Topic: Digital Archives

CNN aired a hit piece on Dr. Joseph Mercola, labeling him the "ultimate super spreader" of COVID-19 misinformation. The report relies on data from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which placed Mercola at the top of their "Disinformation Dozen" list. The hosts note that the Wayback Machine has reportedly removed Mercola's archives and question the funding of the UK-based non-profit behind the list.

The artwork for episode 1295, titled "Shred & Burn," featured a red and yellow theme with a communist flag on an "I Voted" sticker. The show maintains a full digital archive of all episode artwork, which is highly regarded for its aesthetic quality and relevance to the discussed topics.

The No Agenda community continues to grow through platforms like NoAgendaSocial.com and the live stream at NoAgendaStream.com. The hosts recalled a significant loss of early show artwork and audio clips when the file-sharing service Drop.io was acquired and shut down by Facebook. This event served as a lesson in the fragility of third-party digital hosting for independent media projects.

The hosts discuss the preservation of video footage from a recent wedding and the challenges of managing terabytes of uncatalogued digital photos. The concept of a "dead man's switch" to release personal archives upon death is explored.

The Royal Dutch Library has officially begun archiving the No Agenda podcast and its associated show notes and MP3 files. The library contacted the show via email to confirm the preservation of the digital content under the Adam Curry domain. This initiative ensures the long-term availability of the program's historical record in the Netherlands.

The hosts discuss the plan to wipe the @POTUS Twitter account clean when the current president leaves office, with the tweets being moved to a separate archive. John C. Dvorak argues that this "breaks the web" and shows a lack of respect for the historical continuity of digital records. They debate whether social media posts should be treated with the same permanence as traditional presidential papers.

The final episode of the David Letterman show prompts a discussion on the poor quality of archival television footage, much of which exists only on degrading VHS or two-inch Ampex tapes. Concerns are raised about the "15 minutes of legacy" for modern humans as digital formats become obsolete. The technical difficulty of maintaining vintage reel-to-reel machines for digitization is highlighted as a crisis for cultural preservation.

The conversation traces the evolution of social media from LiveJournal to MySpace and the rise of "self-adulation" through animated GIFs and diary blogs. They discuss the fragility of digital archives, noting that many photos hosted on defunct services like TwitPic or stored in proprietary formats like iPhoto may be lost forever. They compare the current internet era to the slow societal shift following the Gutenberg press.

The entire archive of the defunct GeoCities web hosting service has been made available as a one-terabyte torrent. The hosts discuss the importance of saving web pages as PDFs or local files to prevent information loss due to "404" errors and corporate shutdowns.

Paul T is granted an honorary knighthood for his extensive contributions of digital art to the show. The hosts explain that artists who provide a significant volume of work are eligible for this title. The show relies on a community of artists, including Randy and others, to create the visual identity of the program, which is archived and used for various episodes.

The ABC television show Homeland Security USA is introduced as a new media focus, though the hosts debate when it was first mentioned on the program. This leads to a discussion on the longevity of digital media and the potential for podcast episodes to be archived in presidential or congressional libraries. Concerns are raised about the fragility of servers and the likelihood of most digital content being lost to history.

A collection of Curry family home movies from 1967 to 1975 was recently transferred from Super 8 millimeter film to DVD. The footage includes historical scenes from Africa, the Taj Mahal, and the Three Sisters Inn in Kyoto, Japan. The discussion emphasizes the importance of digitizing old film and negatives before the physical media degrades or is lost to time.