My First Attempt

My Second Attempt

My first attempt was to show the troop positions of the 1st Battle of Manassas. However, this did not work very well. It seems that “drawn” maps simply aren’t as accurate as satellite maps. For example, I could not get Haymarket right and Centreville/Manassas. However, I had an idea. Perhaps a map that required such fine detail wasn’t practical for Google Earth’s overlay feature, but a map that showed more general, graphical information could be.

My second attempt went much better. Here is a visual representation of the ancestry of Virginians; Red is American, blue is English, Yellow is German, purple is African American, and green is Irish. Not everything could be precisely lined up; this was mostly due to intentional exagerations in size of some smaller counties/cities, such as Falls Church and Arlington. Yet this is less relavent, because the maps purpose is to give an overall feel of Virginian’s ancestry demographics. It’s not a house by house comparison, but a county by county.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that, unless a map is based on satellite imagery and exactly the same size as the geographic area involved, it is almost useless to try and use Google Earth’s overlay. Perhaps with some more practice my opinion will change though.

First map found here.

Second map found here.

People have debated for decades the precise role of slavery in precipitating that war. Some emphasize fundamental, irreconcilable conflict between societies based on forced labor and contract labor. Others emphasize instead contingent events in the political realm. Those who stress intrinsic conflict have often built their arguments around the general concept of modernization, with the North embodying the characteristics of modern society-democracy, economic innovation, and social mobility–and the South explicitly resisting those characteristics. Those who isolate political conflict, by contrast, tend to emphasize the fundamental similarities in ideology and culture of white Northerners and Southerners.

This should be very interesting. First my thoughts: the Civil War was overwhelmingly fought over slavery. Any difference between the North and the South, especially in regards to modernization, revolves around slavery. If there were Southerners who didn’t want to modernize, the reason was solely because they didn’t want/need certain advantages modernization would bring thanks to slaves and the plantation system. Some areas, such as Virginia (a critically important state in the Confederacy) had relatively robust, modernized industries, yet relied on the exportation of slaves as an important source of income. Finally, when one looks at the declarations of secession given by each of the states, all of them directly reference slavery, with several (particularly Georgia) making it the only qualification for secession. With that being said, it will be interesting to see just how different Southern/Northern society truly was, based on a plethora of demographic and geologic data thanks to the Geographic Information Systems (GIS). If the two societies were remarkably similar, than I believe this is further evidence my stance. If they were remarkably different, it’s evidence against my stance.

Historians have tended to conflate social interest and political identity, assuming that votes for slavery were votes for secession

I like that they realize this assumption was wrong. In some states, the vote for seceed was barely won, sometimes even using coercion or manipulation to push the vote.

The difference slavery made is widely recognized to be profound and yet study after study has shown that slavery did little to create differences between North and South in voting patterns, wealth distributions, occupation levels, and other measurable indices. How should we understand that paradox?

It’s important to understand the authors goals as well. Further, an important question arises: what utilities are they using to find these differences (or similarities) and how are they presenting them? As a student studying the digital past, analyzing their use of the digital media is perhaps more important than they’re fundamental argument.

That is what this article attempts: a language of exposition that works by branching and layers and connections rather than operating on one plane of exposition.

So they’re focus is to try and use hypertextuality to adequately portray a research subject in history.

One feature of this site that I really like about this site is that, when giving its sources, it hyperlinks the source to a webpage elaborating on the information.  Eugene Genovese’s articles are an example of this.

They rely on political language and travelers’ accounts to flesh out their portrayals. Social science historians in the 1960s and 1970s who investigated the structural underpinnings of Northern and Southern society, however, found more similarities than differences between the sections.

That’s one thing that’s interesting. How often are historians led astray because of “Big-Man History”? Where the articles we read, the fragments of history we analyze, etc. are only scenes taken from the upper class of a particular society. Perhaps as we digitize our lives, we will create a living, undying archive of society, from the upper class to the lower class. Digitization brings new tools with which to analyze “the structural underpinnings of… society.” However, digital objects are easily deleted. In the future, could a despotic government literally rewrite all of history by deleting and changing the entirity of our digital past?

I also like the way that they give you the option to look at tables through hyperlinks, or you can just keep on reading, such as on this page.

Here we have a map: http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/xslt/servlet/XSLTServlet?xml=/xml_docs/ahr/article.xml&xsl=/xml_docs/ahr/article.xsl&section=data&area=data_entries&piece=&list=&item=slave-residences

I personally don’t like this map. I think it’s too small, with all the colors jumbling together. If  it were larger, I think its message would get through more clearly. It is interesting to notice the distribution of slaveholders – while not everyone had slaves (indeed, the majority of properties did not) it was present in every facet of Augusta County.

In conclusion, it seems true that the conflict between the north and the south was not about modernity versus slavery, but two types of modernity, one involving slavery, the other not. Overall, the article did a great job of integrating added information with the use of hypertext, particularly with the maps, which were for the most part well done. I can’t help but think that the map mentioned earlier, about slave residences, couldn’t have been done better some how. Still, it was a great example of what digital history should be.

As for PhilaPlace, Prototype, and Hypercities, I like them all. Hypercities as the potential to be a great resource, as you can see the gradual growth of New York City (it used to be very tiny!). Prototype is definitely interesting as a sort of travel guide, learning where all the good places to go and shop or see are. But my favorite is PhilaPlace. Not only is it rich in historical information, it allows individuals to add their own “stories”. However, like wikipedia, this can lower it’s reliability. Still, it’s an excellent addition that truly enriches the history of Philadelphia. Nevertheless, I wish there was an overlay to the map similar to Google Maps, so you could see uptodate maps of areas, in case you wanted to visit them, or for greater reference. I also wish there was a more comprehensive map key, so you could distinguish places and landmarks more easily (restaurants, cultural buildings, religious buildings, historical government buildings, theatres, clubs, etc.).

View Important Places In My Life in a larger map

Here’s a map of some of the important places in my life!

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=216390007299140647188.0004cc38954de931fadbe&ms=0

//chart.googleapis.com/chart?chxr=0,0,12000&chxt=y,x&chbh=a&chs=300×225&cht=bvg&chco=34560F&chds=0,12256.667&chd=t:10000,8500,4000,7500,10000&chtt=Vertical+bar+chart

The ancient art of password cracking has advanced further in the past five years than it did in the previous several decades combined. At the same time, the dangerous practice of password reuse has surged. The result: security provided by the average password in 2012 has never been weaker.

Has the art of password cracking advanced, or has the art of password creation decayed? When I think of my friends and peers I realize that many people have a single email account. Attached to that single email account are all of their social networks, online shopping services (Amazon.com, newegg.com, etc.), and they typically use one or two passwords for all these websites (with slight variations – iamawesome could be IAmAwesome, or IAMAWESOME, etc… none of which is hard to crack). What’s worse is that many people give out their passwords to close friends or they use public computers to access these services and never log out. I’ve come across several oncampus computers that are no longer in use yet have the contents to someone’s facebook page opened. I’ve seen people who post funny status updates on a friends facebook account because they left it up at a computer at work. Whats worse is that you may not even be protected in your dorm room. If you make a habit of keeping your door open or unlocked and walk away even for just a moment (a trip to the bathroom, vending machine, etc.) that may be enough time for someone to come in and swipe some sort of information. These are but a few of the reasons why I am much more inclined to believe that the average user is dumber verses the average hacker being smarter.

The breakthrough wasn’t just the speed with which the tables could crack passwords; it was also their ability to crack almost every possible password as long as it didn’t fall outside the targeted keyspace.

We that’s disheartening. The article goes on to say that  “The huge advances in GPU-assisted password cracking have diminished much of the advantages of rainbow tables, however. Passwords with six or fewer characters can be brute-force cracked with less fuss using GPU-powered computers, while passwords longer than nine or 10 characters require rainbow tables with unwieldy file sizes. That leaves only a small sweet spot of seven or eight characters where rainbow tables are especially useful these days.” The bottom line seems to be that any password can and will eventually be cracked. the good news is that the longer the password the more difficult it is to breach. So if you have a password that’s 10 letters or more, regardless of what it contains, it should be safe. The difficult aspect of this, however , is that, to truly be protected you need to have a unique code for every site.

Matt honan’s story is just a further example of why you shouldn’t trust cloud services or even protection services like 1password. Back up everything onto a physical, external harddrive. It is shocking though how shamefully aweful apples protection is.

Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information. In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification.

This is especially shocking. I always thought that there was some sort of unwritten (or written, but just never read) rule that the last four digits of a credit card number were unimportant and shouldn’t be used to identify someone unless they had the WHOLE card.

Honestly I don’t want to read any more. This whole study makes me just not want to use the internet.

As for the basic security measures, I think most of them are self evident and something I will definitely take into consideration. However, I question the effectiveness of using Windows XP Professional is a 9 year old operating system still the best system on the market to use?

Lastly, what does this mean for digital historians? First and foremost, it means that digital archiving, publishing, etc. can never be the only manner in which we research, study, and store knowledge. It also means that important documents, whether they be peer reviewed journals or photographs of historic things, should always be backed up using offline hard ware, such as portable hard drives, flash drives, etc. It would also be smart to always contain a physical copy of the most important things. You should also pay attention to what websites you use to post your information. If you use a blog, for example, and that blog is published on a site such as wordpress.com, you should double check to make sure that the site has adequate defense mechanisms to protect you.

the first thing to understand when dealing with any matter of copy right laws is to understand the laws themselves.

The first half of this video has a basic explanation of copy right law and fair use.

As for fair use, portions of copyrighted material can be used for

• Criticism, comment, news reporting
• Teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use)
• scholarship
• or research.

When using items under fair use, it is important to remember:

• The purpose/character of use
• the nature of the work
• the amount or substantiality
• the effect of using

Let’s look at TV NEWS through this lense and see if it meets the fair use requirements:

1. Is it a form of criticism, or used for comment/news reporting?The website and organization does not offer any criticism, provide any comments, and does not provide any news reporting. While the website provides news reports, it does not provide independent analysis nor independent reporting. Instead it is a collection of news reports created by other organizations.
2. Is it used for teaching, scholarship, or other academic purposes? The website does not provide any critical analysis, scholarly conclusions, journals, etc. It also is a part of an organization that in and of itself is not a scholarly organization. Archive keeping is not explicitly an academic purpose, as archives can be kept for entertainment purposes as well.
3. Is it a form of research? While it can be used as research, the TV NEWS site is not research in and of itself. It does not offer any new input nor analyze the contents of the news page.

Next we’ll consider the four factors when considering something for Fair Use:

1. Purpose: The website’s purpose is not to make money or further any commercial interests or third party interests. It is to create an archive, presumably for educational purposes (but, remember, it itself is not educational nor does it provide academic value on its own standing) of tv news.
2. Nature: The work deals with factual events in that the news reports shown have actually occurred. It does not pass judgement nor seek profit from showing these.
3. Amount and Substantiality – the website shows all news reports from the last 20 years, thus it shows 100% of the material (except commercials, of course).
4. Effect: This takes profits away from news organizations by creating a second source of news void of ad revenue for the respective news organization. This is particularly problematic if these news stories could otherwise be found at their home sits (CNN.com, for instance).

It should be plainly obvious that TV NEWS fails on almost every account. It is not used for criticism, comment, or news reporting. It is not explicitly for teaching, scholarship, or academic purposes. And finally it is not explicitly for research. It’s purpose is not explicit enough (only presumable). The nature of the work deals with factual events. It horrifically fails the substantiality of the work because it copies 100% of the work. The effect is that it hurts independent news organizations by stealing profits from them (Even if the site itself doesn’t profit from it).

Without obtaining the rights legally, TV NEWS fails.

After reading the two articles and seeing some of the videos, I have to say that copyright law is overly ambiguous. Does something fall under teh fair use doctrine? How much is too much? When should you ask for permission? Then there’s the fact that if you do ask for permission, many sources and people will simply say, “No,” even if they don’t actually have the right to refuse you. There doesn’t even seem to be consensus among those who make the laws.

Nevertheless, even the majority conceded that the term extension could be seen as “arguably unwise.” A new court could reverse it, and thus the future of the copyright law remains a matter of active contention. Historians therefore need to recognize that there is no fixed body of rules, but rather a shifting terrain of interpretations of the law.

Then there’s the conundrum of the “Fair Use” doctrine. It brings me to the ultimate conclusion that: if you’re going to do research, make sure you at least source everything and give the proper credits to whoever owns or created the material. Be open and transparent about your usage of the material, and if you feel uncomfortable due to the quantity or conditions surrounding the usage of material, just be safe and contact the other. However, do not worry too much because it doesn’t seem as though you’d get a law suit, but rather a “cease and desist” order, in which case you simply remove the material or go through the appropriate channels to use it (pay a fee, for example). In general, you should always assume that something’s copyrighted, unless it was made after 1923 and a few other conditions explained on this sheet.

As for the Amen break video, I find myself agreeing with the premise that “overprotecting copy righted materials is as harmful as underprotecting it.” Ultimately, whether it’s a book, a video, music, or some other form of media, using a small portion of that media for purposes outlined in the Fair Use doctrine, and to create new creative and intellectual material, hardly ever harms the copy right holder. The only reason why companies are so adament about enforcing these copyrights is for money – so that they can receive a portion of the funds made off of their material. Which could make sense. But as the Amen Break shows us, this material can become so distorted or so unrecognizable, or used in such a way that only someone intimately familiar with it could recognize it, that it in no ways harms the holder of the copyright.

This website does a good job explaining how to adequately evaluate a website for authority and accuracy. However, it makes a few flaws. For one, going by solely a domain name can be disastrous. For example, I have had teachers in the past say, “Don’t use .com websites because these are controlled by commercial interests.” .com websites can be run by different people, including private individuals. Many blogs, including wordpress, are “.com’s”, but they have no offiliation with a commercial company, except that the author of the blog might pay to rent their domain name. Other sources, such as .gov, should not be trusted simply because they come from an apparent, trusted authority. whitehouse.gov, for instance, is often times changed by the sitting administration to show facts and figures that present either the administration itself or the ideologies/policies it practices in a more favorable light. Now, there may not be any lies within these sources, but the point is you also may not  be given the complete picture, which is very important when writing an academic paper. Thus, I would almost unilaterally throw out the idea that a websites domain can constitute whether or not it’s a trusted source – I don’t think it should be considered in the least. Instead, other elements, such as knowledge of the author, the qualifications of the group or user who created the site, and if information given is sourced in some way are so much more important that it entirely eclipses the relevance of a website’s domain.

While websites intentions and language should be considered, it is also important to note that not all articles and sites whos purpose is to persuade are written in a persuasive tone. A economics site written by a professor, who clearly favors Kensian economics, from an esteemed university may present any alternative economic policies in a slightly negative light. For example, one could say that under Jimmy Carter’s administration, wealth disparity in the United states was at its lowest point in history. This is true, and stating such a fact is simple and fine and doesn’t obviously have an intension to persuade. But ignoring the fact that under Carter’s administration the United States was under an era of “stagflation” shows biased. Another example is the fact that the economy grew during most of President Bush’s tenure in the white house. Yet with a wealth disparity of 217%, that growth wasn’t necessarily felt by the middle and lower classes of Americans.

The wikipedia article I chose to evaluate was an article on Khubilai (Kublai) Khan, the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and the founder of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. I have extensively studied Khubilai in the past, so my own experience can help me evaluate the article. For the most part the article is factually correct and well sourced. Among the sources was my main source when I studied him, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times by Morris Rossabi. These are books and articles that are readily available. However, there are a few references that are lacking. One of them is “History of the Yuan Empire”. There is no other information included as to what this “history” is. Is it a textbook? Another article on wikipedia? A website? This brings up many questions. There are also important facets of information missing. For example, traditionally the Chinese viewed all non-Chinese people as outsiders and worked so that they did not rely on foreigners for anything. The Yuan Dynasty changed that, especially in terms of engineering and accounting. Rather than trusting his chinese advisors, Khubilai would often refer to his muslim engineers, astronomers, and scientists. This was particularly alarming to the Chinese and created much strife within both the court and public society, as allegations of corruption and profiteering were rampant on both sides of the issue (Chinese vs. Muslims).

The point is that, while it is a good source, it is not totally trustworthy and definitely fails to address some important aspects of Yuan policy.

In reference to how Urlich Keller believes that the OFF photo was taken first and the ON photo second, he says, “The other way around, I don’t know why anyone would do that. I don’t think it’s likely.” But this doesn’t make sense to me. Wouldn’t it make sense to take the balls off the road so you could use it? Luckily, this idea is mentioned later in the article. It’s still striking to me that someone would put so much emphasis on their belief of a particular order when they have no emperical evidence.

So far I like Gordon Baldwin’s argument far more than Keller’s. While both arguments are ultimately speculative, Baldwin’s is actually backed up with assumptions based on writings and president, rather than just a hunch. Where Keller believed that it was obviously staged because it’s obvious, Baldwin thinks it wasn’t staged because Fenton was in a dangerous location, soldiers would often recycle cannon balls (And let’s be honest, recycling cannon balls off a road is easier than going off road and up inclines and such), etc. The one thing I disagree with Baldwin on is that Fenton didn’t believe he was taking a significant photograph when he went to “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” If you go to a place with a name like that, you expect your experience to be dramatic, even more so if you’re taking a photograph. Baldwin explains that Keller has nothing to go by when he claims that Fenton was a coward, and that the photo proves his cowardice. The letters don’t indicate such, and the photos are (clearly) weak points to argue from, particularly if you can only argue from the perspective of your hunch.

Overall, the article on wehther Fenton’s picture was posed is a little bit ridiculous. At one point Chriss Russ claims that, in order to get the same amount of light exposure, he had to have waited for a cloud to pass over the sun. That just seems so overly speculative it’s laughable. Looking at the shot frame by frame helps, but it should be kept to hard evidence. Is anything moved? Can we see foot prints in one and not the other? That sort of thing. Ultimately, the best evidence that convinced me the most was the idea of Fenton’s intentions. On the one hand, there’s no evidence to explicitely suggest he would have staged a photo in such a dangerous location. On the other hand, the idea of him staging the photo at all doesn’t seem to be a cardinal sin. While the debate of whether or not the photos were staged to some degree is interesting, it’s ultimately futile. We can never know for certain which one was first and which was second. What is clear, and what’s obvious to all who look at the photos, is that Fenton was a compositional master. This talent should be celebrated regardless of if a particular photo was staged or not.

As for the photograph of the 4 missiles, I think that it just shows  you that people are susceptible to visual images. Iran released the photo because they knew that Americans would respond to the power of the image. They also knew that, when the fact it was a fraud came to light, a lot of people wouldn’t see the public apologies for publishing a fraudulant image, and those who do would still be scared by the apparent power of Iran. The truth is that photos are chosen to sell the news. Why didn’t hte major newspapers simply write an article on the missiles? Why did they need a photo? because photo’s convey much more depth-of-meaning.

What can be done about so much apparent fraud? Well the truth is that they’re only fraud in that both pictures either were or could have been doctored/staged. However, both of them convey truth: one shows that Iran’s military prowess is growing, the other proves shows the excess destruction of war. These things are true, and perhaps with an understanding of the circumstances surrounding an image, we can understand and appreciate hte truth ourselves.

For the public school teacher’s labor dispute, I assumed it would be pretty easy to find information on it. I went to proquest historical newspapers, clicked on the New York Times, and searched “public school teachers labor dispute.” Immediately I was greeted by a host of articles that I feel would meet the requirement of the scavenger hunt. This article, which discusses a labor dispute in New York in 1969 and the possible national ramifications of outlawing public workers strikes (especially when you don’t solve the problem that caused the strikes in the first place), is probably the best.

The first thing I did was to gage when solar power possibly first used. Wikipedia states that it first began to be developed in the 1860s. My first task was to look through historical journals to see if they mentioned anything. I decided to only look at journals in the 1860s. In terms of searching historic journals for references, it’s not looking good. The earliest journal that seems to discuss solar power is this one by the “Journal of theal Society of the Arts.” However, this journal revealed an interesting facet of information. Apparently, people also referred to it as sun power. And unfortunately, that one article was the only article to refer to solar power as “sun power”. Next up: newspaper articles! Again, my first task is to find a newspaper that has articles dating back from some time in the 1860s. Those are: the Atlanta Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times. Searches for “solar power” before 1870 do not yield any clues. Well the first documented use of solar power that I can find was the invention of a solar engine by Frank Shuman. I’m almost positive that this is not the first invention, however, because this article elludes to the development of solar energy, and was written 8 years before Shuman’s invention was reported on. Nevertheless, at the very least, reading the article on Shuman’s invention is quite entertaining, as it discusses (among other things) how in the “future” we will use artificial volcanos as giant furnaces to power and heat our homes.  Yep.

I cannot find a single comprehensive source which covers the entirety of California’s ballot initiative history among scholarly, peer reviewed journals. However, I did find a great source from California’s official website, ca.gov. To find it I simply googled california ballot initiative history and statistics. It should be noted that the search engine used to find this was Microsoft’s Bing, not Google.