Brittnay's Blog for "The Digital Past"

I decided to read up on the copyright basics in the PowerPoint presentation.  I didn’t know the gritty details about the copyright laws, so I thought it would be a good start.  While some of the information was slightly confusing, I did understand that while researching, one has to be aware of what they are copying or not copying down.  I didn’t know that there were different laws, that came into effect when dealing with copyright.  I didn’t know that “www” was NOT a public domain; I always thought it was, hence the name “world wide web”.  I learned a bit about fair use, and a lot about the TEACH Act and the DMCA.  I didn’t know that both of those existed.  I think that knowing that there is a guideline here to explain what the different terms and laws are and knowing the rules will definitely help one in researching materials for their project or topic.

I chose Adolf Hitler as my historical topic to judge Wikipedia.  I have read the majority of his page before and knowing that it was in depth, I thought it would be interesting to see any editing done, sources used, and the history of it all taking place by the volunteers of Wikipedia.

I clicked on sources, but what came on the screen said that the page was currently semi-protected and could only be edited by registered users.  I guess with some specific topics, one has to be registered with Wikipedia to edit anything.  I like how they made that possible because it limits who can actually edit things to make it “more reliable”.  Below that though, showed an html box that had all the text that made the page what it was; I recognized some of the codes in there.  And underneath that one is able to click a different heading of a section of the page to view the source, meaning that the html codes would just show up in the box.

I clicked on ‘View History’, and I automatically saw a lot of  text.  I tried to make out all the different meanings and abbreviations, and at first I didn’t get it, because I wasn’t used to seeing that side of Wikipedia.  After a few minutes though, I figured out what some of the abbreviations meant, like “cur”, “prev”, “talk”, “AWB”, and “contribs”, and also why some were significant.  What I found most interesting was that the Adolf Hitler page has more than 500 edits… that were still in the year of 2012!  I thought that was awesome, and the fact that everything was documented.  Scrolling through some of the edits, most of them were legitimate; I did not see too much spam, again probably do to the fact that the ones were are editing the page are registered users and not just hte general public of the internet.

The last thing I looked at was the earliest edit, which I think was the creation of the page:  3:09 am- November 15th, 2001.  And the at 11:55 am on November 18th, 2001 was when the page started using the format that has the little content box at the top.

Overall, I think this was cool.  This page specifically has so much editing and history that it is just a lot to look at and sift through.

For this week, I watched Jon Udell’s video Heavy Metal Umlaut, which talked about how extensive editing can reshape content on Wikipedia using the article page “Heavy Metal Umlaut” as an example.  What I found most interesting is that the we view what Udell is doing on the Wikipedia page as he explains the increase of information gathered to semi-complete the page in “present day” (2005).  He pages through each revision pointing out interesting or significant points regarding the umlaut, while also commenting on various people’s editing techniques, such as “cleaning up” spam and unfortunate content from the page, and correcting wrong information in a matter of a few minutes.  (Udell shows that each new revision is documented by the time, day and date at the top of the page.  He also shows that on a separate page that the viewer can see a list of other users who edit the page.)  The initial page only contained a few sentences of information about the umlaut, and in a time period of a few years, the information increased to what could be considered semi-reliant, due to the dedication of  x amount of volunteers.

I was interested in learning more about Nazi Germany, with specifically researching the Hitler Youth Program.  What was the purpose of the Hitler Youth Program?  What were the children specifically taught about Hitler, the war, Jewish religion and people?  Were there any resistors and what did they do?

Want to learn basic Spanish and Italian?

Foreign languages are pretty cool. =)

The words will all be in English first, then Español, then Italiano.

• Hello- Hola- Ciao (informal)/ Salve (very formal)
• Bye!- Adios!- Ciao! (informal/ Arrivederci! (formal)
• Please- Por favor- per favore
• Thank you- Gracias- Grazie
• You’re welcome- De nada- Prego

Let’s try some very basic conversation skills! =P

1. How are you? (informal)- ¿Cómo estás? (inf.)- Come stai? (inf.)
2. I’m fine, and you? – Estoy bien, y tu?- Sto bene, e tu?
3. I’m well, thank you. – Estoy bien, gracias. – Sto bene, grazie.

Check this out:

Want to travel around the world? Check out UVA’s Semester at Sea Program by clicking here!!!

The first thing that captured my attention in the YouTube video, History of the Web, was the following quote:

“… the scientific, military, and commercial approaches of these concepts are the foundations of our modern internet.”

As the narrator was talking about DARPA, the Rand Corporation, NPL, and Cyclades, (the US scientific, US military, English commericial, and French scientific factors), I could not help but think that, firstly, there were people already working on developing the internet in the late 1950s and early 60s; secondly, there were people already working on developing the internet internationally; and thirdly, the internet was developed off of only three factors.

As a person who was born in the early 90s, I learned how to use a computer and the internet when I was 6 years old, and figured out who Bill Gates was by the time I was 7: he was the richest man in the world because he invented the computer.  Growing up, I found out that he developed software called Microsoft for the personal computer, and not the computer entirely.  But I did not think of who actually developed the first computer or came up with the concept of the internet, and when it happened.

A few other things in this video that I found really interesting were that fear of an atomic attack (because of the Cold War) played in developing the internet, the term “internet” was essentially born from the French, and it was three countries that were all once a superpower in the world that worked together to help make the internet.

The three historical topics that I would be interested in researching would probably be (emphasis on probably):  The history of the Nazis, the history of the Salem Witch Trials, and the history of Hispanic and Asian people in 1950s and 1960s America (during black and white segregation).