Hello,
I've just joined this list after being introduced to it by Charles Fry.
I'm working on a Ph.D. in computational linguistics at Carnegie
Mellon University with several personal projects on the side. One of my
interests is using computational techniques to make reading Chinese
church materials (scriptures, manuals, etc.) easier for missionaries by
adding pronunciation aids. Some examples of this can be seen at
http://www.mandarintools.com/lds.html#missionary
Another project I've attempted recently (and which I've seen
discussed in earlier posts) is using Google Maps in conjunction with a
ward list to see where members live. I've put together some of the
files I used for this and have compiled instructions on how someone
might do something similar.
These are the steps:
0. Download http://www.mandarintools.com/download/wardmap.zip
1. Open official Ward website and select "Membership Directory"
2. Select "Abbreviated" to get entire ward list.
3. Select all and save to a separate text file: "directory.txt".
4. Take off the header and footer lines.
5. Run the Perl script "getlatlon.pl" (from the zip file) to convert
the addresses to latitude and longitude coordinates, saved in a file
called "warddata.xml"
- This script calls out to the geocoder.us website and requires the
program "wget". This could also be done with the geocoder perl module.
- Some massaging of your ward directory may be necessary. I found a
lot of incomplete addresses, addresses with misspellings, etc. All
addresses that can't be found are saved to the file notfound.txt. Save
and forward this the the membership clerk to correct the official list.
6. Check the notfound.txt to look for errors and repeat step 5 until
satisfied.
7. Edit wardmap.html line 12 and change YOURGOOGLEMAPKEY to your own
Google Map Key, available at http://www.google.com/apis/maps/ .
- Keep track of the directory you specify for the maps during sign-up
8. Edit wardmap.html line 38 to reflect longitude and latitude
coordinates that are the center your ward and not the middle of Pittsburgh.
9. Save warddata.xml and wardmap.html (in wardmap.zip) to a
password-protected directory on a web server (the password protection
isn't necessary, but a really good idea). This will be the same
directory specified when signing up for the Google Maps API Key.
10. Visit wardmap.html and click on individual member's markers to see
more information.
There are lots of other possible extensions (find five closest
members, etc.) that could be added. A lot of bugs probably still need
to be fixed also.
On the lines of open data in addition to open source, I think having
a database of various church terms in different languages would be very
useful. There is a project along these lines called LDSTerm at
http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~blaylock/ldsterm/. It has a table of
LDS terms in English, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Chinese. With all
the languages I would imagine are represented on this list, it would be
great if people could add terms for more languages. Other than
contributing the Chinese terms, I'm not associated with this project,
but I like it.
Best wishes,
Erik
_______________________________________________
Ldsoss mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
