
The Technology Behind Making the Internet Archive into the Worlds Worst DVR - knowtheory
https://slifty.com/2016/05/the-technology-behind-the-worlds-worst-dvr/
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riordan
This is such a good post about:

a. how the internet archive is building its political archive

b. proving to other cultural heritage institutions that they can get their act
together and preserve culture today and make it relevant today

Ok, so Ted Cruz ads are a particular part of culture, but bravo.

I used to work at The New York Public Library's Labs and we had to fight to do
anything with anything that wasn't blatantly in the public domain. Meanwhile,
one of my colleagues there, Leonard Richardson, would go off and create
massive archives like the Minecraft Geological Survey
([http://mcgs.crummy.com/#mcgs](http://mcgs.crummy.com/#mcgs)) in the
evenings.

Seriously, we need more folks working in these big organizations that are very
good at surviving for more than a hundred years, acting as arks of human
culture, that can collect and make useful today's materials. It's just our
ability to remember today at stake.

~~~
jandrese
So much culture is going to be lost because people are shell shocked by
copyright lawyers and the constant drumbeat of expansive copyright
enforcement. We are destroying ourselves to protect the perpetual income
streams of publishers.

~~~
rhizome
History only qualifies as a profit center to them, If it didn't happen when
nitrate film was burning, it will take a lot of organization and legislation
to make it happen with bits and bytes.

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Roger_Archive
I like how the Center For Public Integrity just used "Duplitron5k" discovery
of a supposedly "Internet-exempt" hybrid super PAC political ad garnering free
time in cable news.

([https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/12/19677/news-
media-...](https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/12/19677/news-media-gives-
free-ride-anti-donald-trump-video))

The PAC asserts because the ad is a “Web video” they are exempt from the kinds
of public disclosures applied to paid political communications broadcast over
the airwaves.

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scrumper
Well the project is bizarre and whimsical and I guess pretty expensive, but
the way it's written about here makes me an enthusiastic fan. Well worth a
read.

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korethr
Looking at the site, it looks like this focuses on US politics. Being a US
citizen, I'm totally fine with this. An easily searchable archive of political
ads should make it easier to call BS on our politicians when necessary.

I find myself wondering, however, what it would take to extend this effort to
other countries of the world. I have a few friends in Canada and in Europe,
and speaking with them, I get the impression that the politics of their
respective countries are just as susceptible to shenanigans as that of the US.
I think someone politically active in say, Sweden, would want to be able to
call out his or her leaders for supporting puppy-kicking or baby-eating just
as much as someone in the US would.

~~~
kalleboo
Many countries also just don't allow political advertising on TV. Sweden
allows it, but almost all the TV channels are based in the UK which bans it.

~~~
stuaxo
We do have explicit "and now a party political broadcast by the {partyname}
party." In the uk.

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ghaff
When I was an undergrad (a _few_ years ago), we had a visiting lecturer[1] who
taught journalism classes mostly for the newspaper folks on campus. Well prior
to consumer VCRs, he had students tape a wide range of political ads and other
political-related video. It was really interesting having access to all this
stuff in a pre-YouTube and Internet Archive era.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/12/nyregion/edwin-diamond-
a-w...](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/12/nyregion/edwin-diamond-a-
writer-72.html)

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lokedhs
I picked a random candidate and then clicked on play on all of the videos at
the same time. That was a special kind of insane.

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tim333
tl;dr they are archiving political ads off TV and try recognising them in
software by their sound using
[http://labrosa.ee.columbia.edu/matlab/audfprint/](http://labrosa.ee.columbia.edu/matlab/audfprint/)
I think.

They don't say how political ads sound different from other TV - I guess it
works? Or maybe they are just using it to check if they have that ad already
like how Shazam works?

~~~
slifty
It's all about the FREQUENCIES! Actually though, this system can be used to
find copies of any sound -- sound bytes, commercials, music, whatever. We just
happen to be using it for politics because we apparently hate fun.

We're using the python port of audfprint though:
[https://github.com/dpwe/audfprint](https://github.com/dpwe/audfprint)

And yes -- we have a big bucket of known ads, and a big bucket of archived
programming, and we're comparing new content with the appropriate buckets.

NOTE: we are talking about ways to release the fingerprints of all the TV we
archive so anybody can "search" TV for copies of sounds.

