...So Far

Just for fun, I ran the RSS from the blog through Wordle to see what the word cloud of recent posts looks like. Recent travel and Census stuff seem to predominate.

Farewell Ted Kaufman, We Knew You Too Little

elaware's newest Senator made his farewell speech on the floor of the US Senate today. Ted Kaufman was selected to take over for Joe Biden when he was elected Vice-President and has turned out to be what a Senator maybe should be, smart, experienced, and not worried about reelection. That last may be because he is a special case, but the results should tell us something.

It seemed a good excuse for a word cloud.

That, and I've been looking for a way to get that creepy looking guy's picture off the top of the page.

We Will Have Been 4 Years Too Late For This

The graduation speaker at Villanova University last week was Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman. His speech is now posted on the Discovery Channel web site. It made a nice word-cloud.

I heard about Jamie Hyneman being the speaker back in April when Colleen was looking at Villanova. I'm a big Mythbusters fan; learning that Mr. Hyneman has been working with the Villanova Engineering School and would be commencement speaker that school rose in my estimation.

Of course, it was not my decision. It was Colleen's. She did, in fact, choose Villanova, though she's not at all impressed with Jamie Hyneman.

Have We Lost Wordle?

If you've read my efforts here, or on the DGDC News blog, or on the NSGIC News blog, you'll know that I am a fan of Wordle, a lovely little web tool that is used to create word clouds from blocks of text. This morning, I read on TechCrunch that Wordle has run into trademark trouble. Someone already owns the name "wordle" and they want it back.

I use Wordle to creat graphics that illustrate points I'm trying to make. For example, here is a word cloud I made from the abstracts for presentations planned at the 2010 Delaware GIS Conference:

I used this in a series of posts introducing the various presentations. I've also used Wordle-generated word clouds in presentations, in e-mails, and as a representation of my work duties that is posted on my office door.

So, the thought of losing this tool makes me sad. The developer has posted a request for pro-bono legal advice. That's all there is at wordle.net just now. As far as I know, that site was never a money-making proposition.

I hope an accord with the trademark-owner can be reached. Or, at least, that the-site-formerly-known-as-Wordle can come back under a new name.

Update 1: Phil Bradley's comment points to his own post on this (Wordle Closed - alternatives) which includes a list of other word-cloud tools. It's very helpful.

Update 2:  Richard James has let me know that Wordle is back, at least for now. And the TechCrunch post has been updated with a link to a twitter campaign to save wordle.

Speaking of Presidential Word-Clouds...

After yesterday's discussion of word clouds related to the "back to school" speech by President Obama, I was referenced in a tweet by jamesparks101 who invited me to check out a wordle project he (I think) completed in August. He has created word clouds of every one of the 56 inaugural addresses from US history.

I've posted the word-cloud from William Henry Harrison's marathon inaugural in 1841, above-right. It is the longest inaugural address in history and Harrison made it hat-less and coat-less on a cold, wet, March day. After two hours speaking (yikes) he attended several inaugural balls. He caught a cold; the cold lingered, became pneumonia, and led to Harrison's death on April 4, 1841.

I find this interesting, though I do have to point out that jamesparks101 is being something of a pain by tweeting the same thing, over and over, apparently to anyone who sends a tweet making reference to word-clouds:

...take a look at this wordle project retweet if worthy.

I'll not re-tweet, but thought it worth a mention here.

Words Matter

There will be plenty of other people parsing the security/terrorism speeches by President Obama and Dick Cheney today. There are substantive differences in policy, of course. But I wanted to keep it simple and just look at the words.

To the right is a word-cloud of Dick Cheney's speech. Note the largest word. We spent the last eight years having that word, "terrorists," shoved down our throats.

At left is a word cloud of President Obama's speech. His largest word is "people."

A note to Dick Cheney: go away.

Word Clouds of the DNC Speeches (Some of Them)

I've been creating word clouds of some of the major speeches from the Democratic National Convention. That's Joe Biden's speech at right.

I'm using Wordle, which I've been having a great time with this summer both here and in a newsletter (PDF) I created for work. Word clouds present the most frequently used words in any body of text. They are often sorted by frequency of use, with the most used words in the largest font.

So far, I have created the following word clouds:

• Michelle Obama's speech on 8/25/08
• Hillary Clinton's speech on 8/26/08
• Bill Clinton's speech on 8/27/08
• Joe Biden's speech on 8/27/08
• Barack Obama's speech on 8/28/08
  

I find these things kind of addictive.