americannamorI agree and I have always felt this is one of the biggest revolutions in historical preservation. But I would like to see more effort in keeping the data safe and organized. For the short term (say passing our digital data down to a child or even grand child) big sites like YT etc may work and internet archiving like what Google is doing can help preserve the data even more but more has to be done to keep data safe when we start talking about hundreds of years. History in it's digital form , even though it seems safe with backups and archiving it really is rather fragile. How often on our own computers have we lost important data or are unable to access old data because it's no longer compatible with current programs. I guess there are big archiving projects dedicated to keeping data safe for prosperity but I think it has a long way to go. And perhaps in the future artificial intelligence would be able to understand and make use of the vast amount of data out there. If not, in the future someone who can access and understand a Microsoft Word Document might be as rare as scholars today that can read Greek Linear B. (I sort of got away from the spirit of your talk)-So, even with the uncertainty of a future digital record I totally support and encourage people to take advantage of what we have today-Especially sites like YT.
FreidasGardenPeople my age believe it is something we owe to society to go to the manager and complain about this women! The next customer, who might be an old or disabled person will have to endure her wrath if no one complains! She might be having a bad day but she doesn't need to make everyone she meets have a bad day too! Call and complain! lol
buddhamagnetSorry to hear that man - customer service has died. I almost had a punchup in a taxi office over that kind of thing a week or so ago.