John Bonnett

Brock University · Department of History

Background In the early 1940s, two men from different disciplinary contexts converged on three concerns: information, its dynamics, and the pathologies stemming from those dynamics. Norbert Wiener studied these concerns from the context of mechanical and biological systems. Harold Innis viewed them from the perspective of political, social, and cul...

Background: The StructureMorph project rests on the premise that future publishing platforms will converge multiple applications, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and game engines, and multiple paradigms of computing, such as desktop computing and high-performance computing. Convergent platforms will also present design challenges for s...

There are many things that can and should keep digitally-inclined scholars awake at night: convergence is one of them. By convergence, we mean the aggregation of multiple tools into a single device to enhance the capabilities of users. In this paper, our purpose is to argue that convergence is a process that will impinge on the future of historical...

We use a mathematical model to perform a counterfactual study of the 1854 Charge of the Light Brigade. We first calibrate the model with historical data so that it reproduces the actual charge’s outcome. We then adjust the model to see how that outcome might have changed if the Heavy Brigade had joined the charge, and/or if the charge had targeted...

Summarizes: Connors D, Armstrong MJ, Bonnett J. 2015. “A counterfactual study of the Charge of the Light Brigade”. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 48 #2, 80-89.

One of the most significant attributes of digital computation is that it has disrupted extant work practices in multiple disciplines, including history. In this contribution, I argue that far from being a trend that should be resisted, it in fact should be encouraged. Computation is presenting historians with novel opportunities to express, analyze...

Harold Innis was one of the most profound thinkers that Canada ever produced. Such was his influence on the field of communication that Marshall McLuhan once declared his own work was a mere footnote to Innis. But over the past sixty years scholars have had a hard time explaining his brilliance, in large measure because Innis's dense, elliptical wr...

CFI has just announced its financial support for the creation of a national High Performance Computing (HPC) platform, and the formation of a new organization to govern it: Compute Canada. When realized, the platform will afford Canadian scholars with more computational power than they have ever enjoyed before. HPC presents rich research possibilit...

It is a truism in the digital humanities, a constant one, and a good one, that it is always in a state of transition. Such an observation is not surprising since the instrument upon which it relies – the computer – is itself in a state of flux. For the moment, its computational power remains firmly in the grip of Moore's Law, exponentially increasi...

Innovations in computing are presenting historians with access to new forms of expression with the potential to enhance scholars' capacities and to support novel methods for analysis, expression, and teaching. Computer-generated form can change the way we generate, appropriate, and disseminate content. I f these benefits are to be realized, however...

I can think of few disciplines better suited for developing a sense of humility than humanities and computing. As scholars, we possess an intimate familiarity with a very old technology, namely text. And more to the point, we use it mindfully. We bring an explicit awareness of the rules – past and present – that govern its use. We are aware that we...

In the coming decades, the platforms and formalisms scholars employ to display, transform, and transmit information will continue to evolve. Innovations in information management did not stop with the codex. They will not stop with the PC. The purpose of this paper is to explore a specific implication that new paradigms of computing - especially th...

An abstract for this publication is not available. Un résumé pour cette publication n'est pas disponible.

The aims and history of the three-dimensional (3D) virtual buildings project were discussed. A description of the project's teaching method was provided to help students realize an important concept about historical representations. The aim of the project was to provide participants with the skills necessary to generate historic replicas of Canadia...

Reviews in American History 24.3 (1996) 529-536 Gar Alperovitz. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and the Architecture of an American Myth . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. xiv + 847 pp. Appendix, notes, select bibliography, and index. $32.50. Robert James Maddox. Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later . Columbia: Univers...

Each and every time a new contribution devoted to the com-munication writings of Harold Innis emerges, it faces a cen-tral question: is it telling us something new? More to the point, is it telling us something of the "hidden Innis"? It is a truism in the literature that Innis, a political economist at the University of Toronto from 1920 to 1952, w...

An abstract for this publication is not available. Un résumé pour cette publication n'est pas disponible.