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.