history pragmatic historian technology writing

My Websites Are Being Used to Train AI – Is That a Good Thing?

If you spend any amount of time online these days, you’ll hear about two things ad nauseum: The meltdown of Twitter and the wonders of AI (artificial intelligence), specifically text generated by tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. I haven’t had a chance to use ChatGPT because it’s always overloaded with users when I try and I’m not inclined to pay a subscription for a service that I want to test. Google’s Bard has a…

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history ideas observations pragmatic historian preservation work in progress

Embodied Energy Is Key to the Grand Unified Theory of Preservation

Big, complex ideas take a significant amount of thought. Such is the case with the Grand Unified Theory of Preservation I’ve been working on for years. The thinking has continued since I shared the post I wrote about the theory a couple of weeks ago on this blog. Friend and history colleague David Grabitske sparked fresh thinking about the theory with a question he left on LinkedIn: “Where does Language Preservation fit? Just curious.“ Yes,…

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history museums pragmatic historian

Survival vs Thrive-al Services

One of the key points I keep making about history is that it is part of our infrastructure. Each community has a foundation of history, as does each state, and the nation as a whole. The unique history of each community, the events, people, organizations, and even its geography, gives the place its special character. These are the features that affect how the community develops. They also draw people to the community. The history of…

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