tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post700375968728431767..comments2024-03-23T00:59:24.057-04:00Comments on Sapping Attention: Military History and data: the US Navy in World War IIBenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-53338429586043095652014-07-11T16:53:13.440-04:002014-07-11T16:53:13.440-04:00Just came across this blog as I was doing some cas...Just came across this blog as I was doing some casual research on WWII troop movements. Great data visualization on ship movments. I'm interested in the underling data. I've done some searching but the closest I can find is log book data. Could you provide a link to the underlying data set? And thanks also for the link to the ggplot code! I've been using ggplot myself for a while now but haven't tried my hand at maps yet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-11375965875244740882014-01-11T08:23:34.328-05:002014-01-11T08:23:34.328-05:00Um...I hate to be a wet blanket, but...what, exact...Um...I hate to be a wet blanket, but...what, exactly, are you trying to accomplish with all of this? What purpose does it serve other than creating keen graphics? Shipping zone analysis and mapping is pretty old hat. Graphics are nice, and even interesting, but I have to wonder what value they might have.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15932318362316798388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-39486214122174270322013-11-26T14:11:18.482-05:002013-11-26T14:11:18.482-05:00Hi, I was wondering if you could provide a link fo...Hi, I was wondering if you could provide a link for or information about the data set you used? Thank youAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-23093523089727403162013-09-29T12:08:47.502-04:002013-09-29T12:08:47.502-04:00That is an interesting digital map, compared to WW...That is an interesting digital map, compared to WW2 shipping lane maps, as much as from what it _doesn't show_ as what it does. <br /><br />The data does not include the movements of the US Army Transportation Service freighter hulls, nor those of Mac Arthur's SWPA coastal freighter fleet of impressed Dutch Vichy French and Australian ships nor those of Mac Arthur's small boat (1,000 tons or less) fleet. <br /><br />Rather than reveling new insights on WW2 it in fact obscures them. <br /><br />Mil-Tech Bardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11654312581130984629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-68401692211097698162013-01-27T21:40:23.241-05:002013-01-27T21:40:23.241-05:00Yep, ggplot2. It's really a frustrating thing,...Yep, ggplot2. It's really a frustrating thing, those lines. I use an adapted version of Claudia Engel's fix from online <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~cengel/cgi-bin/anthrospace/great-circles-on-a-recentered-worldmap-in-ggplot" rel="nofollow">available here.</a>. <a href="http://rpubs.com/benmschmidt/Recenter" rel="nofollow">I just put mine up here</a>. It usually works, but sometimes I have to try a couple different nearly-next-to-each-other versions before something works.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-4844154518421749382013-01-27T17:00:27.222-05:002013-01-27T17:00:27.222-05:00Ben,
I got here from your article in The Atlantic...Ben,<br /><br />I got here from your article in The Atlantic about Lincoln. Fascinating stuff. Nevertheless, your maps of US Navy movements caught my eye. Unless I'm mistaken it looks like you made them with ggplot2. I've been using the ggplot2 package to map bird movements between the Americas and Asia. You appear to have solved a problem I've as yet been unable to crack - plotting restricted lat-long zones, centred on mid-Pacific longitudes, with filled landmasses and map projection. Any chance you'd be willing share your code for so I could learn from reading it?<br /><br />Regards,<br />StephenAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12843602366962599072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-35454784784366265342012-11-26T12:41:16.034-05:002012-11-26T12:41:16.034-05:00Thanks for the comment, Scott. It's an interes...Thanks for the comment, Scott. It's an interesting point that as the military-civilian divide becomes stronger today, we project that onto the past as well, in ways that may make us understand it less.<br /><br />Besides the projects you're involved with at Richmond, do you see any other significant projects bringing together the military, the digital, and the academy out there?Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-47830540076513700492012-11-26T12:39:24.807-05:002012-11-26T12:39:24.807-05:00Woops, just saw that I hadn't responded! Red i...Woops, just saw that I hadn't responded! Red is Japanese shipping (primarily merchant marine, I believe), and blue is US Navy.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-11680212505379736872012-11-19T09:09:55.308-05:002012-11-19T09:09:55.308-05:00Thank you so much for these visualizations, they a...Thank you so much for these visualizations, they are beautiful! However, may I request that you please include what the color codes mean? What is red and what is blue, for instance, in this video?aditya menonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04070706366039282939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-56471162222770543322012-11-16T13:16:27.912-05:002012-11-16T13:16:27.912-05:00Ben,
You may be right about the minefield create...Ben, <br /><br />You may be right about the minefield created by linking digital humanities too closely to military history. Yet wars are about nothing if not disjuncture and the potential for structural change, not just on either side of a conflict but in the midst of war itself. There has been great work suggesting that sharp divisions between military and civilian life--certainly in the U.S. Civil War era--are illusory. This is what interests me about wartime emancipation, how hundreds of thousands of soldiers made ruptures in all kinds of practices, spaces, and structures. <br /><br />So thanks very much for pointing out future work to be done on military datasets. Like you, I'm hopeful that they will become interesting "new" sources to those of us not initially inclined toward battles, battalions, and the swooping arrows of old set-piece maps. Scott Nesbithttp://dsl.richmond.edunoreply@blogger.com