Hello. I have questions. Firstly, we all love XML, right? How do you manage the piles of XML we create? A lot of what I've seen seems to be a bit Write Once Read Never. Are there examples of actively managing collections of XML?
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Andy Jackson
@anj@digipres.club
hometown 4.6.9+hometown-1.3.0A tech nerd at the Digital Preservation Coalition - data joiner, digital preserver, entropy buster, partial physicist, geek. Searching for the charismatic megafauna of the digital ecosystem.
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Joined January 16, 2018
"LLMs strip provenance from knowledge. Systematically, architecturally and by design. And in so doing, AI systems are creating a form of knowledge network decay that degrades the knowledge infrastructures that human civilization rely upon."
https://jessicatalisman.substack.com/p/where-provenance-ends-knowledge-decays
FWIW, the Green Party are the only party who are serious about taxing wealth, and so I'll be voting Green. #TaxWealthNotWork #ukpol #ukelections https://youtube.com/shorts/uMe_j2rr850
Well, I generally don't like blocking people, but I finally got fed up of the aggressively unsympathetic behaviour from some folks in the fediverse. Not on DigiPres.club! You're all lovely! But further afield, all "DUH WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID" judgement and zero curiosity or kindness. Time to dust off the block hammer 😂
I am amazed AMAZED at all the companies apparently ecstatically happy to inject a deep layer of AI automation all across their enterprise, sacking massive groups of people, all so that one of a handful of nightmare vendors can rent-extract them into oblivion. It's such a mess.
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@grimalkina@mastodon.social I don't think so, because the horizontal and vertical position has meaning. If you strip it back to nodes and edges you've got the dependencies but you've lost the 'visibility' and evolution.
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Aaaa well it's live! Never been interviewed for a podcast before https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/1326658/episodes/18981609-en-making-data-last ...
Lovely pair of posts on floppies! Digital Accessioning Wins, Fails and Dragon Tales https://preservation.library.harvard.edu/news/2026/05/digital-accessioning-wins-fails-and-dragon-tales-part-1 https://preservation.library.harvard.edu/news/2026/05/digital-accessioning-wins-fails-and-dragon-tales-part-2 #digipres
Okay, my memory banks have failed... Can any else remember a blog (I think) showing how institutions collection items can get consumed by LLMs/Chatbots so they disintermediate the source institution. The user gets the image (scans of photographs IIRC) and some metadata via the chat window and the source institution knows nothing about it, gets no usage or credit....?
It was a joy to be invited onto the Code for Thought podcast to talk about Making Data Last: https://www.dpconline.org/news/code-for-thought-podcast
New blog post: Tools, Practices & People https://anjackson.net/2026/03/13/tools-practices-people/
The 2026 Workflow Webinars recordings are now available! https://www.dpconline.org/events/previous-events/eventdetail/661/-/digital-preservation-workflow-webinars-2026 #DigiPres
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(not sure why I feel more cringe about hearing my voice on a podcast than the various recorded presentations.)
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@_elena@mastodon.social that seems to be a different URL? That one works, but is a different video? Apologies if I'm mistaken.
Really excited about this DPC members event: Copy That Floppy... LIVE! with @makethecatwise@digipres.club https://www.dpconline.org/events/eventdetail/575/-/copy-that-floppy-live - includes the perfect Christmas gift idea for the #digipres enthusiast!
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@Thorsted@digipres.club @bitsgalore@digipres.club @makethecatwise@digipres.club oh excellent! Any early results?!
@bitsgalore@digipres.club Hey Johan, hope you're well? Can I ask: does this still represent the state-of-the-art for your optical media processing? https://bitsgalore.org/2017/06/19/image-and-rip-optical-media-like-a-boss.html
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@ashley@digipres.club well I'm a big fan of your work so thank you, that's much appreciated!
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@dsalo aw thank you! It's already in the can, but it goes live tomorrow... Not something I've done before but hopefully it was okay. Eeek!
This exhibition and the associated events look awesome! I won't be able to make it unfortunately, but I hope some of you can!
Digital Ghosts exhibition at Inspace (5–16 Nov, Wed-Sun, 10:00-17:00) https://inspace.ed.ac.uk/digital-ghosts/
Opening Night and Panel Discussion on 6 Nov (18:00–20:00) https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-ghosts-exhibition-late-and-panel-discussion-tickets-1595886311919
Visualising Presence and Absence in Scotland’s Web Archives workshop on 15 Nov (13:00–14:30), led by artist Dorsey Kaufmann. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/visualising-presence-and-absence-in-scotlands-web-archives-tickets-1595907164289
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@linguistory Thank you. I really enjoy writing that way, perhaps rather more than people like reading it!
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@bitsgalore@digipres.club oh no, I'm sorry to hear things have got stuck. We're talking to a member who has a LOT of optical media and I'm trying to find out what others are up to. Windows 11 issues aside, are you happy with the workflow and the results?
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@cstross FWIW I believe @AliceFraser has largely switched to Patreon because what your followers will see is more transparent/predictable/manageable.
I'm very excited about this upcoming (paid/members) DPC event I've been putting together... Every Object An Orchestra: A Software Preservation & Emulation Showcase https://www.dpconline.org/events/eventdetail/770/-/every-object-an-orchestra-a-software-preservation-emulation-showcase #DigiPres
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@bitsgalore@digipres.club I suspect the dirt cheap modern ones are the problem! Good to know it's not always the case.
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"The Chairman gave a presentation at the meeting of the European Librarians and Publishers group (ELP) in Amsterdam on 17 March, entitled `Electronic journals and digital libraries: fad or future?'." https://web.archive.org/web/19990222121244/http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/publ/report97.htm
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@bitsgalore@digipres.club I have an old internal drive and a Greaseweazle, and that works well if you don't mind plugging things together. I was thinking off-the-shelf USB ones were a single kind of thing I could compare with, but it seems not!
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@bitsgalore@digipres.club Oh, not even that expensive, although I guess I'll have the Brexit Tax to pay. I might get one from somewhere, as I believe USB drives can't cope with Acorn floppies, and it would be good to understand what happens when you try.
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@bitsgalore@digipres.club Thanks Johan, I'll pass that on. I also like https://bitsgalore.org/2023/01/23/writing-a-workflow-tool-for-imaging-portable-media.html and was pleasantly surprised that your USB floppy drive appears to obey the write-protect tab? I'd got the impression that the USB ones all ignored that!
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@Ivovanwilligen thanks for writing this up and I'm sorry you're getting so many unsympathetic responses.