[00:24] man.. why are there no large (like 20-30 inch) electronic paper (eInk) displays (for things like signage)? [00:26] for general purpose, at least [00:27] the eink.com website demo slideshow thing shows a 2.4 meter long display [01:00] 5mins before i left my apartment today maintainence tells me they are going to replace my water heater since its leaking down to the next floor or being leaked on above [01:00] i say ok and go to work [01:01] i come home and rust stains all in my carpet and dirt and shit in my sinks and tub [01:01] and rust all down the apartment stairs [01:01] i sent them an angry service request [01:13] not terribly surprised [01:14] landlord doesn't give a shit [01:14] particularly the crap in the sinks and tub. they had to drain the tank [01:14] landlord hires flunkies who don't give a shit about the landlord [01:14] you're two degrees of giving a shit removed from actual caring [01:16] of COURSE you're going to get walked on [01:27] this is the scene wont get funded either :\ [04:20] By 1877, only about one hundred and ten inhabitantsremained. Rongorongo was one victim of these circumstances. The colonizers of Easter Island had decided that the strangelanguage was too closely tied to the inhabitants' pagan past, andforbade it as a form of communication. Missionaries forced theinhabitants to destroy the tablets with Rongorongo inscriptions. [04:20] hmm [04:20] copyfail [04:20] (each line wrap wound up missing a space) [04:31] Christian missionaries: the anti-archivists [04:31] Same nonsense happened in Central America [04:35] but they also sometimes help. they were at the forefront of cartography for a time, because mapping the world was important in getting to new lands to spread their mission. [04:37] True, but a lot of other folk were doing the same thing [04:38] Astronomy - and from it, math - has its roots in mercantile exploration [04:38] And I lied; Mongols are the anti-archivists [04:39] yep [04:40] example: khitan literature http://babelstone.blogspot.ca/2011/10/khitan-miscellanea-1.html [04:41] As a percentage of the world's knowledge, 1258 was likely the single greatest disaster that will ever happen [04:41] (byte-for-byte, Yahoo is still more destructive) [04:51] (That's horribly sad) [04:54] 21:38:55 < shaqfu> And I lied; Mongols are the anti-archivists [04:54] disarchivists [04:56] also fire [04:56] They used that too [04:57] fire destroyed so many things [04:58] (the rongorongo tablets were destroyed by fire, too) [04:58] Alexandria, Baghdad, Los Angeles [05:00] germans with books, stalin... [05:01] In Stalin's defense, the USSR protected a lot of its cultural materials [05:01] PRC was leagues worse [05:01] "In Stalin's defense" Not words I figured I'd see, when I woke up today [05:01] Russia still has many world-class archives/museums; China, they'll just shrug [05:02] fire destroyed my grandmother's adoption records [05:03] it sounds cliche, but it was in a warehouse full of paper and there was a fire [05:03] burn baby burn [05:03] I once heard a horror story about Iron Mountain and fire that made me do a double-take [05:03] iron mountain is a shredding company ... [05:03] explosion? [05:04] Warehouse fire [05:04] Except, wait, the warehouse had sprinklers! [05:04] ...except the sprinklers weren't actually connected to the water main [05:04] hahahaha [05:04] wat [05:04] If you blow shredded paper through a hose at a high pressure over a flame (blowtorch) it will make a flamethrower and vaporize any paper that comes out >_> [05:05] https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/556802_475858285776963_1079166928_n.jpg [05:05] neat [05:05] Dunno if any of you are old enough, but if you took standardized tests pre-1980, there's a good chance the records were lost [05:05] is that magazine titled Fails? [05:05] Because the warehouse they were stored in had non-functioning sprinkers; thanks, Iron Mountain [05:05] huh. Fire? [05:05] Haha, shit. [05:06] Tails [05:06] Iron isn't fire proof, after all >_> [05:06] It's like cloud storage failure, except with paper [05:06] Aranje: right, viz.: thermite. [05:06] mmm [05:06] shaqfu: pretty much! [05:06] my favorite substance [05:06] perfect for welding train rails [05:06] Very suited to the task, yes [05:07] Pity there was no proto-Archive Team running in and out of the building, grabbing burning records [05:08] "ETS 1950-1980 Save, 5MB, available on microfilm" [05:14] fuck microfilm [05:15] it's better than magtape (in some respects), at least. [05:16] I'm really glad things like the Memex or the World Brain never actually existed [05:16] why? [05:16] https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/598567_327573480652820_719589795_n.jpg [05:16] It's bad enough that we have as much microfilm as we have - the last thing we need is *more* of it [05:16] what do you have against memex? [05:16] at least memex would have it machine-processable [05:16] Maybe I'm mixing it up with something else [05:17] I'd much rather have a million aperture cards than a hundred thousand sheets of film [05:17] I'm thinking of the desk that you loaded microfilm into [05:17] yes, that's a memex [05:17] mechanical/electrical hypertext too [05:17] I would expect it to use something closer to aperture cards anyway [05:17] Ah, okay; I forgot the interdocumentary aspect [05:18] fiche is okay for archival, super shitty for browsing [05:18] Doing research on it without any index is incredibly unfun [05:18] "I'd like to know about some event that happened in 1945" [05:18] fiche is shitty to read even with an index [05:18] Sigh; off to scroll through film for hours [05:19] heh [05:19] at least you can cruise through rolls fast [05:19] fiche is even worse, it's the 4x6 inch rectangle that you have to manually zigzag through [05:19] That's closer to what I was on [05:19] The machine I used only displayed about a quarter of the film at once [05:19] suck [05:19] You're telling me [05:20] sir, I have on the order of a million aperture cards. [05:20] From where? [05:20] Auction? [05:23] museum I volunteer at [05:24] Those were hot shit then - machine-readable images! [05:24] I'm digitizing all their flat resources [05:24] they're still pretty rad [05:24] you don't need to type in the metadata! [05:25] Did they have the machinery to read them? [05:25] nope! [05:25] Was that why you were writing OCR engines? [05:25] it should be possible to bodge together something with a camera and a light table and some mechanical bits, though [05:26] um, kinda, the ocr engine is for printed code listings [05:26] You could probably repurpose it here, for reading the punched holes [05:26] exactly [05:26] Since your engine respected spacing [05:27] it's a simple enough principle - drape a grid across the page, tweak it until the grid sits on as little ink as possible, read out of the rectangles [05:27] And here you can be sloppy, since it's nice big white spaces vs. nice big black spaces [05:27] right [05:28] but as it turned out I got really solid results with the text also [05:28] Ah, awesome [05:28] which was xerographically reproduced COM [05:28] er, Computer Output Microfiche, basically a phototypesetter direct to fiche [05:29] Seems straightforward enough in principle, and saved untold hours of typing [05:30] COM or OCR? [05:30] OCR [05:30] yeah [05:30] that's what OCR is for :P [05:30] oh, speaking of OCR, I just discovered I have a valid license to ABBYY Finereader sprint [05:30] Except when it doesn't work :P Let's not discuss what it's like to type up thirty thousand handwritten cards... [05:30] that's good stuff, bro [05:31] (came with an epson scanner) [05:31] shaqfu: okay, let's not. [05:31] Hm, are there any big improvements in OCR coming up? [05:32] captive cloud workers? [05:32] it would be nice to see some good Free OCR [05:32] I saw a project that I considered MTurk'ing, until I realized it would require $80k [05:32] heh [05:32] Coderjoe: yes, unfortunately ocr is hard. [05:33] That was at 20 cents per page, double typed, plus error-correction [05:33] what was it? [05:33] chronomex: 400 hotel registers [05:33] ahh [05:33] It's neat stuff - essentially 30 years of rich people - but it's closed due to rot [05:33] handwritten? [05:33] right [05:34] Coderjoe: 1895-1929 [05:35] ok, yeah. that would need the amazing pattern recognition software that only exists in the skull of homo sapiens [05:35] I don't understand why "this is too fragile to touch more than once" doesn't put something at the top of the digitization list, but w/e [05:35] I need to get a loupe [05:36] One of those badass ones you wear? [05:36] because academic/paid archivists like to talk about the right way to do things [05:36] shaqfu: yes, preferably [05:36] my other work at the museum involves making a computer happy [05:36] I have the source code, just most of it is on fiche [05:37] No reader? [05:37] no convenient reader [05:37] my dentist has a pair of glasses with permanantly-affixed loupes [05:37] yeah, those are cool [05:37] a loupe and a light table, and we already have the light table in a decent place [05:38] not the swivel-in kind, but the kind glued to the normal glasses lenses [05:38] I haven't done any fiche work; it's out of the question to project it? [05:38] I don't have a decent projector, but that's a good line of inquiry [05:38] I've also been considering making a scanning rig, from an X-Y table and a camera with macro lens [05:38] I was about to ask about that - scanning and scraping [05:39] that's an ultimate goal [05:39] have about 200 sheets of fiche, so not too bad [05:39] Big enough to be a pain, but not big enough to force you to automate [05:40] kinda [05:41] Collections like that are the worst - no matter what you do, you always feel like you did it wrong [05:41] I don't [05:41] nope [05:41] ;] [05:42] Hah; I'd second-guess myself [05:42] I'm scanning the paper at 300dpi duplex b/w, lossless tiff [05:42] it comes out well, I'm seeing halftone in my scans [05:42] so I'm not worried there [05:43] the sheetfeeder flies, too [07:12] Coderjoe: good free ocr? -> gulttenberg project? [07:30] project gutenberg and the distributed proofreading project only really work for public domain works [07:41] Ah, this isn't? Ok. [08:14] Man, why is it so hard to extract a 7z file in Lubuntu [09:21] it is? [09:22] apt-get install 7zip; 7z x file.7z [09:26] :| [09:31] lol [09:31] still is. [09:31] * SmileyG had a "uncompress" bash script which checked the compression type and uncompressed the file [09:32] I mean, I installed 7zip from the Lubuntu software centre (I found the solution a few minutes back) [09:32] But it wouldn't open in Archive Manager even after I did [09:32] It was weird [09:32] Then I followed this sudo apt-get command I found on the net which installed a lot of compression stuff and it worked after that [09:33] i'd say that's "archive manager" at fault [09:33] yey for blindly following stuff online :< [09:33] steps on gentoo [09:33] 1. add 7zip useflag to make.conf [09:33] 2. emerge archive-manager [09:33] 3. PROFIT! [09:33] And thats harder than ubuntu appently. [09:33] 4. get called names [09:34] SmileyG, it wasn't dangerous, I recognised a fair few of the package names [09:35] BlueMax: Oh I don't think its dangerous [09:35] I just wonder how much of the knowledge is transferable and useful in other circumstances. [09:36] Argh, I so hate TV broadcasting now [09:36] fuck that shiiit [09:36] eardrums blasted out? [09:36] Hm? [09:37] i kinda hate that the afternoon "kidvid" slots are laregely being filled with paid programming blocks [09:38] I'm trying to setup a DVB-T head-end that'll fart out the video over on IP multicast [09:38] ersi: commercials with audio 2x the volume (or more) of the program they interrupt? [09:38] yeah, I hate that as well - but not related to this perticular TV Broadcasting hate I got now [09:38] it's more signal recieving hate [09:39] i hate all the encryption going on [09:39] we got a MUX with public service/unencrypted feeds [09:39] not that i have cable anymore [09:39] comcast had a bunch as well [09:40] including unencrypted digital feeds of the analog basic cable channels [09:40] but then they started encrypting those basics [11:44] GLaDOS: oust, oust! [11:45] Or that. [16:28] My Time Capsule broke, let's sue Apple http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57453689-37/man-sues-apple-over-time-capsule-data-loss/?tag=rtcol;posts [18:05] LibraryBox ordered; let's see if it fixes that nasty "can't share ebooks easily" problem [22:04] http://inversephase.bandcamp.com/album/pretty-eight-machine [22:05] Coderjoe: S[h]O[r]T SmileyG ops? [22:10] hmmmm [22:57] hmm. no sketchcow