Some Random Stuff
Some people have been overlaying maps and aerial photos from the First World War onto Google Earth. It all looks really cool but the ensuing discussion revealed a technical problem that I hadn’t thought of: present day maps use a different projection from early 20th century maps so they’re not entirely compatible.
Also on the First World War, you can see the BBC4 documentary “How The Edwardians Spoke” on Google Video. The title is quite misleading as it’s actually about phonograph recordings of British prisoners in Germany during the Great War. It gets a bit sentimental in places and they can’t avoid cliches like “the horror” but it’s still fascinating. I’m just wondering how far the descendants’ responses to the recordings were influenced by popular perceptions of the war as a whole. It’s not obvious or inevitable that a recording of a man reading a bible story would be “harrowing”.
I’ve just sent off the final version of my first article, which will be appearing in War In History in April. I’m really pleased with it but I can’t help wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake somewhere or missed some very important recent publication.
Next week I’m giving a seminar paper for the first time in about 6 years. I’m also using a PowerPoint presentation for the first time ever. Is that tempting fate?
Comment by mercurius politicus — 11:12 am, 10 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
Is PowerPoint expected in seminars these days? I’m tentatively trying to find some graduate student seminars that I can start attending and hopefully later on presenting research to, but given that half my job consists of presenting PowerPoint slides to senior people, if that’s the case it will start to become a bit like a busman’s holiday…
Congratulations on the article, by the way!
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 12:56 pm, 10 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
Thanks. It’ll be interesting to see how the article is received as it’s disagreeing with Ian Gentles and Mark Kishlansky at the same time.
I’m still not entirely sure how widely Power Point is used. The last time I spoke at a conference (in 2001) it was all overheads, but there was PP at the last IHR seminar I went to the other week. I’m going to check with the venue beforehand, and if there’s no PC in the room I can just print the stuff onto transparencies.
In any case history presentations tend to be fairly simple sequences of pictures so they’re easy to set up and nice to look at.
Comment by RedRob — 1:36 am, 13 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
Good luck with the seminar. Does it count toward your PowerPoint Ranger tab?
redrob
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 12:38 pm, 13 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
One day you will ALL see my PowerPoint. Oh yes…
Comment by Trevor DeMont — 11:50 pm, 15 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
If you had to assign blame to just one country for starting WWI, who do you think should get most of the blame?
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 10:57 am, 16 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
I don’t like the idea of assigning blame for historical events, but if you want a flippant one word answer: Germany.
Comment by Trevor DeMont — 11:42 am, 17 November 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
You’re probably right. Although every major European power deserves some of the blame, German power and arrogance was probably the driving force. I think many European leaders wanted a major war, actually.