to make money online. Some of the common tactics:

The study found that the nation’s 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none.

Tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to “cookie” files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.

These profiles of individuals, constantly refreshed, are bought and sold on stock-market-like exchanges that have sprung up in the past 18 months.

If you are using the Internet, expect that people are “watching” you and trying to figure out how to make money off of you.

Saving the auto industry in Detroit?

Posted on by

President Obama spoke in Detroit on Friday and The Atlantic examines four viewpoints about whether recent policies helped save the auto industry. Opinions are mixed.

The two more negative opinions are from Detroit journalists.