Technology's influence

TL;DR -- On a search, found a blog post that had good material. Followed the author's signature to Twitter where there was a website mentioned whose first page had an email address. Now, there might have been a shorter path to be found. Too lessons. We need to cover the technological spectrum wisely. And, we need to harp that decisions about not using the internet were shortsighted. After all, 2010 when the decision was made. And, 2021? Mostly virtual has been the reality for many. 

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We mention the influence of technology a lot and will continue. For one thing, we'll get our technology blog up to date - recent paper from the Communications of the ACM -- HCDA: From Computational Thinking to a Generalized Thinking Paradigm. Fortunately, the paper is open to public read. 

Here's the story. We have been looking at the frontier, for various reasons. One motive is to fill in gaps where families more or less threw up their hands due to the backward ways of genealogists. There are lots of things to discuss, but they don't know Bayes who is (was) the darling of some west coasters (say, San Francisco polluters). But, in particular, we got back to the Cumberland Gap and mention a church which we are researching. 

So, we are doing a search, and this comes up: Know your archives. Hey, looks familiar. And, the theme of the post was of the right timeframe. Who was the author? William Black, PhD Candidate, Rice University (Texas, if you have to ask) with a Twitter tag. Well, we don't do twit, yet: How do you find this out? Well, go to the source (as that old sports guy used to say, let's go to the video tape). @williamblack. Okay, looks like we have to dive into the textual nonsense. Ever listen to a huge flock of birds atwittering, bickering, and such (especially, if they're outside of your bedroom window while you are trying to sleep)? 

As the Bard said (paraphrase), much ado about not much. It got Trump into trouble. 

Anyway, there is a link to a blog (wrblack.com). And, it uses WP. Looks familiar in format. And, lots of good stuff to read and view, since it does deal with U.S. history within a timeframe that has our current interest. But, contact? Ah yes, the main page has an email address, for old people like us. 

So, congratulations to William R. Black who got his PhD in 2018. Dissertation: 

No Northern or Southern Religion: Cumberland Presbyterians and the Christian Nation, 1800–1877.

Now,  that is a topic (Civil War) that we have avoided somewhat except for noting a few abolitionists, such as T. W. Higginson, in the early times. After all, we're of KS. But, we have run into those on the other side as we trace families, too. 

We'll get to that. First, let us look at Loyalists, since New France which became New England is full of those who supported the King and Crown. In this post (Two different times), we look at red/blue in the same context related to bifurcations (so eternal for humans, since Cain/Abel). 

Anyway, this is the technology part. We have covered some of the bases but need to do more. Henceforth, we will be extending our scope to material from all types of presentation modes. 

To genealogists: Not only do we need to talk advanced logic, let's look at equivalence. This is related to the reaction to the internet decision. What have we seen since 2008 (Job's gifting)? What of the past year? Virtual, to the max. Listen up: the website related to Cumberland Presbyterian and its history based upon their records is better than any collection of family bibles with their scribblings. Let's wake up to that fact. 

Remarks: Modified: 05/12/2021

05/10/2021 --