4 ms·

A transcriber on the Isle of Man can decipher almost anything

85 points by IntronExon 9y ago

blacksqr 9y ago
Thought they were talking about Microsoft Word.
- goblins 9y ago
  Me too, was about to start pontificating about text files, and markdown.
ufo 9y ago
The article makes it sound like Ms Watson has a totally unique and unusual skill but there is actually a whole field of study around interpreting old handwritten texts (Paleography). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeography
- analog31 9y ago
  Indeed, a friend of mine worked at a small college during the school year, but every summer, she had a grant to sit in a library and transcribe old European texts from microfilms. The project was just to take a huge pile of texts and get the first several lines of each one into a searchable database. Full transcription was a hoped-for future goal.
  - mathattack 9y ago
    At some point will the machines interpret all of them and tell us which are worth reading?
WalterBright 9y ago
I bet my grandmother's letters would stump her!
olliej 9y ago
My old essay folder?
fernly 9y ago
Anyone who'd like to try their hand (eye?) at very similar work, but in a supportive, fail-safe setting, Zooniverse has several transcription projects: * Letters by Dutch and Flemish artists from the 1500s [1] * Hebrew and Arabic scripts from the 10th Century [2] * Letters from Shakespeare's contemporaries [3] * Hand-written notes by modern artists from the Tate ("Anno-Tate") [4] * Letters between anti-slavery advocates of the 19C [5] [1] https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/vincent-/parochial-archive-project-in-rome/about/research https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/vincent-/parochial-archi... [2] https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes-of-the-cairo-geniza/about/research https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes-of-the... [3] https://www.shakespearesworld.org/#!/about https://www.shakespearesworld.org/#!/about [4] https://anno.tate.org.uk/#!/about https://anno.tate.org.uk/#!/about [5]https://www.antislaverymanuscripts.org/ https://www.antislaverymanuscripts.org/
GirlsCanCode 9y ago
Big Clive?

85 points by IntronExon 9y ago

blacksqr 9y ago

Thought they were talking about Microsoft Word.

goblins 9y ago
Me too, was about to start pontificating about text files, and markdown.

ufo 9y ago

The article makes it sound like Ms Watson has a totally unique and unusual skill but there is actually a whole field of study around interpreting old handwritten texts (Paleography). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeography

analog31 9y ago
Indeed, a friend of mine worked at a small college during the school year, but every summer, she had a grant to sit in a library and transcribe old European texts from microfilms. The project was just to take a huge pile of texts and get the first several lines of each one into a searchable database. Full transcription was a hoped-for future goal.
- mathattack 9y ago
  At some point will the machines interpret all of them and tell us which are worth reading?

WalterBright 9y ago

I bet my grandmother's letters would stump her!

olliej 9y ago

My old essay folder?

fernly 9y ago

Anyone who'd like to try their hand (eye?) at very similar work, but in a supportive, fail-safe setting, Zooniverse has several transcription projects: * Letters by Dutch and Flemish artists from the 1500s [1] * Hebrew and Arabic scripts from the 10th Century [2] * Letters from Shakespeare's contemporaries [3] * Hand-written notes by modern artists from the Tate ("Anno-Tate") [4] * Letters between anti-slavery advocates of the 19C [5] [1] https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/vincent-/parochial-archive-project-in-rome/about/research https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/vincent-/parochial-archi... [2] https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes-of-the-cairo-geniza/about/research https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/judaicadh/scribes-of-the... [3] https://www.shakespearesworld.org/#!/about https://www.shakespearesworld.org/#!/about [4] https://anno.tate.org.uk/#!/about https://anno.tate.org.uk/#!/about [5]https://www.antislaverymanuscripts.org/ https://www.antislaverymanuscripts.org/

GirlsCanCode 9y ago

Big Clive?