Today in History - May 24
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By The Associated Press  Today is Thursday, May 24, the 144th day of 2007. There are 221 days left in the year.  Today's Highlight in History:  On May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B.
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I just woke up in Paris, it's 5:34AM here, but back in California, it still never ceases to amaze me, the day hasn't yet flipped. You guys haven't even gone to bed yet! Now that's amazing to me. What perseverence! Keep up the good work everybody.  I just started posting a couple of twits that really should be a blog post, so let's get started. First at some point, after a suitable period of mourning, I'd like to rasie the issue of what's to happen with Marc Orchant's web presence. Which of course is a way of focusing attention on all of our web presences.  None of us like to think of it, but truth is none of us are going to live forever. Yet if you read this, it's likely that you're creating a digital body that can and imho should continue to exist even after your physical body stops existing. People are humble, no one wants to come out and say their work has any value that's worth preserving past their death, but come on, we know that's not true. If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be writing on the web. As would Hemingway or Faulkner, Vonnegut or Mailer, John Lennon or Dylan Thomas, Carl Sandberg or Robert Frost. Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. You think there isn't any great literature out there on the web? I wouldn't be so sure about that. What if there is? And what if a baby born today becomes a great creative force? Or what if there's a social disaster like the Holocaust? Did you know that there are preserved diaries from pre-revolutionary America? Writings of ordinary people can be of enormous help to historians. And if we believe in citizen journalism (I do) why not citizen historians? Shouldn't we be thinking out into the future? We should! With all possible humility, I'd like to tell you that a few days after I die my entire web presence will likely disappear. My servers require some attention from me from time to time. The first time that happens, poof, there goes 10-plus years of Scripting News, and all the docs for the OPML Editor and the OPML spec, the XML-RPC site, to name just a few. Anyway, within a couple of months it will all certainly disappear, unless someone pays my hosting and DSL bills. Maybe someone will, but isn't it ridiculous that that's what it depends on? And when my sites disappear so will my uncle's. He died in 2003. His site is still accessible because I keep it that way. When I die, who will will take over for me? I'm sure the world will survive without his writing, but why? If I love the memory of my uncle, and I do, what can I do to reserve a place for him in the archive of the future. It seems such a small thing, but it's most of what remains of his life.  And what of academics, Nobel Laureates and others? I know for a fact that a great university (Harvard) has no plan to protect their web-based work after they pass. It's so ironic that the web offers an archival solution for non-digital work, yet the web information is more fragile than the physical stuff. Preserving our digital heritage is going to require some foresight, some planning, but it seems possible and we surely can do much better. Marc's fate awaits us all. While we're still alive, there's still time to solve this problem. When we're gone, it will be too late. Part of his legacy can be that he helped focus us on this issue, and his life work could be a great test case. Do we want to see his work preserved? And if so, how will it be done? PS: The RSS 2.0 site will likely persist, because I gave it to Berkman, and then used it as a test case to learn about future-safing. It seems likely to continue to exist, knock wood, praise Murphy, as long as Harvard exists.
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McCain stumps in Michigan; Clinton reviews political roadmap after surprise win ... Obama wins endorsement of SEIU Nevada ... Thompson draws 'line in sand' in South Carolina
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1930 &#151; Cleveland's Earl Averill drove in eight runs with three consecutive home runs to lead the Indians to a 13-7 victory over the Washington Senators in a doubleheader opener. Averill added another homer in the nightcap, which the Senators took 6-4, and set an American League record with 11 RBIs in the twinbill.
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1911 &#151; Danny Murphy of Philadelphia had four hits as the Athletics beat the New York Giants 13-2 to win the World Series in six games. The A's put the game out of reach with a seven-run seventh inning.
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roundup Plus: Turn your fingerprints into passwords...IBM gives grants to universities...Sun expands pay-as-you go supercomputing.
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roundup Plus: More colleges get cheap online music...Glitches hit some EarthLink-hosted sites...More money for fuel cells...Linux release features Windows support.
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roundup Plus: Newspaper sites take up paid search ads...Microsoft IPTV to woo Swiss test group...Sony speeds up Memory Stick cards...Real touts one week, 1 million songs.
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Sir, I hope that all city councillors saw the Country Calendar programme, Saturday January 27. The programme graphically showed the importance of wetlands. Such areas were prolific around our estuaries in 1961. The destruction of our wetlands around Tahunanui, Annesbrook and Stoke horrifies me.
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roundup Plus: Gmail delivered to desktops...Chinadotcom mobile services suspended...Maker of disposable RFID tags gets millions...Mitsubishi expands solar production.
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TUNISâA ship carrying illegal immigrants to Italy sank off Tunisia, killing at least 22 people and leaving another 42 missing, news reports said yesterday, sharpening the debate in Italy over how to deal with hundreds of people trying to slip into
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Marchers wearing yokes and chains set off Thursday on a 250-mile trek to London to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade. The northeastern port city of Hull was the home of William Wilberforce, who led a 20-year campaign in Parliament to abolish the trade &#151; a goal achieved on March 25, 1807.
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By Christopher Schwarzen, Seattle Times  CORRECTION: Clarification: Information in this article, originally published May 23, was corrected June 1.
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Also: Ancestry.com puts 90M war records online. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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A website goes the extra mile to make sure voters aren & rsquo;t confused this Tuesday.  Also: West Virginia organizes the first public supercomputer & hellip;.  FDA keeps its eye on a new pain relief drug & hellip;. and more.
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But on that glorious day in May, 1963, Gordo Cooper went higher, farther, and faster than any other American. Twenty-two complete orbits around the world.
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&#8226; March 6: An earthquake strikes Sumatra Island, killing at least 70 people and damaging hundreds of buildings.