Ella Howard

I was excited to participate in this weekend's VR Jam sponsored by our student chapter of ACM at Wentworth Institute of Technology. VR development is an amazing space to engage students in learning about History. My workshop covered interactions and materials in Unity.

Excited to see Prof. Heyda speak!

Thanks so much!

Screenshot of Unity interface showing vintage 1950s style paper doll on a city street

Anyone interested in teaching history through VR development should jump right in. With the LLMs, we are in a new era of Digital Humanities. You and your students can create anything you can imagine. #DH #digitalhumanities

GitHub - ellakhoward/Historic-VR-Resources: Public resources for recreating historic spaces for VR centered in our project recreating Boston's West End Public resources for recreating historic spaces for VR centered in our project recreating Boston's West End - ellakhoward/Historic-VR-Resources

I've decided to share my Recreating Historical Spaces for VR tutorials and scripts publicly. I'm always open to collaboration on projects and research, so please reach out if interested.

github.com/ellakhoward/...

#DH #digitalhumanities #urbanrenewal #vr #urbanhistory

Step one of course prep for January's course recreating Boston's West End in VR is complete! #DH

✅Created cube in ESRI CityEngine
✅Imported to Unity
✅Got approval as Meta Developer
✅Configured and rebuilt... everything many times
✅Learned about the ports on my computer
✅Can see cube in Quest 2!!!

Economic Sociology expansion pack! Need to add others or add yourself? Do it!

go.bsky.app/Tdf2TZ2

I finally deleted.

Today in Salem, MA, we rallied in support of trans rights across from the office of the representative who shall not be named.

Do not scapegoat trans kids for the failings of the Democratic party.

"I hate to be ungallant, but looking at you I see nothing but the misery you've caused." - Barnabas to Angelique on Dark Shadows but also suitable for use with some academic administrators.

Awesome to hear! I hope it is helpful.

A few to start: @urbanhistory.bsky.social @haroldberube.bsky.social @maryrizzo.bsky.social @jorgenleal.bsky.social @toddmichney.bsky.social @lwinling.bsky.social @jackiantonovich.bsky.social @shannanclark.bsky.social @melanienewport.bsky.social @walterdgreason.bsky.social @ellakhoward.bsky.social

In conversations with students this week I have realized this is true. Many college students have no idea that the government protects natural spaces from resource extraction, for instance.

Welcome new folks! Let's make some good things happen.

The reason we need liberal arts education is so that engineers don’t say things like “we’ll just make sure the computer can look up the truth”

I'm excited to be learning and presenting at today's Greater Boston Digital Research & Pedagogy Symposium!

I'm in town a bit again these days for the first time in quite a few years, and I'm seeing this bogus nonsense everywhere.

(via Reddit, this is what the Sackville Lounge looks like now)

When there has been no audience or a very small one, this has happened organically and often been wonderful.

for Godzilla, every city is walkable

Yes sorry if my attempt to live skeet oversimplified his point. I believe he meant avoiding the exclusive/rigid focus on physical structures rather than starting from consideration of how people earn a living, etc.

Wormser: We should focus on resilience in areas uphill, not subject to heat, to prepare to increase density there as we move away from shorelines.

Seth: Environmental justice means focusing on people and livelihoods rather than buildings.

Wormser: Columbia Point is at far more risk of wind and wave fetch from Nor'easters than the seaport.

Christo: While we might want to avoid building in flood prone areas, the revenues from development projects fuel public services and transportation. Thus our discussions must be more nuanced.

Abel: Is Dorchester Bay City (Columbia Point) really Seaport 2?

Seth: Higher flood risk than seaport. It will include some elevation, but some mitigation won't happen until later. Needing phase 2 or 3 of a project to protect phase 1 is a risk.

Christo: The barrier proposed would take 30 years to build; we need mitigation now.

Wormser: The eds and meds elevated the level of their buildings; short-term flippers didn't. Is this what is meant by term "new seaport" in film?

Seth: 3.3 billion gallons annually of sewage flowed into the harbor. The public bore the cost of mitigation.

Abel: But developers created this new problem despite clear scientific knowledge that was available.

Seth: Federal programs now often require 40% of the benefit to go to underserved groups.

Christo: Nature-based systems can only address so much rise; next is relocation.

Wormser: The places addressing climate well are dictatorships and social democracies due to strong central planning and development. Proposes creating a public utility with a low risk tolerance to handle mitigation.

What steps should we now take to protect the region and on whose tab, Abel asks.

Christo: Stone Living Lab focuses on the nature-based approaches. He recently visited the Netherlands to study their 1997 barrier system, which is no longer on favor. Cities are moving away from barriers.

Abel asks the panel how they might change the seaport if they could travel back in time.

Wormser notes she did advocate for building it at the level of Summer Street. She poses visions of Hamburg and monsoon cities.

Seth notes that Deer Island was built higher than it had to be due to awareness.

Christo, Abel, and Seth are joined for the Q+A by Julie Wormser, Senior Policy Advisor for the Mystic River Watershed Association.

Mayor Wu urges Boston residents to take a longer worldview than have previous generations of city politicians, developers, and planners.