In today's #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon, #WordPress introduces the "100 year plan", a service that promises century-long domain registration and web hosting:

https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/08/25/introducing-the-100-year-plan/

Some thoughts by @ernie - "On the grand scale, does a service that ensures your legacy stays online for a hundred years make sense?":

https://tedium.co/2023/08/26/wordpress-100-year-plan-archival-legacy/

Time again to #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯 as #Microsoft's implementation of #Python in #Excel spreadsheets introduces a dependency on an external #cloud service:

"With Python in Excel, you can type Python directly into a cell, the Python calculations run in the Microsoft Cloud, and your results are returned to the worksheet, including plots and visualizations"

Source:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel-blog/announcing-python-in-excel-combining-the-power-of-python-and-the/ba-p/3893439

I foresee major implications for preservation, long-term access and reproducibility #WtfExcel

Internal relocation at work upcoming, so spent yesterday afternoon emptying my office.

Endless amounts of old CD-ROMs and DVDs, floppies, data tapes, two 80s Tulip PCs (allegedly the very first PCs bought by my workplace), some groovy late 90s PC + lots of cables and other peripherals.

Now have 5 MASSIVE crates, no idea how all this crap will fit into my new office (which I'll be sharing with someone who will also bring a ton of hardware), but we'll see.
#WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

Screenshot I found in an old (2003) e-mail folder, showing some classic Windows NT madness from back in the day #wtfWindowsNT #wheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

Just came across this old footage of me recovering an an old #CDROM with #ddrescue while wearing a monkey mask 🐵 💿 #wheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon:

https://vimeo.com/245041453

From the #ExifTool website #wtfExifTool #wheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯 🤣

Source:

https://exiftool.org/#comments

Extremely troubling story: president and founder of #GISAID, the world's largest repository for #sarscov2 sequences, fabricated much of his CV, spent time in jail for securities fraud, posed as a made-up employee, and is "becoming increasingly isolated and a bit paranoid about access to this data" 😱 :

https://www.science.org/content/article/invented-persona-behind-key-pandemic-database

Super relevant for any #digitalpreservation people interested in / working on trusted repositories #wheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

Classic example that demonstrates the death of UX design: to insert a hyperlink in #Microsoft's Office 365 web application, I need to:

1. Click on the "Insert" menu. Now a toolbar appears.
2. Click on the "Link" item in the toolbar. This opens a sub-menu.
3. Then again click on the "Insert Link" (!!!) item in the sub-menu 😱 .

Step 3 is 100% redundant, and this could have easily been implemented as a 2-step (possibly even 1-step) process

#wheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

Time again to #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯!

Windows 11 Snipping Tool privacy bug exposes cropped image content:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-11-snipping-tool-privacy-bug-exposes-cropped-image-content/

And on Windows 10 the “Snip & Sketch" is affected as well:

https://www.hackread.com/windows-11-10-snipping-tools-vulnerable/

Welcome to the next circle of hell, as #Microsoft rolls out #Copilot #AI to their whole 365 suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Teams, and Power Platform). Quoting the Register:

"This technology is said to be powered by OpenAI's text-generating GPT-4 family, the same line of tech that insisted one of our very-much-alive columnists was dead."

https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/microsoft_365_copilot_ai/

#ChatGPT #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

Useful - How to corrupt a file in a controlled way?

As usual, dd (also known as "destroy disk") has you covered:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/222359/how-to-corrupt-an-archive-file-in-a-controlled-way

#WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

Meanwhile at the birdsite #TwitterDown #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯 ...

Took a while, but I finally uploaded both the video and a FLAC audio file of the Digital Dark Age Crew's "Wheel Out the Digital Dark Age Klaxon" to #Zenodo for posterity (and immediate download convenience) https://zenodo.org/record/7390809 #WDPD2022 #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯

RT @bitsgalore@twitter.com

New blog post, how to preserve your personal #Twitter archive. Feedback welcome! #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯 https://www.bitsgalore.org/2022/11/20/how-to-preserve-your-personal-twitter-archive

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/bitsgalore/status/1594390150947426305

In retrospect, with what's happening on #Twitter, the return of the Digital Dark Age Crew two weeks ago now feels rather timely, and even slightly prophetic. Like a modern-day version of the orchestra on the Titanic (but without the musical skills to match), heralding the imminent downfall of the platform! #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon

https://youtu.be/C47ZCosJPAw

Uh-oh, seems US Geological Survey might have a little problem with their #JPEG2000 production workflow #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon 📯 😱 https://github.com/openpreserve/jpylyzer/issues/192

How Twitter will break in the coming weeks, according to insider who says the company’s current staffing isn’t able to sustain the platform https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/ #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon

Shit's getting real now #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon

Once more for those who missed this in yesterday's torrent of #WDPD2022 Toots - "Watch the Digital Dark Age Crew Burn a Million PDFs" (headphones on, speakers at full blast!) #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon https://youtu.be/C47ZCosJPAw

And don't forget to check out this feature on the Digital Dark Age Crew on my blog https://www.bitsgalore.org/2022/11/03/wheel-out-the-digital-dark-age-klaxon #WDPD2022 #WheelOutTheDigitalDarkAgeKlaxon