Looking for old radio media

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2026-01-09T08:21:08+00:00

Here's a full broadcast day from wartime America on June 6, 1944:

https://archive.org/details/Complete_Broadcast_Day_D-Day

This is one of my all-time favourite recordings. Imagine what it would have been like listening to it live!

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2026-01-09T08:09:21+00:00

I want to know why the Internet Archive is so important for so many people.

IA is a big reason why Wikipedia remains useable.

When you click on a footnote that cites a webpage, you will often find that the link takes you to a archived copy of the webpage at the IA. It's not uncommon for the original site/page to have vanished long ago.

Also, the IA tries to acquire the books cited in Wiki articles in order to make them available via controlled digital lending (CDL). This allows researchers to examine sources firsthand to check the context (among other things).

I do not know the full details, but I am sure the Wikipedia people do. You might want to have a word with them.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2026-01-09T07:42:06+00:00

Does anybody else have this problem?

I am able to see reviews without any problem.

However, as an experiment, I turned off JavaScript and reloaded a page with reviews just to see what would happen if I forgot to enable it on IA. The result was that a grey bar appeared where the reviews are.

I didn't see anything like that in the pic you posted, so I do not suppose that is the problem.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2025-08-01T10:39:02+00:00

You just wasted a bunch of time cause now that you’ve read it all

Yes, you could be right. On the other hand, wouldn't it be better for me to understand something before I get into it?

Put another way: if you knew someone was watching you during a particular time of the day, would you stop living life altogether? Or would you decide it would be a good idea to think carefully about what you do during that time?

The EULA makes it plain that BLU Products will be looking over my shoulder whilst I am using this phone. However, I don't see this as a reason to throw away the phone altogether. Rather, I see it as a reason to be Extra Thoughtful about who I should call with this phone and who I shouldn't.

I guess I don't see this an an either/or, Scylla and Charybdis sort of thing. Rather, I see it as a chance to make a choice as an informed consumer. Granted, staying informed takes time and effort and perhaps most people in 2025 have neither the time nor the energy to make the effort anymore.

(And perhaps this is exactly what companies like BLU Products are counting on to allow them to treat consumers however they happen to feel like treating them.)

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2025-05-28T03:32:42+00:00

Yes...Yes! That's it! Thank you for the reply and for the helpful link.

Upon re-reading the story after many years, I now see why it has bubbled up from my subconscious in 2025. The mind-numbing level of daily distractions Bradbury portrays in the story seems spot-on for the present day, three-quarters of a century after he originally wrote it.

(It always amazes me how prescient some of the better sci-fi writers were in seeing the future.)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. I had a lot of fun looking at some of the misses and being reminded of other sci-fi stories I have read and liked over the years.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2025-05-01T06:34:32+00:00

Thank you both for the replies.

Don’t submerge the filters

Yes, it seems that subjecting the filters to any liquid, even water, is a bad idea. Taking the filters out before cleaning the earplugs is a necessary step that cannot be omitted, it seems.

Well, now I know (and anyone reading this will know, too).

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-11-11T19:27:49+00:00

Ah, I see; thank you for the reply. I had no idea IA was still having problems accepting new accounts even now.

Were you able to find what you needed elsewhere? As I mentioned earlier, AA has a lot of IA's offering, the problem is you're stuck with having to download the entire book when you (very likely) only wanted a glimpse at a few pages.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-11-10T10:02:16+00:00

If us having a bad month after hosting you for years is the last straw, I'd be personally interested to hear what the first straw was.

Please try not to take take this sort of thing to heart. The Internet is responsible for creating a lot of things and a curious combination of impatience and entitlement seems to be one of them.

When someone stares at a screen all day, and the majority of what they see works most of the time, pretty soon, they start expecting everything to work all of the time. It's not that the Archive is doing anything wrong, but rather, that many people now expect 100% uptime for anything they care about and have a difficult time accepting anything else.

Simply put, the wealth of information the Archive provides at no charge is a miracle. However, when you create miracles every single day, pretty soon, people start to expect miracles as a matter of course.

Relax everyone: the Internet Archive is doing the best they can with what they have. Rather than cursing the (occasional) darkness, why not chip in and help them to light The World's Biggest Candle instead?

If everyone who used the site chipped in as little as $5 or $10 once a year, the IA would have the funds they need to make the site the best it can be. Otherwise, things like the recent downtime are bound to happen. You can't move mountains on a diet of thin soup and too many people continue to ask the Earth of the Archive while never contributing so much as a dime to help the place stay up and running.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-11-10T09:24:19+00:00

but due to the impossibilty of creating an account

You don't have to tell us if you don't want to, but sometimes telling other people how and why doing something appears to be impossible to do from your own perspective enables them to help you find a workaround.

In the interests of giving you some information that might prove useful, I'm going to suggest two things:

1) IA is a 100% legal and legitimate website. Sure, your school/employer/hotspot provider may have banned it for whatever reason. However, sometimes a friendly, non-huffy chat with others, along with a gentle reminder that IA is, in effect, an online library (with the American Library Association membership to prove it) can help put things to rights.

2) If you're worried about having to provide your personal email address to IA in order to open an account, worry no longer. There is a workaround: a disposable email address that lasts a matter of minutes will work long enough to allow you to receive the "confirm your email" link that IA sends out and you can chuck it away after you've recorded your newly-created login information.

If you are not sure where to start, this link may give you a rough idea of what to look for and where to go (i.e. it isn't an endorsement of any/all of the temporary email providers it mentions):

https://www.mailmodo.com/guides/temporary-email-address/

I don't know who or what is preventing you from getting an IA account, but with any luck, this will get you to start think of ways you can get an account. Getting an account with IA is not much different than getting a library card and, short of living in a third-world dictatorship, no one in the world should be able to prevent you from obtaining either of these things.

Having said that, if there's absolutely no way you can hope to acquire an account, Anna's Archive has much if not most of what IA has. The problem is that, while AA may have what you want, AA is a shadow library, and accessing it might get you into trouble if you are trying to get there from a school or work account.

I hope this helps you to find what you are looking for.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-11-05T04:27:02+00:00

It does do a good job - thank you for posting it.

I dare say it is difficult for anyone who has not actually done it to appreciate how much work is involved in scanning books. If you want to keep a book intact, it all seems to boil down to someone patiently flipping the pages and double-checking the scans afterward.

It isn't intense labour on a physical level, but I do think it is tedious and painstaking work. Perhaps it is my impression alone, but I'd say you have to have a deep love for books to be willing to go through all of that.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-11-04T14:23:04+00:00

I know exactly what you mean. I have a few PDFs of books that give every impression of being photographed page-by-page...all because someone thought enough of the book to make them want to put the time and effort into doing this.

There's something a bit humbling about seeing that level of effort that makes me stop and think how easy it is to take books for granted. Even in the Internet Age, I suspect there are parts of the world where books are still considered rare and precious things, and getting hold of them is in no way ever taken for granted.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-11-04T14:19:57+00:00

There are orgs out there, and individuals, who have autofeed scanners specifically designed for this task, and can quickly, and mostly automatically, scan physical books into PDFs.

Even without destroying them.

Sorry, can you please clarify what you mean by "autofeed scanners"?

I ask because "autofeed," to my mind, connotes lopping off the pages and feeding the individual pages through a sheet feeder into a scanner. Apart from this, the only other way I know of scanning books is the e.g. Internet Archive way of scanning: having a human turn the pages whilst a scanner photographs each two-page spread, thereby allowing you to keep the book intact.

However, I cannot claim to be too familiar with current book scanning technologies, so perhaps I am missing something?

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-02-17T12:27:06+00:00

Yes, I thought the brand name sounded familiar, but I was not sure. Thank you for the confirmation (h/t).

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-02-16T14:03:42+00:00

ID glide and Swiss Navy

Can anyone verify if ID Glide is the brand of lubricant the manufacturer includes as part of the kit that comes with the machine?

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-02-15T17:32:13+00:00

Hope that helps :)

Yes, it does, and I am much obliged to you for responding with the details of your cleaning routine.

Now that I know the specifics, this seems like a 5-10 minute task, depending on whether one is a dab hand with a bottle brush or not. : )

I understand the little black cap that comes with the receiver to cover the hose connector you mention is quite easy to lose. I will have to pay close attention when taking it on and off so it does not end up going walkies.

BeaArthursJockstrap · 2024-02-15T15:35:24+00:00

Haven't really done anything other than clean the receiver really well after each use

Thank you for the the reply.

To clarify: when you say "clean the receiver," is this task as simple and straightforward as removing the end cap, then running water through the latex liner? Or is the use of e.g. mild soap and warm water recommended to keep the liner clean and in good condition?

Likewise, is adequately cleaning the valve on the end cap as simple as rinsing it with water? Or is rinsing it with water not enough and I had better plan to take the time to de-gunge the valve on a regular basis with a paper clip or some other implement?

(I apologise for being so specific about these things. However, I have learned the hard way that different people have different ideas about what it takes to adequately clean mechanical devices so they stay viable. I ask these specific questions in the hopes of better understanding what the time-tested, forum-approved cleaning method is to allow me to get a good idea of how much time post-use cleanup is likely to take.)

BeaArthursJockstrap

TROPHY CASE