Category Archives: Uncategorized

How Far Did Vannevar Bush Get on the Memex?

The memex was never built — not even a lab prototype. But between 1938 and 1949 Vannevar Bush built and funded its component machines, two of which were real. How far each piece got, from sources in the Internet Archive collections. Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Machine, the Law, and the Link: Bush, Binkley, Nelson

Vannevar Bush built the machine and ignored the rights. Robert Binkley fought the rights and had no machine. Ted Nelson designed both into one system — and the world shipped something else. One arc, from the Archive’s own shelves. Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Good-by to Gutenberg? Nope—Shrill Publisher Cries about the Xerox Machine Were Wrong

[written by claude.ai leveraging the new archive.org Supreme Court collection] Eight years before Jack Valenti called the VCR a “Boston strangler,” America’s publishers told the Supreme Court that the office copier would extinguish the printed word. A field guide to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Generative AI is a New Drug: Report on My First ‘Trip’

I now see how it can be addictive: A mindblowing experience and feeling like I see the world a bit differently. A feeling of being super smart and powerful. Getting lured in with free samples then everything costs. How it … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Generative AI is a New Drug: Report on My First ‘Trip’

Ethics Of Digital Librarianship (1992)

[This essay was included in every Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) distribution as a way to instruct server operators (later to be called webmasters) on how to deal with log files. Software distributions can be found https://archive.org/details/freeWAIS-sf-1.0 I am proud of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Ethics Of Digital Librarianship (1992)

My eBike Economics

I use an eBike to commute 2.5 miles to work most days. It is faster than driving and parking, and much cheaper than Uber/Lyft. A few details: Uber/Lyft costs $12 each way, so $5/mile Uber/Lyft takes 20 minutes: 10 minutes … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Grace Lurton Miller 1928-2023

My dear aunt. Her poem, 1961.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Grace Lurton Miller 1928-2023

New account on Mastodon

The Internet Archive set up a Mastodon instance, and I created an account on it. Feels like a fresh new day. @brewsterkahle@mastodon.archive.org Mastodon

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Pythonistas: Up for quick hack to test Dedup’ing 78rpm records using document clustering?

I think this could be a 1 day exploration at least to figure out if it will work, but it is beyond my python ability. Idea: OCR the labels of our 78rpm records, then take an image of a new … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Imagining the Internet: Explaining our Digital Transition

Imagining the Internet: Explaining our Digital Transition was designed as a google doc, so that is the best way to view it. Imagining the Internet:  Explaining our Digital Transition A digital wave is upon us, changing our lives, our occupations, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Imagining the Internet: Explaining our Digital Transition