Jumping Dog "Tink" or Jumping Black Lab is a series of memes that use a photo of a black lab named Tink jumping in the air and facing the camera. The photo was uploaded by the dog's owner, X user @kwoade, in June 2025 and went viral. It inspired a variety of reposts and edits over the following months, which take the dog and place her in new settings. Some of the most popular memes place the dog on video game covers.
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Smiles and Tears at the end of Earthbound is always the emotional book-end to that story, but I think my vote for best sound track ever goes to The Legend of Zelda, the Windwaker. I could listen to Dragon Roost Island for hours,
Soundtrack Sunday
Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering their thoughts or asking for yours!
I am, what scientists and scholars might call, a big fat crybaby. I'll cry at just about anything if you pair it with a mildly sad-sounding violin. Hell, even then I might not need that much convincing. Being moved by just about anything in life is an incredibly blursed lifestyle.
Nothing quite gets me bawling like a good videogame, though. Crying alongside protagonists, crying for them. Sobbing for side characters, nameless NPCs, maybe even a creature minding its own business before being mercilessly mowed down by me/an enemy/some omnipotent god. Heck, I'll even cry out of pure joy or excitement for something that's about to happen. And almost every single time, it's thanks to the music that accompanies those moments.
I'll never forget the first time I played Final Fantasy 10 and witnessed Tidus and Yuna's scene in Lake Macalania together in all its genuinely mind-blowing 2001 CGI glory. The water reflecting off their faces while Yuna weeps before the first notes of Suteki Da Ne start to trickle in. The delicate vocals of Rikki as the two kiss, descending under the water while holding each other. I remember watching with the biggest, cheesiest smile on my face as tears cascaded down my cheeks. It's downright beautiful, and the music is half of what makes that scene so powerful.
(Okay, I had to go and watch it again. And did I cry? Maybe just a tiny bit. It still gets me, alright?!)
Of course, that's not the only time I've cried at a videogame. Kingdom Hearts' Dearly Beloved makes me shed a couple tears of nostalgia whenever I get the itch to boot the game back up. All the pent-up anticipation leading up to one particular trial (spoilers in that link!) in Final Fantasy 14's Endwalker expansion started leaking out of my tear ducts when its theme song started playing, partly I was practically vibrating with giddiness at that point.
(Image credit: Disney)
But what about you? Has a videogame song or soundtrack ever made you choke up, blubber, or full-on wail because all of the emotions were just too dang strong—come on, surely you have, don't leave me as the only one who's done this.
So which soundtracks cause you to get a lump in your throat when you hear them? Let us know in the comments and be sure to tell us why.
The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, sat down for a chat at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in South Korea earlier this month to talk about a wide range of topics, including AI in software development, his role within the software ecosystem, and the state of Linux today.
When asked whether he'd like to say anything about the most recent Linux Kernel release, 6.18 RC4, Torvalds seemed reluctant to espouse on the virtues of the update:
"No, so that's the current kernel version. I like boring, and boring to me is no super exciting new features that will break machines for millions of people around the world."
"6.18 does not seem to [have] problems. But we had a rash of test failures, and it turned out they were… actually failures of the tests, not of the kernel," Torvalds continued. "So I was a bit worried a couple of weeks ago, but it seems to be shaping up to be another incremental, and boring in the best possible way, release."
Certainly, there's a lot to be said for boring. And while Torvalds has been openly critical of other tech industry giants over the years, it's difficult not to look at these comments and think he might be gently referencing some of the missteps made by his competitors.
(Image credit: Future)
Microsoft and the Windows operating system spring to mind, for example. While "break[ing] machines for millions of people around the world" may be an overstatement, Microsoft's continual update cycle (along with its many feature pushes) has certainly caused issues for many, with the disastrous-for-some Windows 11 24H2 update being of particular note.
Not to mention the CrowdStrike bug, although that was caused by a third-party security update gone horribly wrong, not MS itself—although it did knock over many vital Windows machines the world over in the process. The "move fast and break stuff" tech industry mentality has certainly led to many public failures over the years for a variety of companies, while in Linux land, things seem to move at a more sedate pace—although it's far from perfect, as our Jacob found on a recent work trip.
Not that Torvalds seems keen to take too much credit for recent updates: "What I do have to say, and I tend to repeat this because it's important, is… I don't do any of the real work."
"For the last almost 20 years, I've not been a programmer. I've been a technical lead and maintainer of the system, and that's true both of Linux and even more so of Git, where I really just look at it from the side.
"So I want to just remind people that all the real work is done by other people, maybe some of the people in the audience. So people sometimes give me too much credit for being around."
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If you've ever had a burning urge to make a fellow human being miserable, GameStop's latest promotional idea seems perfectly designed to accommodate such antisocial ambition. It's "Trade Anything Day," an obviously bad idea cooked up by the disconnected braintrust at head office, during which customers will be able to trade in (almost) anything for in-store credit.
GameStop is famous for its trade-in program, of course, but historically it's been limited to games: buy one, take it home, finish it, bring it back, trade it in for a tiny bit of store credit, and perpetuate the cycle. The rise of digital distribution has put a fork into it (and GameStop) but there was a time when it was a very big part of the biz, even for PC gamers: I bought plenty of pre-owned games back in the days when driving to the mall was an integral part of the 'buying a game' experience.
This promotion is an absurd, one-day revival of those glory days: On December 6, you can bring in any old piece of crap and trade it as though it were a videogame you played but did not enjoy enough to form any attachments to.
As noted by documentation shared on Reddit (because I don't see the promised "more information" on the GameStop website), customers are limited to one item traded in, for which they will get $5 store credit, and they won't take things like hazardous waste, drugs, booze, guns, and animals, dead or alive, unless they've been properly stuffed and mounted. Not joking about that.
As you'd expect if you've spent any time at all in retail, GameStop employees are absolutely dreading this day. "I'm not prepared for the 'bring anything to trade' day," one employee wrote on the GameStop subreddit (via Polygon). "I just know I'm going to have to handle some nasty shit. And not only that, we're probably going to have to reject some of the things because they're a biological hazard.
"I'm gonna have so many customers asking me 'HoW cOmE yOu CaN’t TaKe iT iN' cause we can't bro? Please for the love of every single GameStop employee READ THE GUIDELINES. I may be over-exaggerating it, but I have a feeling it'll be a bad day in general."
I was a long-term retail employee myself, in a business not entirely unlike GameStop, and I can assure you of this: You are absolutely not exaggerating it.
"Hi all, former ASM [assistant store manager] and I just heard about Trade Anything Day," another wrote in a different thread. "My heart aches and I have anxiety for all of you still there. I knew corporate was dangerously incompetent but didn't know they actively hated their employees."
This guy's video might seem over the top, but again, as someone who worked in retail long enough to encounter more than a few district managers, all I can say is that it sounds about right.
A few people, like that unnamed GameStop DM, have pointed out that the list of disallowed items is quite clear, and so wonder what the concern is.
"Are you new to people?" redditor Trashboat77 asked in response to one such statement. "They don't even read 4-12 word signs on the door as they walk through it. Why would they read an entire list with small print?"
December 6, in short, has the potential to be a Very Bad Day for GameStop employees, and it's important first and foremost that anyone looking to trade in Uncle Frank's ashes for a fiver keeps one thing in mind: It's not their fault. They didn't dream up this dumbass idea and they don't like it, and they sure don't deserve any "you asked for it" kind of guffola. "Don't be shitty with retail employees" should be SOP anyway, but especially on days where their companies really put them on the firing line, try to keep it in mind.
Beyond just "treat people with basic respect," though, there's an opportunity to actually get something good out of this. The doc shared on Reddit says "suitable items traded will be donated to a local charity," and one poster in the GameStop subreddit said they're encouraging customers "to bring non perishable canned foods and such or toys since they all get donated to local charities."
"Buy a $.70 can of soup trade it for $5 credit and help needy families get food this holiday," MegaMan8115 wrote. "I'm always down for that."
As less-than-thrilled as I am about GameStop getting a big ol' tax writeoff on a stupid, self-serving stunt (and that's what programs like this are really about: MegaMan8115 said the SKU for the $5 credit will be treated as a charitable donation), this is a great idea. You could just donate directly to your local food bank and be done with it, but if you really want to be a part of the circus on Trade Anything day (or you just really want that five bucks), this is the way: Have some fun, do a little good, and remind GameStop employees (who probably need it) that sometimes, the world is not a bottomless pit of malice and despair.
🚨 ONLY ONE DAY LEFT! Kickstarter ends tomorrow, and with it your chance to get Volume 1 and Volume 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library! Link is right here. (Plus a bonus comic book: Trump You!)
Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this world! — Read the rest
Raccoons that live in close proximity to humans are developing shorter, cuter snouts and appear to be self-domesticating.
Early humans likely saw dogs as helpful companions and domesticated them. Cats, on the other hand, self-domesticated to feed on the mice and rats that are plentiful around human settlements. — Read the rest
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Congressman Jamie Raskin accused the Trump administration of shutting down an active criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking co-conspirators.
According to the letter, first obtained by CBS News, the Southern District of New York ran an ongoing probe until January 2025, when prosecutors were ordered to transfer all investigative files to DOJ headquarters in Washington. — Read the rest
Go figure, the feature no one wanted can potentially install malware on your behalf. Thanks, Microsoft.
Windows 11 comes with an "agentic AI" feature, which is to say a built-in chatbot that can make changes. Microsoft warns that it might install malware on your PC: "Only enable this feature if you understand the security implications."
Microsoft has issued an important warning about its upcoming agentic AI capabilities that are coming soon to Windows 11.
I have the baseless headcanon that Mary Poppins is Maleficent.
Maleficent reforms sometime in the fourteenth century, greatly reduced. She wanders the countryside in the shape of a harridan, another bogeyman to warn children of.
The peasantry - who remember Maleficent as the fey who inexplicably sent her minions to inspect every cradle in the kingdom - think that she is another of these goblins.
They call her La Mauvaise Paysanne.
***
She arrives in England in the eighteenth century on the back of a fairy tale.
Fairies take the shape of the stories told about them. The myth has changed, and so has she. She takes the shape of an enchantress, the punisher of naughty children, the rewarder of the good.
The English people call her the Merry Peasant.
***
By the nineteenth century, the edges of her myth have been sanded off entirely. She’s known as a fairy godmother who blesses good children.
She doesn’t mind this, but when she gets the chance to reshape her wand, she gives it a crow’s head in memory of her old familiar.
They’ve started calling her Mary Pauper.
***
By the twentieth century, Mary Poppins is more powerful than she’s been in centuries.
She’s also changed completely. She understands this to her core, and mostly she’s fine with it.
She misses it every now and then, of course. The palace, the minions, the mistress of all evil. She sniffs and says these are are ridiculous thoughts, but she thinks them nevertheless.
This is partly why she enjoys being a nanny. It’s a good compromise. She can be strict but fair with her charges, and every now and then she meets a particularly incorrigible parent who she can curse into oblivion.
the post means what it means. it doesn’t mean come to the largest city in the country with a police force that is extremely, extremely violent and as well equipped as most normal countries militaries or come to a state with a coastline. that is, in fact, probably the riskiest thing you could possibly do.
do not come to the united states. there is nothing here worth dying or being sent to a slave penal colony for.
We need one of those old fashioned tourism posters for the US with “There is nothing here worth dying or being sent to a slave penal colony for” as the tagline
History clearly shows that when hemp is targeted, so is THC producing cannabis. I remember republican congressjerks trying to take credit for cannabis being legal in so many states, but once again we see their true colors.
The Senate has criminalized an industry that it legalized seven years ago. Buried in last week's government funding bill was language that will shut down America's $2.8 billion hemp market and eliminate over 300,000 jobs.
A quirk in the 2018 Farm Bill allowed manufacturers to create psychoactive gummies and drinks while staying technically legal. — Read the rest
I enjoy coin collecting on a limited basis, and the US 1 Cent Piece (the penny is a British coin, the US mint has never made a "penny")was always a cost effective way to create a collection.
The last penny rolled off the press at 3:47 PM yesterday at the US Mint in Philadelphia, watched by US Treasurer Brandon Beach and a handful of mint workers. After 238 years, the one-cent coin officially died of economic inefficiency — it cost nearly four cents to make each penny. — Read the rest
The White House just released its list of 37 donors funding Trump's $300 million ballroom addition, and it reads like a who's who of corporate America trying to stay on the president's good side.
AP reports that tech giants dominate the roster — Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft — each ponying up undisclosed amounts after years of regulatory battles. — Read the rest
BRAND NEW KICKSTARTER! Pre-order Volume 1 and Volume 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library right here. Limited time. Plus a bonus comic book: Trump You!
Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this world: JOIN THE INNER HIVE! — Read the rest
The Dutch government has filed a protest with the US ambassador after plaques honoring black soldiers were removed from an American cemetery in that nation, calling it “indecent and unacceptable.”
‘Unacceptable’: Leaders demand permanent memorial for Black WWII soldiers after plaques removed
174 of the 8,200 U.S. soldiers who are buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery are Black.
Nearly one million African American soldiers fought in Europe during World War II. Now, plaques at a memorial site honoring the sacrifice of African American soldiers in the Netherlands have been removed at the only U.S. cemetery in the country.
According to NRC, the two panels celebrating the “Black Liberators” of the Netherlands from Nazi rule were removed from display “earlier this summer” without an exact reason given as to why.
More than 8,200 U.S. soldiers are buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. One hundred seventy-four of those troops were African Americans. Lawmakers in the Netherlands have called for either a temporary replacement of the plaques or a permanent monument to be erected in honor of the Black soldiers who helped build the cemetery, calling their removal “indecent” and “unacceptable.”
One of the panels at the memorial site celebrated the Black soldiers’ fight on two fronts: against Germany and racism in the U.S. military. The military was desegregated in 1948.
“Initially, that exhibition paid no attention to African-American soldiers whatsoever,” Kees Ribbens, a senior researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and endowed professor of popular historical culture of global conflicts and mass violence at Erasmus University Rotterdam, said. Ribbens says he was “shocked” to learn that the plaques commemorating the soldiers had been removed and offered an opinion as to why it happened.
“It aligns with the Trump administration’s policy,” he said.
I usually keep it tuned to whatever Alt/Classic Rock station is available, but Vladivostok FM was pretty great in GTA4 before a bunch of music licenses expired, and sometimes the talk radio station is entertaining.
Soundtrack Sunday
Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering their thoughts or asking for yours!
Ah, licensed music in videogames. An embarrassingly big contributor to my music taste over the years, highly favoured among the sports sims, episodic videogames, and open world free roam ditties à la Sleeping Dogs and Grand Theft Auto.
The latter is where I've ingested all kinds of music over the years, broadening my tastes to genres I never thought I would have bothered listening to. As a raging emo in the 2000s, the Grand Theft Auto games were my gateway to stuff I never would have listened to otherwise like hip-hop, country, and house.
That's thanks to the myriad of fictional radio stations that Rockstar has crafted over the years—it started introducing a large chunk of licensed music to its radio stations in Vice City—with carefully curated playlists that do so much for each game's worldbuilding and general vibes. Nothing beats cruising down roads in Vice City while '80s bangers like Out of Touch by Hall & Oates play, or diving into San Andreas' excellent East Coast hip-hop library with Biz Markie and Public Enemy.
(Image credit: Rockstar)
If you're anything like me, some radio stations will have stuck with you more than others. Country music is perhaps the very last genre I would voluntarily listen to in my day-to-day life, but I have so many fond memories of blasting K-Rose while playing San Andreas. It's my go-to radio station every time I boot that game up.
There's something about host Mary-Beth Maybell sharing far too many details about her life ("you ever stick your entire arm up a cow?") before going into the likes of All my Ex's Live in Texas, a song that regularly worms its way into my brain for days on end despite never listening to it outside the confines of the game.
Josh's favourite: K-DST
(Image credit: Future)
Mine is probably K-DST in San Andreas, which is the only reason I'm familiar with a whole bunch of classic rock.
Maybe it's recency bias though, but by far my favourite station has to be Grand Theft Auto 5's Non-Stop Pop FM. It's hosted by Cara Delevingne with the kind of weirdly pleasant wooden performance I'd expect from the British model—though she certainly calls me out with the line "This is the home for all the music you used to pretend not to like back when you were trying to be cool. You weren't cool."
The station is stuffed with pop bangers over three decades—Amerie's 1 Thing, Britney Spears' Gimme More, Lorde's Tennis Court—and one of my fondest memories of Grand Theft Auto Online comes from a late-night lockdown heist where I uttered the words to my partner-in-crime: "I hope to God they play Backstreet Boys," before flicking the radio on to I Want It That Way. It was the perfect post-diamond heist soundtrack as we drove back to base, most definitely annoying our real-life neighbours with our 3am warbling.
But with dozens of radio stations to choose from, am I right in crowning Non-Stop Pop FM as the reigning champion of the virtual airwaves, or have I blatantly missed far more iconic transmissions I should be tuning into instead?
Be sure to comment your favourite GTA radio station below, and let us know why it's the best of the best.
Republicans promised to run the country like a business, and they've run it into the ground. With the government shutdown stretching past a month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the skies may soon be closed for business. Air traffic controllers are still working without pay, SNAP benefits are expiring, and millions of Americans are about to spend Thanksgiving grounded and hungry. — Read the rest
Greetings from your friendly neighborhood National Park Service worker.
The government wants you to think a shutdown is no big deal. It’s is. They want things to keep running in the meantime. They will- but not safely and not paid. Because not everyone is necessarily aware what a shutdown means for Gov workers, this is how it works…
Employees fall into one of the following three categories:
Excepted: Unpaid, required to work (those needed to protect life and property).
Exempted: Paid, required to work (those funded by non-lapsed sources)
Furloughed: Unpaid, employees that are neither excepted nor exempted. These employees have been ordered to “expeditiously complete orderly shutdown activities” then head home. This may be a few minutes for some employees or a few days depending on their job duties and what it takes to perform an “orderly shutdown” of their activities.
Who is furloughed? Legit everyone but “safety” workers. So fees, maintenance, timekeepers, facilities, everybody. And no, those thousands of people will not be paid for whatever amount of time they aren’t working.
Who is Exempted? In my neck of the woods (pun intended) it’s law enforcement, fire, ems, search and rescue and dispatchers. Hey that sounds like a lot? Guess what - almost all of the law enforcement in the park are simultaneously EMS, search and rescue and the Fire department. One person, four jobs. That’s the way… It always is by the way, which is HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC (but that’s a different rant). We will keep doing those four jobs, unpaid and unsupported. When will we get paid for our work?- who knows. You may ask yourself - why do we have to keep working when everything is shutdown? Because they’re not closing the national parks. Yeah. So people are going to keep coming, keep using the bathrooms that won’t be cleaned, keep using the roads that won’t be maintained safely, keep getting hurt and in trouble.
Right now, there is a massive rollover DUI car accident on one side of the park and someone just got gored by an animal on the other side of the park. So all of us (the three people on shift at the moment) will be figuring out which one to heading out to. We have to choose. And it’s going to be extremely dangerous when we do get on scene because those “non-essential workers” that were furloughed? -Those are the people we count on daily to go above and beyond their own normal duties and help.
Those are the people who manage traffic around the accident for us so we don’t get hit. Those are the people that get extra resources for us (lights for night time, blankets, Gatorade if it’s a long extraction on scene). Those are the people that make sure we get paid for being called out in the middle of the night, the people that make sure all the protocols are being followed so everyone is safe, the victim advocates that talk to the families, they are the essential hands needed because- if you haven’t all forgotten- they already gutted our limping agency staff by like 30%.
What can you do?
The usual things you see - pester your local and government officials. Pester your money makers though even more - the businesses that give money to your local officials. But more immediately? Please do not come here. Please do not further burden the system. Tell other people not to come. Don’t let the government think we can make it work still- we can’t. Do not make us have to function as if things were okay, because they are really really not.
Greetings from Week Five of the shutdown.
What’s new?
Well, for a small group of us first responders, the government has now ordered that we be paid… from our park’s admission fee money fund. The admission fee money fund that is supposed to go directly towards improving the park – fixing roads, cleaning and fixing facilities, visitor experience stuff. The admission fee money fund that’s supposed to cover those improvements for the entire year… Is now being used to pay us. So guess what happens when that runs out? A.) no more pay, B.) no improving the park.
But the parks are still open? So wouldn’t the fees of people still coming in cover part of that? No. Because we’re not allowed to collect fees during the shutdown. The parks are open, not gaining any revenue, burning through their reserves, and becoming significantly more unsafe and generally trashed and destroyed, by the day.
What does that look like?
Last week it was very icy and a tour bus of 50 people slid partially off the road, blocking a whole lane of traffic. This was on the MAIN ROAD, on a blind curve, only 10 miles into the park.
We only have one remaining, non-furloughed plow/sander driver. For reference, we normally have 4-5. He was 50 minutes away (and then the sander broke so he had to go back to the garage for a bit to try and fix it.) The one remaining tow truck driver was almost 90 minutes away. There was only me and my coworker on shift to deal with traffic and we couldn’t direct people around the accident because the road all around it was still icy because the sander hadn’t gotten there and someone was bound to slide off again. So we had to just keep traffic stopped. For almost a two hours, every single visitor to the park was in stopped traffic. About 10 miles worth of cars just sat, parked in the road. Hundreds and hundreds of people.
Some of them turned around to go back to the entrance, but an RV slid off the road going the other way, so now traffic was blocked in both directions. Which meant when the sander WAS fixed, it couldn’t get through the traffic. And because it was just me and my coworker, we didn’t have anybody who could leave the scene of the accident to go down and clear that traffic for the sander.
As I stood there in the cold (thankful that I had pulled my yaktrax out of storage soon enough to use them for the occasion because the road was SOLID ICE) people kept getting out of their cars, coming up to me, and complaining. I’m not allowed to give political opinions at work, but I was able to provide them facts:
Fact: We only have one plow truck driver, because everyone else has been furloughed. If we had our normal amount, all the roads would be sanded and this probably wouldn’t have happened.
Fact: We only have two officers on right now. Usually, we can try to pull some people from other divisions to help with traffic- those people are also furloughed.
Fact: The reason you are in traffic right now is directly caused by the government shutdown.
The main thing I want to communicate to the general public, though, comes from the repeated question I got “Well, if the roads were so dangerous why didn’t you just close the park?”
Ma’am?
Fact: The administration has forbidden us from closing National Parks.
We were ordered to “Continue operations and services as normal”… with at least 65% of our staff furloughed.
Fun epilogue to the story is that 2 hours in, just as the sander and tow truck finally arrived, another car went careening off the road about 30 miles from there, blocking traffic for both lanes. I left one scene and came to that one we discovered the drive was HURT, and needed an ambulance. My coworker and I are also the EMTs/ambulance drivers (and fire department and search and rescue and…) so we had to have our dispatch center start calling people at home to come in and help. (Their overtime won’t be paid until the government restarts by the way).
Five people came in on their day off and we managed to transport to the hospital, do the crash report, clear the road… and deal with SEVEN MORE slide offs in the following two hours.
What are the takeaways from all this complaining I’m doing:
Fact: 65% or more of National Park Service staff that are furloughed and have no income right now. They still have bills though, and some people are in significant trouble financially (because it’s not like they paid us much in the first place).
Fact: Coming to your national park right now is not only extremely dangerous for you, but also causing significant and irreparable damage to the park- to the actual natural resource, to our infrastructure, and to our facilities.
Fact: Parks were ordered to use the finances that we usually would put towards keeping up said facilities and infrastructure, to pay the people we are forcing to work right now. BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT HAS FORBIDDEN PARKS TO CLOSE THEIR DOORS AND SHUT THEIR GATES.
Please don’t come here. Please contact your local representative. Please spread the word
Because it looks like it’s going to be another busy day.
Internet Archive, a non-profit library dedicated to archived websites, music, books, apps, and all kinds of information on the internet, has been subjected to multiple lawsuits since its foundation in 1996. And one aimed at its library has reportedly had a major effect, according to what its founder told Ars Technica.
Internet Archive might be most well known for its website archiver, The Wayback Machine, but, in 2020, its Open Library was sued by four major book publishers. Effectively, the Open Library is a digital library, where the Internet Archive would 'loan' digital versions of physical books it owns, to emulate a library. These books would be lent at a 1-1 rate with what it owned. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it created the National Emergency Library in response to libraries shutting down, which removed its prior lending restrictions.
In June last year, Hatchet, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House won their suit against Internet Archive's Open Library, taking out 500,000 books from the library. The Internet Archive lost its appeal just a few months later, in September 2024.
"We survived… but it wiped out the library," Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told Ars, also noting, "the world became stupider" in the wake of this decision and they have some choice words for "massive multibillion-dollar media conglomerates" that have succeeded at making "sure that Wikipedia readers don't get access to books."
Kahle tells the Examiner, "One hundred years ago in the United States, the legislatures and judiciary were very pro-libraries. Now we have licensing issues. We have the corporations, we’ve got book bans, we’ve got defundings, we’ve got criminalization of librarianship. It’s a challenging time in the United States and actually in many countries around the world, as we’re going through some political swings."
Kahle also reveals to the Examiner the ways he works with and around AI. Public domain works are crawled by AI, but everything else archived is not, "because there's not regulatory clarity".
When asked what they may try to archive next, Kahle explains, "3D environments, games, the human experience. And the digital-built experience—how do we go and learn from that? Boy, we really don’t know."
A mummified dinosaur has given the most complete picture yet of dinosaur skin and, unexpectedly, hooves.
Two unfortunate duck-billed dinosaurs perished 66 million years ago in what is now Wyoming and were covered by a flash flood. Fast forward to 2025, and the two Edmontosaurus annectens have been transformed into mummies, enabling scientists to reconstruct the dinosaurs' skin, scales, crests, spikes, and hooves. — Read the rest
