@mattblaze that makes my heart sing.

Altamont pass in the evening are rolling hills with quietly rotating turbines of enormous scale. A beautiful sight.

Red blinking lights at night to warn aircraft because of their height.

"Infrastructure is heroic."

matt-- how about a color photo where they look playful and natural (like teletubbies)

northern cal's wind power infrastructure is such a contrast to southern california's oil derricks next to the highway:

How Oil Derrick Pumps Work - Sciencing

The classic oil derrick pump is known colloquially as a sucker rod pump, named for the plunger-like mechanics it uses to pump oil from underground wells up to the surface. It uses a series of gears and cranks to pump a polished rod up and down an oil well in a piston-like motion, albeit much slower. This design is used to conserve energy while bringing a continuous, reliable flow of oil from deep wells to the surface.

Sciencing (www.sciencing.com)

The Internet Archive has open data sets that we welcome bulk respectful downloading. These include government webpages, old books, and materials that we have permission to serve.

On the other hand there are many collections that are available to users but not for bulk downloading. We use internal rate-limiting systems, filtering mechanisms, and network security services such as Cloudflare. We are trying, and there are ups and downs, but there have not been overall changes in recent years.

$20 billion is $155 per US household. (thought it illustrates a number in the news)

"The U.S. just bailed out Argentina, treasury secretary confirms
President Donald Trump acted to help an ally in Latin America even as some MAGA supporters grumbled."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/09/argentina-receives-us-bailout/

Waymo $22 pickup wait 15min,
Uber $26 wait 4min,
Lyft $34 wait 7min;
to go (rush hour) from the @internetarchive to San Francisco Center for the Book.

I love seeing Waymo's buzzing about-- makes me think time is moving forward. There are lots of them, and it seems the price is dropping (but wait times are high).

Internet Archive Europe progress: new network router is now installed in central switching point. Onward!

Internet Archive Europe - non-profit research library

Internet Archive Europe, a Dutch non-profit research library, is building collections and using advanced tools to bring them to life.

Internet Archive Europe - Bringing Collections to Life (www.internetarchive.eu)

(Will substitute for one supported by XS4ALL and KPN for 20+ years -- thank you!)

Tom Lehrer, Musical Hero gave away his songs before he passed. Even more reasons to love this man.

"All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. " https://tomlehrersongs.com/

(and he just passed at 97)

nytimes.com

(www.nytimes.com)

Ted Nelson orginal poster 1976!

quick stat for we library nerds:

it takes 1 month to dehydrate books in a cardboard box from 70% relative humidity to 50% with an environment of 35% relative humidity.

next-- time for books in close-packed boxes, and low cost techniques to sustain low hydration.

(low humidity is good for book preservation.)

ft.com's editorial board on EU's AI regulation:

"European start-up and industry associations have
warned that the [AI] act’s overly broad provisions impose an excessive burden on smaller companies and will
entrench the power of bigger incumbents."

Was that the intent?

A more intelligent approach to AI regulation

Legislators should focus on mitigating specific harms rather than anticipating broader concerns

(www.ft.com)

"In an age of informational chaos, the Wayback Machine feels like one of the few institutions that never lies to us."

Nice comment from Current Affair editor

How To Keep The Truth Alive

In the age of deepfakes and brazen lies, we need to figure out who we can trust. Credible media institutions are more crucial than ever.

(www.currentaffairs.org)