Week 1

Hi, I’m Caroline, and I look forward to working with everyone this semester.

Some of interests and troubles about digital humanities:
• We already mentioned this a bit in class yesterday, but livetweeting seems to me like a very useful new development since the rise of Twitter. While some conferences and events may lead to uninformative or obscure tweets like we discussed, there’s also quite a bit of potential in having this instant, widely accessible form of communication at our fingertips. In recent years, some of the most meaningful live news coverage and media sources have come from journalists, politicians, and even just regular passerby — all via Twitter. Perhaps not all instances of livetweeting are optimized for the millions of members of the Twitter community, but I’m interested in finding out where that disconnect between valueable and irrelevant information lies.

• Someone recently told me that true, unhindered focus is almost impossible these days with a constant technological presence interfering with our everyday business. As someone who is almost always plugged in texting, tweeting, emailing, or any of a number of things, this worries me. I do believe there is virtue in the interconnectedness of a virtual community consisting members around the globe, but that doesn’t negate that there might be an underlying hindrance to normal tasks that don’t necessarily require a WiFi connection — say, reading for class or enjoying the live presence of those around you. A friend of mine has a case for her phone so sturdy that she can bring it into the shower with her, and she does. While I can imagine how this might be useful, it still seems unnecessary and extreme to me. I wonder where that separation comes from.

• One of my favorite things about computers is spreadsheets. Pencil and paper can make lists, but they’ll never live up to two-dimensional lists — especially not ones where you can move the wording and spacing of cells instantaneously. I probably use spreadsheets a few times a week, and I’m not sure that I know what I did with my life prior to discovering them. (There’s actually a nagging suspicion I have that I got hired for my job at the Office of Communications because I raved about Google Spreadsheets for a good five minutes.) This tool is good and useful, and I look forward to finding out what other ways it can be applied to everyday tasks.