We're In Danger of Losing Our Memories 398
Hugh Pickens writes "The chief executive of the British Library, Lynne Brindley, says that our cultural heritage is at risk as the Internet evolves and technologies become obsolete, and that historians and citizens face a 'black hole' in the knowledge base of the 21st century unless urgent action is taken to preserve websites and other digital records. For example, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president last week, all traces of George W. Bush disappeared from the White House website. There were more than 150 websites relating to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney that vanished instantly at the end of the games and are now stored only by the National Library of Australia. 'If websites continue to disappear in the same way as those on President Bush and the Sydney Olympics... the memory of the nation disappears too,' says Brindley. The library plans to create a comprehensive archive of material from the 8M .uk domain websites, and also is organizing a collecting and archiving project for the London 2012 Olympics. 'The task of capturing our online intellectual heritage and preserving it for the long term falls, quite rightly, to the same libraries and archives that have over centuries systematically collected books, periodicals, newspapers, and recordings...'" Over the years we've discussed various aspects of this archiving problem.
Just do it. (Score:5, Informative)
who needs archive.org for the white house? (Score:5, Informative)
The National Archives has versions up of all the Clinton White House pages. Here's one [nara.gov]. I'm sure they'll get around to doing the same for Bush eventually. I seriously doubt the Obama team came in and pulled an 'rm -rf' on the old webpage.....
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:3, Informative)
Because George Bush managed to fuck up the great economy Clinton left him with
You do recall the dot-com crash in 2000, right? Bush wasn't in office until 2001.
Bush White House Site Preserved in Full (Score:5, Informative)
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:2, Informative)
It took a lot more than that for the economy to get to the state it is in now.
Yeah, it took 20 years of policy that Bill Clinton and the Democrats happily went along with......
Re:It's been happening since tike in memorial... (Score:4, Informative)
You find one Smith from Australia with no relationship to the Smith in Wales, who in turn has no relationship to the Smith in Zimbabwe.
That's because one was a blacksmith, another a silversmith, the third a pewtersmith.
Archive.Org (Score:4, Informative)
It's not perfect by any means but the WayBack machine on Archive.Org can find some pretty old stuff. Scary stuff too. Like that time I was into...... er forget it...
Plus if the Whitehouse doesn't get your fancy... there is tons of Grateful Dead Music there as well.
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:5, Informative)
Also NBER President Martin Feldstein said in 2004:
"It is clear that the revised data have made our original March [2001] date for the start of the recession much too late. We are still waiting for additional monthly data before making a final judgment. Until we have the additional data, we cannot make a decision."
Interesting way of saying "we are clearly wrong, but we aren't going to commit to it".
And Finally, how could someone who hadn't by March even passed his economic policy until June of that year.
Interesting further quote from the article on his economic policy [wikipedia.org] Bush inherited a faltering economy from Clinton, the economy having grown only at a 1.1% annualized rate over the previous three quarters from March 31 of the first year of Bush presidency [15](see Early 2000s recession). Bush had his tax cut plan approved by Congress in June, proposed early as a response to the economic decline and, despite the aftermath of the 2001 9/11 attacks, managed to keep the country out of recession[neutrality disputed] (defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in the size of the economy) during the time he and his economic policies were assuming more control over the economy.
I may not like the man as president, but I refuse to make him the magic bullet for all the problems with this country.
Internet Archive and Wayback Machine (Score:2, Informative)
Bandwidth, disk space, servers required, I suppose. The Wayback Machine alone has 85 billion pages, occupying 2 PB, growing at 20TB/month.
Anyone knows how many LoCs is that?
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:5, Informative)
World War II: Rosevelt (D). (more dead americans than any war in history)
Actually, more Americans died in the Civil War.
In World War 2, about 418,500 Americans died. That's a lot, but we got off light compared to the other combatants, whose casualties numbered in the millions.
Meanwhile, about 620,000 Americans died in the U.S. Civil War -- 360,000 Union soldiers, 260,000 Confederates. The Confederates were Americans too, ya know, despite their best efforts to split off.
The worst abuses remain unaddressed (Score:3, Informative)
"Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
Like those of us who voted for President Bush the first time to reverse the previous administration's policies (but really didn't), when will the Obama guys get frustrated when he fails to end the so-called "Patriot" Act and warrantless wiretapping which he supposedly opposed?
He will not, because the "Patriot" Act was composed in pieces by the Bush I/Clinton administrations. He already caved on the warrantless wiretapping so that's already a done deal.
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:4, Informative)
World War II: Rosevelt (D). (more dead americans than any war in history)
Only if you discount the bit of unpleasantness from 1861 - 1865.
Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared" (Score:3, Informative)
most Dems I talk to today seem to claim "He would be a Democrat if he were alive today".
I think they are forgetting one little bit [state.il.us] about him:
AUGUST 14, 1862 -- President Lincoln meets with a "Committee of colored men" and proposes a voluntary program to relocate blacks living in America to a Central American country. Lincoln explains, âoeYou and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two racesâ¦this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.
Re:Just do it. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bush White House Site Preserved in Full (Score:2, Informative)
Actually that's not quite it. It stops at January 15, 2009. There was a final press briefing on January 16, 2009 that isn't there, the radio address of the 17th, plus a number of photos taken between the 16th and the 20th. The very last photo posted was a shot of President & Mrs. Bush on the North Portico as they were about to greet the Obamas (yes, I was watching the site that day).
Heck, I just noticed.. Bush's farewell address isn't even there, so the snapshot must have been taken in the afternoon of the 15th.
Typical government efficiency :P