Jason Scott

https://mastodon.archive.org/@textfiles

Free-Range Archivist at the Internet Archive

Public Key

npub1k79wnpksqxmm6vjc837z80t4dc6cd2xu4wyxn5phkql854cpsxcq7utp5x

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqst0zhfsmgqrdaaxfvrclprh46kudvx4rw2hzrf6qmmq0n62uqcrvqpqqp9cps4

Publishing to

Author Public Key

npub1k79wnpksqxmm6vjc837z80t4dc6cd2xu4wyxn5phkql854cpsxcq7utp5x

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Last Notes

2026-05-25 02:51:11 CEST

It's not normally a good idea to share internal security processes, but I did want to offer the funniest trivia in my work to fight spam - I just added gamepad support to my spam-fighting client, meaning I'm literally using a joystick and buttons to do the work.
Turns out, if you can consolidate part of your job to an Xbox controller, you can speed it up significantly.

2026-03-26 23:41:08 CET

Fifteen years ago, offered a job at the Internet Archive two days previously starting in two days.
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/297/882/538/109/151/original/8c198a922d7fe33d.png

2026-01-06 21:56:31 CET

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we have reached out to them.

2025-11-15 00:35:03 CET

This (mastrodon) seems like a good place to bring this up:
As people upload digtized video on the archive, especially from older media, a more-than-it-should-be review left under is a review that simply says "Do you have ______"? In some cases, they leave this review on every single upload by the uploader. Other times they leave it everywhere, repetitively.
Those reviews should be moderated (removed). If you see them in action, especially en masse, let me know.

2025-09-12 10:26:06 CEST

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Manuals Plus : Free Texts : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive https://share.google/KMBLcp8gSAY5oZIzv

2025-06-17 02:00:03 CEST

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Finally, there's another bit of precious history in these tapes that came out - Bob did work with something called the Jewish Hour in Arizona, which was syndicated to other parts of the country. It has Yiddish sequences, songs, and other aspects of variety and news radio, and as far as my multiple searches can tell, there's basically no information on the net about this. And here we have recordings!
https://archive.org/details/Jewish_Hour_Recordings_And_Interviews

2025-06-17 01:50:44 CEST

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These are audio tapes he used to do those interviews. He would often use the same tape multiple times, overwriting with each new interview, but he obviously didn't know I'd be coming down the line decades later.
In the 56 interview tapes we recovered, digitized, and put up, we have extensive interviews with stars both here and gone, television and movies, stars at the end of their careers and stars just starting out, speculating on what comes next.
All are of spectacularly terrible quality.

2025-06-17 01:47:53 CEST

The Internet Archive gets many donations over the months and years - some are dealt with immediately, while others might not be gotten to for some time, or are redundant. In one case, a treasure trove sat for a few years and has finally come online: The Bob Lardine Tapes.
https://archive.org/details/boblardinetapes
There are three sets of materials here: Interviews, Personal Tapes, and Jewish Hour Radio Tapes. Let's talk about the first.

2025-05-22 21:32:17 CEST

Video Essayist Lindsay Ellis was talking about a movie production and said "the script is on Internet Archive" and I found it was hard to find, so I just assembled over 1,100 screenplays and scripts (and growing) and they have a collection now:
https://archive.org/details/scriptarchive

2025-05-22 18:59:47 CEST

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We're already chatting.

2025-05-01 01:52:08 CEST

Tomorrow at noon, Pacific time, I'll be livestreaming from the one and only @npub1umd…wfr7 for a few hours to celebrate it and enjoy the first of May! It'll be at twitch.tv/textfiles - see you there!
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/429/599/882/060/417/original/daf6d2d8aa713723.jpg

2025-04-28 22:02:32 CEST

The Physical Donations (and Rescues) of the Internet Archive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/theinternetarchive/comments/1ka51t4/the_physical_donations_and_rescues_of_the/

2025-04-28 19:34:23 CEST

At noon Pacific Standard Time (California) I'll be hosting an informal but fun May Day celebration at the Internet Archive. just vibes and Internet Archive - https://twitch.tv/textfiles - see you Thursday!

2025-04-21 15:06:18 CEST

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scroll further down

2025-04-19 16:16:02 CEST

The folks rushing to want to make up this direct shortfall in the grant is very inspiring, but it's better just to donate to archive.org/donate if you want to do that.
But also, don't sacrifice funds you don't have if that's the case. The archive will just seek funding away from where it has previously come.

2025-04-09 20:06:02 CEST

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Asbolutely, send them to 300 Funston.

2025-04-02 16:01:03 CEST

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I don't want to be negative, but walk away.

2025-03-28 05:22:20 CET

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Well, that's because it literally has had code ripped out of it, for one thing. But yeah, maybe VirusTotal doesn't track Apple II.

2025-03-28 04:26:35 CET

I was kindly handed another virus for the Malware Museum! We now have a (de-fanged) version of what's considered the first microcomputer virus, "Elk Cloner", in the Museum:
https://archive.org/details/elk-cloner-virus-demo

2025-03-25 00:33:06 CET

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Info on the screening:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/staff-picks-from-the-prelinger-archives-tickets-1261633011299?aff=oddtdtcreator

2025-03-25 00:32:19 CET

Moved 15,000 items around the archive today, didn't break a sweat. A great start to the week on-site.
There's a Prelinger screening tonight. See some of you there.

2025-03-24 23:51:17 CET

https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/219/855/170/809/438/original/d9e985aaa95bacf2.jpg

2025-03-24 19:23:42 CET

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I suspect those will come soonish, maybe through a service (in the US they use a functional job search site so the applications are consistent)

2025-03-24 18:06:59 CET

What have we here!
https://www.internetarchive.eu/

2025-03-10 21:47:04 CET

A lovely set of mirrored US government documents, with more to come:
https://archive.org/details/usgovernmentmirrors?tab=collection&query=mediatype%3Acollection&sort=-publicdate

2025-03-09 15:57:14 CET

It's my 14th year work anniversary at Internet Archive!

2025-03-04 01:41:09 CET

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"DEEP" does the same as fuzzy.

2025-03-03 16:57:43 CET

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to be clear, I'm just the front guy

2025-03-03 16:37:40 CET

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from dev team
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/099/241/563/629/539/original/a4efd1089e614447.jpg

2025-03-03 04:19:04 CET

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throw em on archive and we will see

2025-03-03 01:31:47 CET

In 2022, I introduced the project DISCMASTER, which is a unique project to make the internals of tens of thousands of 1990s-2000s CD-ROMs findable in a semantic search.
Today, I'm announcing the team has now made DISCMASTER 2, a ground-up rewrite with so much improvement.
http://discmaster.textfiles.com

2025-03-02 15:38:35 CET

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in my case I had a posterior vitreous detachment, and a few days after I noticed it, I had some blood which indicated I was beginning to get a tear, which they quickly lasered and sutured together. No cutting

2025-02-20 13:31:36 CET

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he knows it extremely well but really appreciates you wanted to make sure of that

2025-02-18 02:12:31 CET

Power outage at the internet archive. Systems will take a little while to get up.

2025-02-09 03:35:40 CET

https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/971/595/711/221/812/original/6c98684719837d10.jpg

2025-02-09 03:17:40 CET

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as mentioned in the article, he was a teenager when Aaron died. Mythology is always difficult and complicated.

2025-02-08 21:07:28 CET

https://sfstandard.com/2025/02/08/aaron-swartz-marble-statue-unveiled-internet-archive/

2025-02-06 19:23:22 CET

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This is the absolute first time I've ever heard of Lemmy, and the 16th year I've heard of Reddit.

2025-02-06 18:59:02 CET

I created a subreddit for the Internet Archive which is a little more information and substance-based and intended for deeper focus topics that don't make sense as blog entries, but have interest for the users. Join if you'd like:
https://www.reddit.com/r/theinternetarchive/

2025-01-30 01:15:52 CET

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Over 7,800 scanned pages!

2025-01-21 01:51:21 CET

Very busy year ahead!
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/863/601/761/168/869/original/9176dd7a1a4bda3b.jpg

2025-01-20 04:28:56 CET

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yes. We have thousands, I'd love thousands more

2025-01-20 00:40:05 CET

An Internet Archive user named
issung has begun uploading lots of photos of LAN parties from the 1990s and 2000s. Grainy, wired hanging-out goodness!
https://archive.org/details/@issung
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/857/655/527/418/082/original/0dd3c945fd89cd42.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/857/656/576/950/337/original/6cfb9c4f6becd09e.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/857/657/710/742/878/original/dc81ed9db8f2320d.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/857/658/778/399/020/original/a5984c3a297ad38d.png

2025-01-16 02:00:02 CET

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Don't miss that we're now emulating the Tiger Electronics GAME.COM console!
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_gamecom
Oh, it's so bad!

2025-01-16 01:58:57 CET

As you might imagine, recovering from rebuilding the Internet Archive systems from a new perspective took time, and the priority was super important systems, and ones merely "working" were left alone. But that's changed - we updated emulation at the Internet Archive so it's more secure, and the systems we're offering just added a few!
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/835/310/567/377/457/original/74707d9dbbf2d638.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/835/313/875/510/712/original/570eb414fdecb260.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/835/319/846/193/752/original/cca4bf3cf6d4854d.png

2025-01-15 17:29:45 CET

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george blood is the absolute best. Pay the money

2025-01-04 22:11:51 CET

A few years ago, high off my own supply of the success of the JSMESS/Webassembly MAME project, I suggested to VLC to consider porting to Webassembly as well. They did experiments but it just revealed a huge and crazy mess.
However, we've had a number of years and improvements over Webassembly compilation since then. If someone wants to take a shot, the VLC.js code is here:
https://code.videolan.org/jbk/vlc.js/

2025-01-01 22:38:52 CET

I wanted to correct something, because I know the archive's actions/function can encourage tea-leaf reading, but:
There is no throttling on the upload speed/bandwidth. There's no actual "well, only give this person X amount of speed, ha ha, tally ho" in effect.
What IS in effect, post-hack, are re-factoring of the security and networking aspects of the Archive's internals, with a focus on security before speed, and getting speed back to full is taking some time.
So there you go.
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/755/259/887/195/833/original/66c0fb4cccd92c8d.jpg

2024-12-26 17:00:06 CET

Staring Into the Void
https://blog.archive.org/2024/12/25/staring-into-the-void/

2024-12-23 18:39:40 CET

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the tape can still be red although I'm not sure who exactly is running the machines to pull the data off them right now. Are we sure that there's no other place these are?

2024-12-14 04:01:11 CET

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yes, buy it and I'll take it

2024-12-12 19:53:32 CET

There's other details, but I wanted to say:
ZIP ON THE FLY IS BACK AT INTERNET ARCHIVE.
You can go to an item, click on a file type on the right, and you can download all the pdfs, the mp3s, or whatever else, in a zip. We missed you, little bulky! So glad you're back.

2024-12-04 02:47:34 CET

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working here

2024-12-01 15:50:50 CET

MIT has a set of books labelled "Open Access" but it's a little clunky to find them on the MIT Press site, and so I've gone ahead and mirrored 400+ of them here:
https://archive.org/details/mit_press_open_access
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/578/123/886/518/741/original/3f7c155a0cfa30e4.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/578/124/144/692/781/original/a694a24e82b62eb2.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/578/124/378/688/899/original/6e5090b4e8c1fc30.png
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/578/124/751/980/915/original/6cd65503144f2305.png

2024-11-21 06:23:50 CET

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They're using over 1,000 domains to do this so there's not even a good one I can point at.

2024-11-21 06:10:43 CET

Someone felt they needed to upload 60,000+ documents to Internet Archive for spam purposes. (This was across the last three months.) They're not even good spams, they didn't render right.

2024-10-09 21:45:01 CEST

Someone is DDOSing the internet archive, so we've been down for hours. According to their twitter, they're doing it just to do it. Just because they can. No statement, no idea, no demands.
Meanwhile, we literally rescued 400,000 dissertations from being pulped.
I like our side.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/10/09/leidse-proefschriften-worden-toch-niet-vernietigd-400000-dissertaties-gaan-naar-de-vs-a4868698

2024-09-29 00:46:28 CEST

Multiple folks are launching a spam assault on the Internet Archive that are, basically, next level stuff. Literally tens of thousands of additions/attempts a week. Please be patient while it's sorted out.

2024-09-05 02:52:22 CEST

When Don Joyce of Negativland died, Internet Archive took the back catalog items and band materials to house for nearly a decade. The tape materials are now out to get archival quality captures, and the archivist Taylor posted a cut tape track from Escape From Noise, "Gun and the Bible", being digitized.
You can see the cuts!
https://youtu.be/xML3I0j2nQM?si=kxUvIUJT_4FpWRtP

2024-09-02 01:09:06 CEST

I was going to write some sort of "please don't do this" but that's not going to stop the people who do it, so I'll just say: be a good Internet Archive Patron. You're our favorite.

2024-04-24 03:32:28 CEST

OK, the big experiment has begun. A ham radio group has funded the scanning of 4,000 manuals from the Great Manuals Plus Haul. Now, the experiment is - will people kick on a special link in the blog entry to help fund the other 20 PALLETS of manuals?
https://blog.archive.org/2024/04/24/a-happy-ending-for-some-manual-labor-and-a-call-for-support/
https://mastodon.archive.org/system/media_attachments/files/112/323/614/873/966/238/original/e2bb11c82c394d56.png