Information

It’s Gone and Nothin’s Gonna to Bring it Back

This entry was posted in Archive.org Information Music Technology on by

Well, maybe there is a way to get back that old file that you can’t find. Especially if it was ever on the WWW. Kim’s story (shortened a bit):

I have a client with a site that’s been in operation since early 2000, and we recently discovered that a couple of archived issues of her newsletter from that time were missing. We’ve ported the site over to several new designs over the years, ….
I was convinced they were simply gone for good, but then I had a last ditch idea: the Wayback Machine. I went and put in her site, checked back to one of the 2000 versions, and sure enough, there were the missing archives. I recreated the pages on her site, and now I’m a hero.
The Wayback Machine definitely has practical applications.
Yep, another great use of an already indispensible resource. I use the audio section of Archive.org to listen to and download great music on a regular basis. And there is much more.

Images, Images and More Images

This entry was posted in Comics Culture Information Photography on by

The Presurfer, a great place for the new and the odd, suggests the Devilfinder Image Browser.
Enter a word, name, or whatever describes the image you are looking for, tell it how many images you want and it opens a new window with images gleaned from the net.
If you are at work I strongly suggest turning on the Offensive Content Filter. Trust me, even seemingly innocent searches may show some very unexpected and disturbing results. And, no, I won’t tell you what three letter word I used that I wish I’d turned the filter on for.
I did, though, try Aquaman and got a bunch of cool pictures and was a bit surprised that none of them were from Tegan who is a consummate Aquaman fan.

All the News that is Fit to Google

This entry was posted in Google Information Journalism on by

It’s not clear why Vin Cosbie is surprised about this:

But when I analyzed its choices of news sources, I was surprised by the results. Although Google spiders more than 7,000 news sources, only about a dozen sources account for the vast majority of stories displayed on Google News day to day, and two of those predominant sources are owned and operated by the U.S. and Chinese governments.
A commentor hits main point number 1: real estate. There is only so much space on a web page.
A second reason is that not all 7000 sources are going to be interested in every story and many that might be will not write about it as they have made other choices.
I suspect that these dozen or so sources are, in fact, the sources that rank highest in Google’s ranking methodology. This may be a self reinforcing result since most of us probably read and, if applicable, link only the first story or two thus strengthening rank for those sources. On a statistically meaningless note I have many times gone deeper into the source material and quickly tired of the repetitive and derivative articles.
Vin can do this as well. By doing just a bit more work he can click on Google New’s always available “and xxx related” link and find the dozens, hundreds or thousands of other sources that he was originally looking for.
Via E-Media Tidbits.

Keeping Track of You

This entry was posted in Culture Information Law Enforcement Privacy on by

You are being monitored:

It’s hard to travel incognito these days. As you go about your business, you leave a trail of data for others to collect, merge, mine, analyse and even sell, often without our knowledge or consent. And we are increasingly subject to electronic or visual surveillance, often without our knowledge or express consent.
At the bottom of the linked article is a hypothetical one day data capture timeline. Read it and be comforted….
I take a pretty basic position on personal information privacy. All information gathered by any entity about an individual must be kept private unless the individual specifically authorizes the release of that information. No exceptions. Penalities for unauthorized disclosure should be high.
So, with the above constraint, I think it is just fine for Safeway to keep track of my buying habits and, if they have my permission, to disclose this information to third parties.
And, no, I do not think it reasonable to grant governmental entities an exception to this. They should have to get my permission to disclose information that they have gathered.
Thus, none of these entities, government or private, would get to disclose information in response to any kind of subpoena without the target individuals permission.
Meanwhile, use cash when you can.