Tag: Technology

02/2/11

Can History be Trusted?

History was written by people in power for all times, to see from a macroscopic perspective that things recorded in history are not necessarily to be the truth. Everything used to be written in paper and stored physically in library or some other places. There is no doubt that our history is selective. However for the last decades, due to the new technology, recording history seems to be easier than ever. All of news and posts can be archived electronically without limitations. This will give historians a way to archive a wider selection of current events and make a better vivid history. Billions of tweets will be archived at the Library of Congress, people’s random thoughts are now even in the history! For the most important part, if everything is archived through the internet, regulations can’t fully control what will be appear in the history. So now historians have all sources to create history which can be trusted!

Might not be too far form now, not only our tweets but everything we’ve done thought the internet will be archived. It is hard to imagine that our Facebook status, emails, and all our private information will someday be a part of history.  Historians can be overwhelmed by the humongous amount of information. And it rises another issue to historians, how to use these evidence? Are these all true?

02/2/11

Technological Advantages

Observing past cultures based on what has been left behind by civilizations of past generations has been the bread and butter of modern day historians. By examining hieroglyphics, clothing, jewelry, and many more artifacts that have been uncovered, historians are able to learn more about these extinct societies and show how their traditions and culture has influenced ours.

The article “Archiving Tweets” By Lauren explained how the tweets of millions of people are being recorded and archived in the library of congress. This article raise’s the provocative questions of whether the idea of storing people’s tweets a good idea or not and what would be the purpose of it. In the article Luke defended the idea of recording tweets in order for our future historians to learn about our present day culture through our daily posts. I agree with Luke’s stand point that tweets should be recorded because even though the information recorded now about a man’s “failed attempt to make a toasted tomato sandwich” does not seem like much to us, that post connected with many other post may help historians a century down the line learn more about society in the early 21’st century.

02/2/11

There is no “everyone” in PRIVACY, or is there?

We’ve come a long way from the strenuous and tedious handwritten recordings on paper. Entering the 21st century, the Internet era has completely taken over. The technology of computers and other electronics has not only become tools to enhance productivity but has become the way we live. People are constantly on the Internet looking for data, whether it is  information to help them on their project to even information on social networking sites to see what their friends new status is. Whatever it is you’re looking for, the Internet probably offers it. This is a huge step forward in information gathering. It helps not only everyday people but as well as historians whom are always sifting through loads of information. With that comes consequences as well. The access to information has become so easily attained that people have become reliant on technology and the Internet. People become mind boggled when something unexpected happens: like their phone running out of batteries. Also people do not appreciate the information attained when generations before people would die (exaggerated) for these information.

In addition, another issue rises. With sites like Twitter and Wikileaks being archived, people may feel that our privacy is taken away from us. Ultimately, that is the case. There really are no secrets on the Internet. Once it is posted on the Internet, there is no way of taking it back. With that, people need to start screening what they post if they don’t want their secrets being found. Nonetheless, the Internet still is a great aspect to our future.

02/2/11

Zeitgeist

At this fast pace of twenty first century, with the technology boom and the ubiquity of the internet, unprecedented paths have and are being trodden to sweep modern society by its feet.  Technology have changed the world  in almost every category in the past decades, from the way we  communicate to the way we commute. Nothing is bared, not even the way history is made and recorded!

Now a days one doesn’t have to raise a flag in revolution to make history, but just post a tweet on it and you might have millions on your side to join your cause! Also with the news of Library Congress’s decision to record every tweet made, it will provide historians another outlet to data mine for significant events to record it in their books  for our posterity. One might also be concerned about the privacy issue that the social media sites like Twitter might have, but it reminds me of a saying “If you want to keep a secret, you have to keep it from yourself”, I think its something we’ll just have to adjust to and be mindful of what we do online.

02/1/11

One day you may not have privacy

Since the internet technology was improving, most of the people shared their thought or information on xanga, blog, twitter such kind of network service. However, before you wrote something, had you ever imagined that everyone could see what you posted on your space? From March, 2006, all the tweets were stored at the Library of Congress, which means all the twitter users’ information was stored too. Wikileaks document dump does the same thing, but more than that. It exposed variety of unknown of different countries. For sure the governments don’t want Wikileaks keeps running, and the owner had a lot of troubles from them, but it provides historian some secret information and help them to analyze different events. Therefore, not only for now but future also, historian could easily find information by sitting in front of the computer instead of reading a whole bunch of books.

Undoubtedly archiving tweets and Wikileaks document dump help so much by gathering the information; nevertheless, some may ask what about their privacy? This is a serious issue because some don’t want everyone knows about them. Also is it necessary to archive all the tweets? I doubt because most of the thing people posted on twitter were just meaningless, such as “My cat just scratches me!!” Therefore, this issue should be concerned earnestly.

02/1/11

Benefit of Technology

          Technology can have many benefits to the historians, because it makes things simple and easy. Historians can easily find the information online; don’t need to read whole bunch of book to get the information. The link about the twitter is one of the examples that show the technology can make historian life easier, they can go to the account to research the people and have the information that their need, also in the article “ Wiki Leak and the historical community” Wiki Leak is other example show the technology is good for the historians. However, privacy is a big issue, if the historian can find out your information; someone can find out also, there have not privacy anymore. So it’s not necessary to write down all the information you have.

02/1/11

You are being recorded!

Technology has advanced immensely in the past few decades, and as a result society has become more and more reliant on it. Along with the advances in technology came changes in other various aspects of society such as communication and government. Not a day goes by that people do not use the Internet or technology somehow, whether it is to send an e-mail, update their status on Facebook or Twitter, post something on their blog, or even check the news. People use technology to spread information and post their opinions on controversial topics. It is only natural that because of this change, the way that historical evidence is gathered, as well as the medium of historical evidence, changes also.

Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Wikipedia are all used by normal, everyday people to transmit personal and general information. It is no secret to the government and the rest of society how influential these websites can be to the public. Therefore the government takes full advantage by apparently archiving the “tweets” posted by every user on the newly popular Twitter, a website where people can “tweet” random thoughts as long as they remain under 140 characters. Many would ask what the purpose of this is? Does the government really care about our random everyday ramblings? The question of whether or not this violates privacy laws is raised in this situation, however the fact that we post these things online make it automatically public. Not only does the government take advantage of the world wide web, but so does society and its people. Recently, WikiLeaks, a site that is not run by the government, released government documents regarding foreign policy. In many cases this shows how normal everyday people take advantage of technology by publicly posting government documents. Both the government and its citizens make use of the advanced technology presented to us today which is why the different aspects of historical evidence has changed.

02/1/11

Crossing the line or making history?

Historians may be able to learn a few things on peoples tweets or wikileaks. However, how can the government get away with archiving or obtaining this information without the consent of the individual and how will they know which information will be useful later. The truth is, no one will know what the future will be like or what information can be kept for future use or purposes. What if this new form of technology can be something useful.. Even the simplest tweets or wikileaks may be helpful. They say that history should be learned in order not to repeat the same mistakes. With this being said, if we were able to view more documents from the past we may not be in certain situations. But we do have to get with the time. Tehnology has grown rapidly and we have the equipment to make impossible things become reality. Therefore why should we not see how successful it may turn out to be. It is a sticky situation because it must be within the boundries of peoples right to privacy. Do people have to agree with this. But in a way what is there to agree with? Everyone puts their stuff out on sites like twitter for random people to follow so there should not be any problem with archiving it. This situation is much more complex than it may seem. Hopefully historians would be able to get information they need and hey maybe someday one of us can end up famous.

02/1/11

Hidden History

Technology is one of the biggest factors that lead to progress. It exists everywhere, and humans cannot really live without it. We rely too much on our technology, which may become an issue later. But it really helps every aspect of life. In history, technology serves as a driver that pushes our civilizations to move forward from ancient time to modern time. And it makes those historians can easily record history and as well as analyzing it. We have history being recorded on papers, wall, chinaware, weapon and many other ways of recording history. The historical evidences are varied in time because of the technology in different time periods. In the present time, the information is mostly stored digitally, which it becomes more accessible than before. Computer and internet become so popular that we can easily access to whatever to we are looking for. In the article “Archiving Tweets,” Lauren argued that do we really need to store those public tweets. My answer to that question is that storing those tweets is wasting our resources. I don’t really think that historians in the future would look at those tweets. It may be interesting to read other people’s posts, but you cannot get history out of it.

For the article “WikiLeaks and the Historical Community,” I am in favor of having WikiLeaks because it reveals the hidden history. It might not be all accurate information but it opens up people’s eyes to see the hidden part of history. Most of the time, the history is written by winners, and the ugly parts always occur under the table. I think the technology in the future would help those historians to find out more hidden history.

02/1/11

reveal the Top Secrets!

I use many social network as a source of my communication such as the Facebook,but I never use the twitter and I don’t know how that works. From My experience with social networking, either messaging on AIM or MSN, I rarely chat about anything important particularly but I do spend most of my talking there. With the issue of archiving Tweets, I am sure that millions of users use that as a major source of communication and they sure will do a lot of chatting and socializing there. When government archive the tweets, they are able to track down any chat history. It can be an advantage because they may discover conversations that post a threat or do harm to the society. Well with such advance techonolgy, that invaded our rights to privacy, hypothetically, if someone really want to post a threat to the country, I think they will do in a more secret way like mobile phone or mails unless the government is tracking down those too. Overall, I think archiving the Tweets can store massive amount of people’s conversation that can tell something about these people and what is like during that period of time.

I still remmeber when US had won the war of 1812 against the

Great Britain, general Andrew Jackson kept on fighting because the army did not have any advance technology to communicate with once the peace treaty was signed. Nowadays, we have texting, internet, all kinds of advance technology that can make communications across the globe happen within seconds. With that being set, the government can take advantage of the high tech, to keep the secrets to themselves and perfom underground diplomacy or any kind of national act without the public’s realization. Like how Wikileaks trying to reveal the true story of the Irag War, the government are trying their best to contain their top secrets. I think the Wikileak still has some validity issue whether if their sources are reliable or not.

02/1/11

Your information is exposed!

In today’s society technologies are more advanced than it was back then. We are able to put information electronically instead of storing them as books or documents. When Historians need to do research on information that they need, they no longer have to go through books. Instead they can simply go on any archive that is stored electronically and get the information.

For example, the link about Twitter has me thinking that if I were to use a Twitter account and tweeted almost every minute of what I did in a day,  in the future if a Historian wanted to check back on me because of some odd reason, he would just need to look through the Twitter archives. There is no need to ask the people around me about what type of person I am, the things I did and how I lived my life. A Twitter archive can have many benefits for future Historians but it also has a drawback. Having a Twitter archive remove privacy from people, things that people might not want others to see will be seen by all.

With all these new technologies in today’s society, there is no need to worry about losing information because it is safely stored and backed up in case of any problems. This also gives us the fact that we have no privacy since we do not think of all the people that may see our post or blog. There is always an access to most of the things that we use.

In the website Wiki Leaks, we can get so many information about our histories. Wiki Leaks is a type of media that publish original sources along with their stories so readers and Historians can see evidence of the truth. I think that Wiki Leaks is a great site for future historians to look through and gather information for their research. Future Historians would most likely be able to have a more convenient way of accessing information.