Hello

This is my Spanish Music List, hopefully it will show the way I'd like it to.

Week 7 Response

This week's readings with Dr. Cohen start quite hilariously, as he points out a true fact in the statement that "But if historians typically have few preconceived notions about server set up or audio sampling rates, many hold firm opinions about web design". So perhaps we historians to a large extent are not very tech savvy in this area, but we still have no problems being back seat drivers and holding opinions about what is the best interface or website template. Fonts, Colors, e.t.c..., each of us is sure to a certain extent, or at least we would be after taking a course on digital history. In fact, our course itself is essentially, is some Buffalo Bill aficionado explaining to us what he feels is the best interpretation of this new medium of digital history, and Dr. Cebula knows I could not resist that jab.

Add on top of this the fact that there's no mysterious board of elder scholars setting standards, and everyone has something different or so it seems, like historychannel.com to name one example. In some ways this is an excellent thing, because you have so many users, whether it be students or scholars coming up with so many ideas about what standards should be, and what websites should look like, that there is a lot of creativity which is very nice; and surely out of all that creativity, a standard set of rules could emerge, although in my view, since the web is so individualistic, and really crafted to the individual, that I think there will always be people in our field of digital history with their views on what a website should be to present information. I can envision Universities competing, each with a group of scholars or students that design and develop websites. It's kind of like now with the whole "I've got a better program, look at these thesis and books our people made recently", and that sort of thing. Beyond that I do feel there will always be competing ideas about web design and how the scholarly community should do it.

I was also reading about graphical elements. By that meaning how they can both help and hinder a site's design and purpose. For example if we look at YouTube.com. I'm building a website about day to day resistance to slavery, and I have mostly documents, maybe some photographs that might illustrate to a certain extent that resistance like pictures of everyday punishments like whip marks. But do I want a YouTube design on this? Do I want to have something, where you can watch videos of flipping through documents and you having to squint to read them! No, but on the other hand, one student's trash is another student's treasure, perhaps someone else is doing Pearl Harbor, and they use an interface like that to have videos of survivors talking about the incident and what it meant, along with perhaps radio announcements, or Roosevelt's speech.

Or take a site like funny-games.biz, full of ads and eye popping color graphics. Is that the hallmark of a scholarly site where students and scholars can go to access information, and not stare at all the colors? I think not. What about having all the text in Old English font because I like that? Or as we discussed last week, making my information of use to Professors but perhaps not to students, or to genealogists and not to anyone else? So there is definitely room for a few standards in my view, and I think it will be the Universities, with students and scholars like ourselves that will be leading the way in this field.

In "Collecting History" the discussion revolves around this and asks various questions, like why collect history, as well as discussing what could be a good subject, bad subject, an what kind of characteristics make a good site. I found the discussion very interesting, I liked reading the varying degrees to which websites attempt to address these questions. The hallmark example given was folklore.org set up by an early Apple engineer, the idea being to collect recollections and experiences from those early days, which was a big hit, as would I think a similar site for Windows or Linux users. That was a good example of a site that has a narrow base, but strong support. Then there was the video store owner/employee site, where people involved in video stores before they went out of business because of Blockbuster and others bankrupted or bought them. There's a unique topic that did indeed strike a chord. I also found the discussion revolving around the level of technology on a site refreshing, in that I had been sort of aware of it's implications but not completely. As it said "Not everybody needs a Library of Congress-grade archival system. One must carefully select what tools to use, do "I" need video software, flash, a search engine if there are a lot of documents, or just a menu?

And lets not forget the minefield that is contributors, both in the sense of monetary contribution, and intellectual contribution. If I am a scholar looking for some material, I don't want to see ads on the site I am visiting, which automatically casts suspicion on the operator amongst a community like ours, that prides itself on reputation; and with intellectual contributions, one has to worry about, do I moderate content, verify contributor credentials. Perhaps you have a serious scholarly site, and you don't want it getting out of hand without good material being written. Do you want there to be a forum on your site for chatting and comments? All important questions I hope to discuss (*wink) and explore in the future.

I liked the Museum 2.0 discussion, 2.o referring to the idea of a social network like face book combined with a Museum. Does it need that, do all Museums need that? I think that it depends on what a Museum wants to do online. If a Museum wants you to be able to see it's exhibits online as well as in person, then I think the website would be designed to capable of handling that level of interaction. If it's a site, where they have a text list of the titles of their paintings, contact info, hours of operation, online gift shop, then perhaps not eh?

I loved this "Online Learners Project" and it's attempts to make Museums digitally available in some sense, particularly to schools meaning teachers, students, e.t.c. I loved the Baroque style exhibit, and the hat exhibit. This I think is a prime example of a Museum site being capable of having, if not already, a 2.0 as mentioned above.

Mapping the Internet

Here is an interesting picture I just found. Imagine actually being given the task of painting, or creating a visual representation of the Internet!? Well here is apparently an attempt to do so on a SMALL scale.

Week 6 Response

In, "Digital Preservation", the discussion focuses on the positive and negative aspects of the digital medium when it comes to preservation. Whereas with something like paper, even with deterioration, the data from that can be retrieved. Even singed 3,000 year old Paryris scrolls can be read using technology that did not exist 15 years ago, which is why it is regretable that some amateur Archaelogists in those days would simply crumble and throw away these documents, thinking them impossible to read. With the digital medium, any kind of deterioration, and that data is potentialy lost for good. In many ways, it's own perfection is it's worst enemy, since precise and accurate machine language is necessary to read and write, and to keep the magnetic etching as it often is, readable, and not just a jumble of energy.

"While acid paper is prone to deterioration in terms of brittleness and yellowness, the deterioration does not become apparent for at least six decades; and when the deterioration begins, it progresses slowly. It is also highly possible to retrieve all information without loss after deterioration is spotted. The recording media for digital data deteriorate at a much more rapid pace, and once the deterioration starts, in most cases there is already data loss."

I enjoyed the good points the article made about deterioration specifically, as many of us aren't readily aware of the details. One major point I liked was on obsolescence. Because we are in many ways barreling our way into this new age of technological communication, maybe as much as 70% of what we have done or written using this new technology (i.e websites, floppy disk information, e.t.c) the past 60 years or so is no longer accessible by today's machines and software.

I was both scared and awed by "Digital Dark Age" in that I completely agree about this problem with information accessibility and it kind of goes back to our Digital Archives tour in that our wonderfully informed guide spoke about preservation, and for me, preserving in many places and in different formats is very important. Even Dr. Cebula was happy that he could preserve the data on his drive, and in the nick of time, which maybe would have been pointless if he had backed it up on one of those 8-inch floppy disks.

The actual definiton of "digital preservation" was good in that I got to read different sources and their view of it. In terms of the actual term, I liked definition number one as it was the most concise, and to me the most all encompassing. "Digital preservation combines policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and born digital content regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time." (ALA 2007:2) I favored number two in what "long-term" would mean: "a period of time long enough for there to be concern about the impacts of changing technologies, including support for new media and data formats, and of a changing user community, on the information being held in a repository. This period extends into the indefinite future." (CCSDS 2002: 1-11) Here too is a good point about "why bother" in that even if you've got that disk and the software to read it, maybe the new computer doesn't even have the drive for that disk, just as our computers now don't have a drive for an 8-inch floppy disk.

I know that Dr. Cebula must have glowed along with everyone else, when the report on the archives was made, as it said basically this is a unique project, it is nice to see what a little funding will do, and the important work this archive does is wonderful, and so on. Having your work vindicated is a must experience in any scholar's experience and hopefully we all get that experience at some point. I also enjoyed seeing other archives, and what they've attempted to do, Australia in particular was enjoyable to look at and browse a bit, and I wonder if they take advantage of that dry and stable climate they're so famous for in this effort?

Omeka is fascinating and I look forward to working on it even further. I tried to work on it since Dr. Cebula sent us the ok, and think I've made a little progress, and hopefully we can spend long hours in the few classes we have left to tinker with it some more.

As for myself, I sometimes wonder how unrecognizable computers may or may not be when I finally retire (probably 85 the way the government keeps raising the bar). Even now, we can read the latest magazines concerning this technology and marvel at what they seem to come up with a week or month at a time; and for me this only reinforces the points made in this week's readings. Please have a look at this article, and how cutting edge this technology seems to be:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_optical_data_storage

Week 5 Response

Well I found :Owning the Past to be terribly fascinating. I had not been fully aware of how long the copyright battle had been going on, nor that the Constitution originally specifically stipulated how many years a copyright is good for. Since then, many things have been done that was never envisioned outside the Constitution. Everything from Social Security to welfare programs have been done even though the original U.S Constitution doesn't spell that out. So in this case, the authors, and nowadays, the corporations are using that background to push the boundaries. The wikipedia article on this is basically a general "this is what this is" type of article with good information not much different then what Dr. Cohen was expressing.

One of the main questions being asked, is what exactly did the framers have in mind? Did they mean what they put literally and did they foresee any of the current arguments Against it. Personally I think they meant what they said, the founders wanted to make sure good inventions like the Cotton Gin would be free at some point for the benefit of all. Creative Commons is an interesting project, in that you have an attempt to legally stick to the copyright laws, no matter how ridiculous, and help users do that and still provide material. I find it useful, in that I have some experience using it, and useful in seeing and learning what it means to follow these laws. Finally on the matter with Oregon, I found that whole thing utterly ridiculous, I mean going after people using the law, because they published the law? How far I asked myself, does this copyright thing have to go? And perhaps Oregon got a little hasty and got caught up in the Sonny Bono era that they weren't thinking straight.

So overall, I liked Creative Commons and what they are attempting to do, even if it seems a little impossible in certain respects, and I don't think Oregon was or is thinking straight about their case, and could possibly lose it eventually.

Ronald Reagan on "What's My Line"

This is an old show called "What's My Line" and I thought it was fascinating. At this point, he is a well known and famous actor, and one can see why he was so glamorous in those days, and why old people liked him so much.

Week 4 Response

I found "Collecting History Online" to be a fascinating composition of important points. It describes how so far, our readings in this book have covered one-way use and interaction, but that the Internet is much more than that. Although many historians have embraced computer and Internet technology in many aspects, such as communication (email, instant-messaging) and professional discussion groups, such as H-Net, of which I am a member and frequent contributor, and of course there are thousands of forums and sites where passionate amateurs can discuss and respond; in this respect, we see how well suited the Internet is to fast and free flowing discussion and exchange of information.

One way in which the Internet can play a role, but is not playing as yet a substantial one right now is research. The Internet is a wonderful, and inexpensive tool to investigate, collect historical information, contact historians across the globe for help in tracking sources, e.t.c... I whole heartily agree in this because I do believe that this isn't used very much, or if it is, then as Dr. Cebula was saying, some Historians try to hide it as much as possible.

The most important subject in this chapter for me is modern history! As it said, a huge amount of modern life and living exists in digital form. What about blogs, chatting, email? All those are very relevant, and provide huge amounts of data on modern life, who people are, what they do, what they believe in, what they think about events. Recently for example, there were several discussions in the news about White House digital records. President Bush and his cronies expunged many emails and other such records to cover up their "allegedly" illicit activity. Now President Obama is in favor of open access to those records and past records, and has ordered a comprehensive preservation of all White House communications for posterity. I myself have found references to emails in various books, like when a Historian is pointing out a particular email in the Clinton administration in their book, just as Historians referenced paper memos further in the past.

Another point worth mentioning, since I love typing so much, Is the audience a forum like a blog has, or lack thereof. If I spend all my time working hard on a discussion forum on a particular topic, I need to know, or would like to know what kind of audience I can expect. If I worked so hard on it, or if I received funding for it, then wouldn't it be a shame if it fell flat, with little traffic? For example, a forum around the topic "History of Fritos Chips"? Perhaps not the best topic to be spending grant money on, as opposed to a topic like "The Failure of The Bush Administration" which would undoubtedly stir up debate and yet it is also very broad, and instead of serious academic discussion, you might get inundated with responses, both serious and off color, and so this might represent the other side of that coin.

We think of preserving digital materials, and some of us might go what??? After all, once that rare manuscript has been scanned, even if it crumbles into dust, it's immortal isn't it? Well, what if a nuclear attack came? Lets pretend that somehow those servers holding that information aren't blown away, then wouldn't what is essentially magnetized information be wiped clean by the EMP pulse? Or what if that information degrades overtime? Worse still, what if those important documents are stored on discs? Discs can decay, and fade over time, and even the best of them only last perhaps 300 years under optimal conditions, and even that isn't known for sure. An even more important point is that even if a 2000 year old papyrus scroll has been deteriorating for so long, we have techniques that will retrieve that information, whereas with Cd's, the first hint of deterioration, and they are rendered useless, in no time at all. It is interesting that this chapter mentions how the fact that Cd's and other such mediums are so perfect, allowing endless copies, is also the curse, because even one little error, and it's gone. Moreover, any equipment that could specialize in retrieving this damaged information would extremely expensive and time-consuming.

The type of information that the LOC has available is actually impressive, given the current bureaucracy, and includes veteran eyewitness documents, a section on the performing arts such as dance and theater. It is also housing an excellent collection of newspapers online, eventually hoping to cover all newspapers in America up until 1922, as well as all information on legislation like copies of bills, Senate committee documents and so forth. There is also a collection of "American History & Culture" which I enjoyed. In the newspaper collection, I read an article in the "Stars and Stripes" about Col. John "Gatling Gun" Parker, who commanded the 362Nd infantry in the Argonne, and was severely wounded there, this issue being published February 7, 1919. I enjoy how I can search for particular issues, and even just search for something, I found this article on Col. Parker by searching for the term "Gatling Gun"! There doesn't seem to be much room for a forum on here, but then it is a broad and huge collection so perhaps that is just as well. I'm not sure if this is my fault, but I couldn't find any link to create a "myLoc" account, so feel free to point that out if anyone else spots that.

Hello, this is Oliver Cromwell, very Cheerful Guy.

http://englishrussia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/lenin_nazi.jpg

Here we have a Nazi soldier honking Lenin's Nose!!!

Week 3 Response by Michael Ibarra

Nielson and Krug say that Internet users don't always act rational in their surfing habits. They don't look at every page, and often click on links that seem to be the best rather than on what are optimal. Nielson and Krug are basically saying, and I agree too, that what the user experiences and how they view web pages are just as important when designing a website. I mean at first, they explain differing points of view, like my view on what a website should be like, or the view of those few who have looked at serious academic web design. So like they said, it is important that when designing a web page, the designer needs to take into account their 'audience' when designing it. This I think is an important and cogent point. I also find a good point in the adage "don't make me think"; in other words, don't confuse the user, or make then work to hard to access the information.

I wish also for a world where history was as popular as Google or Amazon. But of course it is important that even if you have an exemplary website, you need to know who you are trying to reach, and make sure they are being reached. Obviously as the article points out, historians don't get trained in marketing, or public relations. We receive scholarly training. Of course places like Museums are going to have an audience already; for example the museum of El Paso has many great southwestern paintings by artists like Swinnerton, and so anyone interested in his works would automatically know where to go, and bingo, instant audience.

With the web it is different, because it is in many ways endless, there has to be some order or organization to it, which is why search engines showed up, and a good website needs to show up on those search engines; Google, Yahoo, Altavista, and MSN in particular. It is easy to forget this, and focus on the content and design aspects alone, and so you did all your work with no benefit to the web community. Obviously money should never be the focus of a truly academic site with integrity; indeed, in many ways wikipedia.com is superior to sites like the history channel whose purpose is to sell tapes and Cd's. Fact is, regards to wikipedia, I have never come across a historical article that is false, everyone of them with footnotes, and I defy anyone to find such an article; and so there is no money there, simply a genuine and free form of scholarly information, even if it is a little too open for some scholars.

In regards to specifics like server logs, I have some familiarity with a decent amount of websites, when it comes to knowing the terms, and so this information, while useful, is also something with which I am a bit familiar.

Oh boy, that Digital Libraries collection was an interesting read. Here these guys are saying that they had an overabundance of links, and at the same time a certain confusion as to whether they were actual archives, and trying to find prominent ones like American Memory Project, which they did manage to dig up. They use the word 'warning' rather easily, as if to say this is not A-number 1 links, or they are not always what they seem to be.

But it is without a doubt a wonderfully diverse collection, I was particularly looking with the King County database. I tried to look up any photos of of James Marshal Hendrix. So I put that in, the search has no way to search for those words together, so apart from there not being any photos of him, not even in the Black Heritage archive, I was getting whatever pages had James or Hendrix in them. So I suppose it can be said that not all scholarly sites are perfect, and it is these inconsistencies that help point out a real sticking point: There is no general set of guidelines all these websites have to use, so for now, neither a scholar or the average web surfer will know what exactly they are going to get.

You know, I remember reading that historical writing in the past, when it was done by guys who were usually from the upper class, didn't have hardly anything to say about the everyday citizen. You wouldn't find a book from 200 years ago about the history of marriage ceremonies for the lower classes, and yet you could today. But with the proceedings of the Old Bailey, I have to admit I stand corrected (technically). Here, as the article says, is essentially a common people's history. Considering the ratings for shows like NCIS or Law & Order, I can understand why people back then loved to read the proceedings; and boy, there were alot of them, about 100,000 if I remember correctly, over 160 years. I wonder if Jack the Ripper suspects are in there too?


and here is a list of fascinating true historical facts,

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/253986/strange_but_true_historical_facts.html?cat=37

Re: The Pirate Bay

Too bad, a court in Sweden ruled against the Pirate Bay, a year in jail and 7 million in fines, but they have vowed to become martyrs to support our right to privacy and freedom of expression. There will be a long road of appeals, and h33t.com has already won their case, so the fight isn't over. We must remember the Pirates, and pray for their success!

Re: History of The Internet

Well, here is an interesting video I saw on Youtube that I thought was very fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4

Week 2 Response by Michael Ibarra

I found the "Getting Started Section" of Digital History to be absolutely fascinating. It made an excellent point about variety amongst published sources. Everything from such mundane things as binding or font to even more important points, such as style, organization, format; and this variety of written published sources is only the beginning. Digital publishing and the varieties therein is a whole topic in and of itself. From my perspective, I always saw paper publishing as the backbone of academia, but mainly just that, not the end all and be all of publishing in this day in age. Growing up in what might be called the 'digital consumer generation' I haven't always understood the problems scholars sometimes have with digital technology as another medium of publishing, writing, and creating.

I have grown up, in other words, believing in the benefits of the computer revolution and it's promises to every facet of society. Having been lectured to by certain professors who shall remain nameless since then, I have come to appreciate how difficult it can be to control quality, as well as trying to apply academic standards to what is essentially a free space, chaotic, with no real direction other than what users dictate.

The main purpose in this chapter of getting started, is to understand mainly the challenges of using the digital medium, not just with earlier topics in the introduction of this book (see week one) but also with realizing that digital technology in terms of it's expression capabilities, still has some catching up to do.

In "Becoming Digital" it is stated that an astonishing amount of the 'analog historical record' has already been digitized. I think it should be made clear, that the chapter in my view is referring to how primitive digital tech was just 20 years ago, and how much tremendous progress has been made. Since we live in this time, many of us in the younger generation don't realize just how radically advanced technology is becoming, and the amazing speed of it's development. For example, 30 years ago, a 1GB hard drive was the size of an average slide projector today, and yet now, there are memory sticks no larger than a stick of chewing gum with the same storage capacity if not more, and recently an experimental 1 GB hard drive the size of a quarter was made in Japan!

So compared to what little could be done in terms of digitizing so many dusty records, there has been tremendous progress. But there are hundreds of millions of more records waiting, and the Library of Congress still has piles and piles of records and documents sitting in warehouses from Washington to Lexington. I also feel it is important to keep the recession in mind. Likely, I will have earned my Doctorate by the time the economy, and the federal and state budgets begin to recover fully, so digitizing has most likely been dialed down a notch, and setback in the current funding climate. So although there has been radical amounts of progress made, it's still a long road, before we can accurately claim to live in the "Digital Age".

I found "Digital Humanities" intriguing in that although I was aware of the strange Google books decision, I was not aware of the progress made in open access by the NIH or Harvard, or the attempts to silence such initiatives thanks to publishers with baseless fears, and a front line of politicians to support them. I also come to the same conclusion regarding EndNote, in that they were scared, and in pursuing their legal course, they brought an important question about the freedom to transfer information between mediums, whether from book to computer, or .doc to .txt. In the past I have thought that history teaching, particularly here in the U.S should be more fair, with a more global perspective. So it was a pleasant surprise to find the same argument for humanities, albeit in a digital context. Obviously, one can infer that this could be another benefit of Digitization, and the availability of sources, in that it gives scholars, and the average citizen in particular, the opportunity to see a different perspective, or more information, sort of like the "lost cause mentality" versus the overall "Civil-War" aspect in American history.

I enjoyed IATH, particularly the physical evidence, and even ecological perspective of some of it's projects, the 'Boston Fens' project in particular. The VCDH on the other hand, seemed to be more focused on projects, and providing sources for researchers, and that's nice too. I think these 'exploratives' that were assigned this week are a good example of what various scholars are coming up with nowadays, and their ability to be creative in their presentation of information.

For the CHNM site, the about page was basically the credentials page, 'here' is our goal with this project, 'this' is who we are, followed by the scholarly recognition the site project has received, as well as other associated scholarly sources. Overall a very good presentation of their goals and credentials. Then there was the "Teaching+Learning" section, which provided many topics and sources for a variety of historical subjects for scholars, instructors, and even students to use. I loved the research section, with neatly layed out links to helpful tools and services as well as sources of research material available online. Finally, most impressive about the site in my view was it's excellent and easy to use archive sources, such as the "September 11 Digital Archive" and for me personally, I loved the "Bracero History Archive" which I have still not fully explored.

The CHNM seems to have the goal of "democratizing" history, in other words, having diverse sources available for all to use and reach as many audiences as possible. I feel this is an excellent goal, and one that it has done a fantastic job in working at, simply the existence of such archives as the "Bracero History Archive" show me they are very diverse, and can appeal to many people from all walks of life.

Air Force Flying Saucer?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1281221.html

You be the judge.

Week 1 Response

 

Michael Ibarra

04-6-09

Response Paper

Week 1 Hist. 496

 

The readings this week asked some important questions regarding a scholar's use of digital technology in the 21^st century. In "Promises and Perils" what are the pro's and con's of using digital technology, in a broad sense? How can we define digital history and what is its promise? What is netiquette, and how should it be applied? What about digitizing physical sources, which remains costly, and problematic? What is meant by the emergence of Digital Humanity? Finally, who in the world is Boiler Plate?

Promises and perils briefly details seven qualities of digital media and networks that improve historical writing and research. "Capacity, accessibility, flexibility, diversity, manipulability, interactivity, and hyper-textuality"; these are discussed as primary benefits to historians. Being able to store so much information, great access to this information, how many kinds of forms this information can take, as well as how diverse it is, from American colonial documents to County records from 1900. The ability to manipulate this information to suite your purposes is another supposed benefit, as well as interactivity, the material being capable of being accessed and discussed by professional and non-professionals alike; and finally hyper-textuality, a new way of viewing and thinking about the text because of the medium (online) through which we view and discuss it.

 

While I readily agree with these benefits, the introduction also takes into account the problems or caveats as it puts it, in this latest medium of information. Mainly "quality, durability, readability, passivity, and inaccessibility"; the problems with a free medium, which the internet is readily apparent. How can quality, truthfulness be assured, what happens when the mainframes storing the internet, the frontal lobe if you will, breaks down or is destroyed? Are the authors always writing in an easily understood fashion, as in this post, and what if a scholar wished to convey complex theories and information, how can that scholar do so effectively, and how can anyone be sure that this new medium is available and can be accessed by everyone?

I feel the author does an excellent job of defining each of these difficulties, though I do feel that by now there are enough computer users in the world that inaccessibility is not a problem as it once might have been in the Reagan era. I also feel that there are a sufficient source of online forums that are peer reviewed by Professors that quality can be assured in that sense

Quite simply, Digital History is History that makes uses of online sources. It is an inexpensive medium, as it can be altered, accessed, published, stored, and shared with unlimited potential. I agree here with Dr. Turkel in saying that many barriers that have impeded historians do not exist online. One can do anything with the information at little or no cost as shared above. It is I who also states that it has unlimited potential, in that no one can say for sure how far this new medium can go, or what new ways of thinking and doing things it can inspire.

I whole hardily agree with Netiquette in that I believe that we must take care to act with etiquette when we are dealing in the online medium. The golden rule applies in cyberspace the same way it would in real life. The most important lesson here that can be learned is that cyberspace and the real world are not separate! They are interwoven, and your actions in one can impact the other. As scholars, Historians in this case, it is important to maintain our standards online as well as one would do in life, because life happens everywhere.

'History Digitized" I think does point out an important point, in that putting sources online is all well and good, but if this is incomplete, that can lead to great difficulty. It could be likened to Darwin writing his "Origin of Species" without ever setting foot on the Galapagos. He never had access to that, and so he missed an important piece in his work. So it is online, if only part of a volume set is available, a scholar's conclusions based on it would invariably be different than if he had all the information available to him.

In "Digital Humanities", the author states he started the blog or project to allow better access to this field, and to help humanities majors in general. Soon many others had jumped on the bandwagon, with official blessings from above, funding and everything. He found himself in the position of dealing with what was now an emerging field, as digital history is to us. I greatly enjoyed reading this different perspective to the phenomenon as one could say, of the effect of the digital medium on academia. I agree with his conclusions about it, particularly his view that coordination between various "humanities centers" in regards to activities. I feel this should also be attempted in regards to historical centers; I for one would love to see some real discussion between students here in Eastern and perhaps students in Gonzaga on current events, and bringing them into historical context.

I absolutely loved the story of Boiler Plate. Although I question the validity of this story, I find that in the world we live in today, nothing can ever be dismissed easily. My own mind

says that since Sony recently made a robot, whose main capability is walking and not crushing objects, it is unlikely the technology of that period, circa 19^th century, would be capable of making

a robot capable of all those functions described therein. But you never know, stranger things have turned out to be true, like the United States Air Force's attempt at a flying saucer!

History 496 Start

Well, this is the start of my blog , history496.blogspot.com. I will be posting my Response papers for this course on here.