andrew @andrewjbtw@digipres.club

"There are only two ways for your organization to get more done:

Hire more people.
Do less.

This is a short book about how to do less."

https://ronallo.com/sunsetting-book/introduction/

(via The Maintainers listserv)

I think I've finally given up on AVP's Fixity. I don't know if it's the local network or the app itself, but I can't get it to successfully scan any of the large directories I used to scan regularly with the 0.5 version, which keeps reporting all files deleted because the network shares disconnect during every long scan.

I thought 1.2 might be better but it's a) not and b) closed source. Also, I suspect the "console" window they added to give visual feedback actually causes problems.

Having trouble deciding whether to go to code4lib. It's local, but also I think I've used my reimbursement budget. There's way more archives on the program than I was expecting.

I would just like to thank the judge for accepting a difficult to change scheduling conflict weeks in the future as a reason to be excused. In some ways I'm fortunate the trial is expected to last until March.

Still on jury duty but at least internet is allowed while waiting.

Discussion going on at the birdsite about archiving US Congress members Instagrams. Not sure if any archivists have weighed in (onlu open gov advocates last I checked). Anyone doing this?

Adding 'Icon^M' to the most hated file names list.

If there's one thing academia/cultural heritage has shown after years of "act like a startup" advice, it's that it's possible to burn through foundation and grant money like it's venture capital.

Still haven't finished an entirely new blog post, but I have reposted something I wrote back in 2013 when a grad student in the digital humanities emailed the reference desk asking to interview an archivist about the role of the archive in the "digital age".

Somehow I ended up being the one assigned to answer; I'd been an archivist for something like two months. I recently noticed the interview went offline, hence the re-post.

It's mostly about digitization:
https://blog.suppliedtitle.org/2019/01/13/i-still-define-the-digital-humanities-the-same-way.html

I told myself I wouldn't post another tweet until I wrote a new blog post and so far it's been a very effective way to get myself to stop tweeting.

(When I opened my drafts folder I found a post I started last January reflecting on the decline of non-publication-aligned individual and group blogs. I've started new drafts but haven't returned to that one.)

Lots of people willing to fund lots of storage to keep lots of copies keeps stuff safe.

I'm trying to look past the yacht anecdote to the unfulfilled goals for institutional repositories as motivator for a distributed model of hiding emptiness.

https://blog.dshr.org/2019/01/digital-preservation-network-is-no-more.html?m=1

The good news is jury duty didn't prevent me from making the Archivematica user group call. The bad news is that jury selection is still ongoing and if selected I could be on a trial that runs to March.

Finally finished working out a way to take data from the collections management system and use it to automate checking the catalog for 404s. Checking broken links is on my list of tasks I wish had actual institutional support.

How would you conjugate QC as a verb?

"QC'd"?
"QC-ed"?

This is for comments in a script, so brevity that's also clear is preferable to writing it all out, though that would probably be better in other contexts.

Example:

# path to file being [term for QC]

I may start taking advantage of this: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/free-github-accounts-now-offer-private-repos/

The thing I've never understood about using github for a static site blog repo is how to keep drafts private. This might solve the issue and make it easier for me to work on multiple computers. The fewer excuses I have not to write, the better.

Anyone have experience using draw.io with an script/ad-blocker like Ghostery? I can use it with the blocker turned completely off, but with it on I get in an endless loop of failing to authenticate. There must be some things I can whitelist but I haven't figured it out.

Completely forgot that Excitebike let's you design your own course.

In positive news, after playing an NES Classic during the holidays, I went out and got my own so now I can benefit from taking photos of Megaman 2 passwords, just like we used to do with Polaroids. Ok, maybe my memory is a bit hazy on that last point.

Tried to make a case for some non-technical things to think about when thinking about file formats for preservation https://groups.google.com/d/msg/archivematica/pJM3prjlsDE/XWQMIjoQDgAJ