R Macdonald

Founder, Television Archive @InternetArchive offering journalists, scholars, & engaged citizens intelligent & quotable access to news, in the public interest

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Passenger train collision in England leaves 1 dead, dozens injured, officials say https://t.co/PD1E9Ruq3P

[Internet Archive @internetarchive]

“People aren’t sure what’s true, and what libraries are here for is to help with that.”

Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive, discusses the future of the Wayback Machine in ABC Radio National (🇦🇺 Australia)’s “Wayback Machine: The internet’s archive in peril,” a look at how media companies are restricting the preservation of the web itself.

🎧 Listen ⤵️
https://t.co/SylhHctSsy

#ABCRN #WaybackMachine #InternetHistory #WebArchiving #SundayExtra @abcaustralia @abcnews @Brewster_Kahle

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Superb interview with all kinds of exceptional insights offered by David into Roblox organizational structures, innovations and strategies.
TLDR suggestions:
33:55 Nine Companies Inside
36:19 Safety and Monetization
1:02:32 Safety And AI Moat
1:25:35 Closing Reflections

[David Senra @davidsenra]

Roblox founder @DavidBaszucki bootstrapped his first company to a $20 million exit, then spent two years failing to find a CEO job before building Roblox in his early 40s — no revenue, no investors, pure vision. Today, Roblox has over 150 million daily users, 13 billion hours of monthly engagement, and a virtual economy worth over $40 billion.

Here’s our conversation:

0:00 Roblox Origin Story
1:14 Sabbatical and Intuition
3:36 Founder vs CEO Mindset
5:43 Building the Clock
7:57 Lifestyle Startup Phase
8:49 First Product Failure
15:48 Buying First Users
17:43 Studio Goes Live
18:53 Roblox vs YouTube
21:59 Beyond Games Vision
25:50 Roblox Operating System
33:55 Nine Companies Inside
36:19 Safety and Monetization
41:13 Robux Economy Loop
45:19 Creator to Entrepreneur
45:49 Chasing Photoreal Concurrency
49:11 Imaginary Competitor Mindset
50:08 Capital Efficiency Playbook
52:11 Performance As Growth
55:40 Owning The Stack
58:36 Roblox Infrastructure Engine
1:02:32 Safety And AI Moat
1:06:57 Data Ethics And NPC Testing
1:11:31 Creator Earnings Explosion
1:16:08 Marketplace And Transparency
1:20:01 Near Death Lessons
1:24:43 Ads And Creator Discovery
1:25:35 Closing Reflections

Includes paid partnerships.

[Internet Archive @internetarchive]

⏰ 12 HOURS TO GO 👀

When the new year begins, so does #PublicDomainDay2026.

At 12:00 a.m. ET, iconic books, films, and music move into the public domain—and we’ll be sharing highlights #here all night long.

🔔 Set your reminder ➡️ https://t.co/A45Kgxyhm4

[Jamie Joyce ⚡ @JustJamieJoyce]

One of my favorite projects helping the @InternetArchive launch Democracy's Library was initiating the Archive to become a federal depository library - which they were able to achieve this year.

Grateful for @kalevleetaru's work experimenting with Gemini to parse and reformat sample records (accessible via this new status) into machine-readable JSON records, with metadata extracted and structured.

Great work, Kalev. Keep going. 🔥 https://t.co/i0aKsicGHe

[👩‍💻 Paige Bailey @DynamicWebPaige]

"In collaboration with the @InternetArchive's TV News Archive we examined 14,749 evening news broadcasts spanning the big three networks from July 2010 to present, asking Gemini 2.5 Flash Thinking to make an index of the stories covered in each broadcast, along with analyzing each story's geography, sentiment, frame and narrative structure.

We used the standard off-the-shelf public Gemini 2.5 Flash Thinking @googleaistudio model without any modifications. No data was used to train, tune or otherwise contribute to any model: we used Gemini only to create an index of each broadcast.

We make use of Gemini's batch processing to analyze the entire 15 year archive totaling more than 116M tokens in a single batch.

It took just one command and just 39 minutes for Gemini 2.5 Flash Thinking to process the complete archive, yielding 154,739 distinct stories: an average of 10.5 stories per broadcast. Most incredibly of all: it cost just $153.80 to do all of this!"

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Superb @NikkeiAsia analysis leveraging @internetarchive @waybackmachine Plus, compelling graphics. Kudos to authors:
@kuno_nikkei, @hrfm_yamamoto, @_kenjiasada, Sotaro Sakai, @kt_awashima, Akira Ikeya, Ryosuke Hanafusa and Takashi Igarashi
https://t.co/Dtw5Ozzjer

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Superb @NikkeiAsia analysis leveraging @internetarchive @waybackmachine
Plus, simple & compelling graphic representations.

Kudos to team of authors
@kuno_nikkei, @hrfm_yamamoto, @_kenjiasada, Sotaro Sakai, @kt_awashima, Akira Ikeya, Ryosuke Hanafusa and Takashi Igarashi

[Nikkei Asia @NikkeiAsia]

Visual investigation: 1,000 US government webpages deleted https://t.co/h65xqHKcyM

[Steve Rosenberg @BBCSteveR]

“What wretched question have you prepared?” My surreal Q&A with Alexander Lukashenko last Sunday. He claimed his opponents had “chosen” prison or exile (in reality the authorities had chosen to target them.) Thanks @LizaShuvalova @AntonChicherov

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

I am proud to stand with @internetarchive 🏛️
and hope you will consider doing so too.

[Internet Archive @internetarchive]

We’re thrilled to announce that Aruba will receive the 2024 Internet Archive Hero Award! 🇦🇼 Join us in celebrating this island nation’s groundbreaking efforts in digital preservation & making cultural heritage accessible worldwide: https://t.co/8mZs1Wq1tN

Why Aruba? 🧵

[Internet Archive @internetarchive]

The Summer #Olympics are on! So let's revisit Epyx's 1984 "Summer Games" from our classic software collection! 🕹️ Preservation for the Gold! https://t.co/OnDsbqYWNd
#80s #8bit #RetroGaming #1980sGames #GamingNostalgia #Commodore64

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Superb analysis, including

[Internet Archive @internetarchive]

“If Congress had not statutorily protected first sale, would library lending be legal?” 🤔 That’s one of 3 key questions librarian & legal scholar Michelle Wu breaks down from the recent oral argument in Hachette v. Internet Archive ⬇️ https://t.co/AwjPQnn4VY

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Remarkable!

[Kate Crawford @katecrawford]

🎉 Launching online today:
"Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power since 1500."

Dive into our large-scale interactive visualization exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries. 🧵 https://t.co/Z6sfaCevDf

[CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 @CBSSunday]

Web pages typically last about 100 days before being changed or deleted. Since 1996, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has preserved nearly 900 billion pages, making them accessible to all. https://t.co/xO0BdtoyEv

[Matthew Green @matthew_d_green]

I wonder what terrible reason this person had in mind when they decided to wake up and make the whole world a little bit worse.

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

@internetarchive Such a wonderful staff bonding element of our online meetings, enjoying & supporting diverse musical artists!

One of my favorites, @TheScooches

https://t.co/fxUd8z4HVl

[Internet Archive @internetarchive]

Great example of how journalists & researchers use the TV News Archive ⤵️ #EmpoweringResearch

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

What are the biggest misconceptions about AI systems?

Tantum (Teddy) Collins addressing @DAlperovitch’s question
51m17s
https://t.co/feGMsuc19b

https://t.co/4weiXbjsLH

[R Macdonald @r_macdonald]

Consider attending DWeb Camp five-day (June 21-25) retreat for builders and dreamers to connect, learn, share, and have fun as we work towards building a better, decentralized web @internetarchive
https://t.co/65fMYRpky5

https://t.co/ufwqGJGUZC