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Paul Rowe

@armchair-caver.bsky.social
67 followers 45 following 41 posts

Cultural heritage / collection management software / data access / occasionally seen caving. CEO, Vernon Systems.

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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
#NationalGallery, London ... but only the #cats
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works trapped due to political despair! I beseech you to send ye mighty bank details to share ten percent of this bounty. 💰
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
I wanted to try making something from a material I hadn't worked with before, so I built a very tiny castle out of balsa wood. Lego figure for scale (or possibly a giant in that universe). 🏰 #miniature
Miniature balsa wood castle
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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university
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Joshua TJ Ng 🐘@joshuatj@digipres.club 🐘 @joshuatj.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Example: Bestselling NZ book banned in the US. [Paraphrased] Don't read the book if you don't like it. Not ban it. #LIANZA2025
newsroom.co.nz
Teacher sacked in culture wars fracas
"We are ready to have our day in court", says a teacher sacked for reading a fun Kiwi book
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Joshua TJ Ng 🐘@joshuatj@digipres.club 🐘 @joshuatj.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Generative AI - Ethical use of mātauranga. Mātauranga Māori is taonga. Highlights (mine): 1. Check with Māori rep from ethics committee 2. Don't use prompt to generate mātauranga Māori 3. Never use or generate tapu data 4. AI use must be acknowledged #GenAI #DataIsTaonga #LIANZA2025
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it
theatlantic.com
AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event
Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Need to create an AI policy for your organisation for the first time? The Arts Council England has put together an excellent resource kit to help organisations build an AI policy that matches their purpose and culture. www.artscouncil.org.uk/lets-create/...
artscouncil.org.uk
Responsible AI Practical Toolkit
Resources to help creative and cultural organisations create Responsible AI policies and practices.
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Jeremy Huggett @blkheathhopper.introspectivedigitalarchaeology.com · 29/07/2025
Particularly struck by "... a museum needs to do more than just show you old things, or try to transport you to a past era. It should jar you into the realization that you exist in time, and see your present (and ideally, your future) with fresh eyes." @almostarch.bsky.social
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mia ridge @miaout.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
People want good AI, not climate-wrecking, prejudice-enforcing, job-destroying AI. But tech, govt isn't listening? ACE staffer quoted by Oonagh Murphy: 'The worst thing we can do about AI is ignore it; the second is embrace it too gleefully'
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Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
something I've learned by covering online archives and libraries is that many valuable, free, online resources are maintained by extremely small teams, maybe one volunteer. Asking them to deal with scrapers that behave like DDoS attacks is unrealistic www.404media.co/ai-scraping-...
404media.co
AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums
"This is a moment where that community feels collectively under threat and isn't sure what the process is for solving the problem.”
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Are AI Bots knocking cultural heritage offline? Our business hosts cultural heritage collection sites for hundreds of organisations and we were one of the respondents submitting feedback and stats for this study: www.glamelab.org/products/are...
glamelab.org
Are AI Bots Knocking Cultural Heritage Offline?
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Jooli-AHH! Boolia 👻🍂🎃 @jooliaghoulia.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
The perfect bird feeder doesn't exi--
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
As a recreational caver, I'm always grateful for the land access many landowners give us. We're privileged to see caves rarely visited, often with amazing mineral formations. The gypsum and aragonite crystals we saw this month in a cave in Waitomo, New Zealand were particularly good.
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Catherine Fletcher @catherinefletcher.info · 21/05/2025
Using big LLMs for basic queries is 'like turning on stadium floodlights to look for your keys' - this is good on the AI environmental questions.
ft.com
We still don’t know how much energy AI consumes
Companies must give us the chance to understand the environmental impact of the tech we use
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suse anderson @shineslike.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
What’s happening now? Tracking the political actions affecting cultural institutions | May 14, 2025 Over the last several months, the attacks on cultural institutions have been relentless. I’ve been tracking political actions affecting museums and other linked institutions on a public document for…
museumgeek.xyz
What’s happening now? Tracking the political actions affecting cultural institutions | May 14, 2025
Over the last several months, the attacks on cultural institutions have been relentless. I’ve been tracking political actions affecting museums and other linked institutions on a public document for a few weeks, but that action feels too little for the scale of assault on our institutions so I’m going to dust off the ol’ blog to try to connect the dots about what’s been happening.
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Julie Anne Genter @julieannegenter.greens.org.nz · 13/05/2025
Every time the PM says his Govt is going to make pay equity “more affordable” he is just saying they want to keep underpaying the people whose work has been undervalued due to gender discrimination. #nzpol
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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 12/05/2025
Some sad confirmation from @bcgl.bsky.social while I was at UW last week—the National Digital Newspaper Program—which builds Chronicling America—has been shut down Historical newspapers are probably the archival material most used by the general public—for genealogy, local history—it’s such a loss
loc.gov
About this Collection | Chronicling America | Digital Collections | Library of Congress
Search America's Historic Newspaper Pages through 1963 Please Note: The Library of Congress has transitioned the longstanding Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers website to this new digi...
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Rob Cawston @cawston.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
A thoughtful and insightful breakdown of how legal education should respond to AI 🤖
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NDF NZ @ndfnz.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
"We are now in an AI-age." Adrian Kingston encourages us to think about our role about making AI better. Can we help reduce the bias in big-AI, and improve the quality? GLAM has a role not just in consuming AI but also informing AI. #NDF25
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Joshua TJ Ng 🐘@joshuatj@digipres.club 🐘 @joshuatj.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Adrian, Te Papa, Head of Digital Channels. Prototype using custom GPT. Also experimented with small safe collection to auto-generate descriptions. Prototype using Audience Impact Model. Internal AI 101 for staff. Draft AI policy - addresses opportunities and stick to org principles. #NDF25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
The average lifespan of a web page is 100 days, and the average lifespan of a website is only 2.7 years. Online content is often at greater risk than older analogue content. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Puke Ariki have begun creating 3D models of some collection objects using Sketchfab. These are then embedded in their online collection pages. #ndf25 collection.pukeariki.com/highlights/3...
collection.pukeariki.com
3D Models
Explore some of our 3D models created from collection objects using meticulous photography and photogrammetry processing.
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Joshua TJ Ng 🐘@joshuatj@digipres.club 🐘 @joshuatj.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
THIS. Digitisation and #DigitalPreservation is a process, not just an event. #NDF25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Dave Patten on QR code use at the Science Museum. 500k QR code scans at the entrance (ticketing), but only 2k views of more detailed info pages. Also awareness of QR code fraud - directing visitors to wrong site, incl. fraudulent ticket sale sites. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Science Museum built an interface in the 1990s for visitors to save content they created during their visitor. However, it pre-dated email logins, so they had to create a memorable instant login for each visitor using a combo of visit date, and randomly assigned colour and icon codes. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Dave Patten talking about the development of The Network teleconferencing exhibit at Science Museum. Built on Apple's QuickTime teleconference software, but Apple canned it just before release, forcing the museum to run their exhibit for years on the beta development version. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Cade Diehm describing web information outages, like the Internet Archive this year, as "the real, reaching in and giving these systems amnesia". #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Cade Diehm - there's no such thing as an inert digital object. Every layer in storing and accessing it requires maintenance by people to keep them running. Electrical systems, software, protocols, hardware, and more #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Kā Huru Manu - amazing project to create a rich, interactive atlas of Māori places in Te Waipounamu / South Island. #ndfnz kahurumanu.co.nz
kahurumanu.co.nz
Cultural Mapping Project
Kā Huru Manu, The Ngāi Tahu Cultural Mapping Project, is dedicated to mapping the traditional place names and associated stories within the Ngāi Tahu rohe (tribal area).
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
For home collections, I'm advocating for children being promoted up to be one of the 10 agents of deterioration. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Auckland Museum created a video series to help people at home to follow museum-grade care processes to look after their own precious 'KeepSakes' #ndf25 The videos are easy to follow and would be a good resource for small volunteer run collections as well. www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/car...
aucklandmuseum.com
Keepsafes
Want to know how to take care of your precious items at home? Our Collection Care team have put together helpful tips and tricks to make sure your treasures stand the test of time.
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
A good prototype raises many questions, not just answers - Ana Tiquia. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Seeder Future project from Ana Tiquia made use of BitTorrent architecture to share and provide access to 1600 artworks from Art Gallery of WA's state collection. Opening up access to high res public domain images. #ndf25 alltomorrowsfutures.com/PROJECT-A-Se...
alltomorrowsfutures.com
PROJECT A: Seeder Futures — All Tomorrow's Futures
A What might a state art collection look like, if truly owned by The People? Seeder Futures Ana Tiquia, Seeder Futures, 2023, shared...
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Kickstarting digitisation at a small organisation: Biggest challenge is getting people on board, following new processes, and accepting change. People with experience need to work side-by-side with those learning for an extended time. - Andrew Hales and Heidi Schlumpf, Digihub project.
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Alexander Turnball Library - Survey in 2021 - 85% of people surveyed preferred to use online digital resources to coming in-person to access the original resources. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Who's older - Gary Newman or Gary Oldman? #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Looking forward to speaking at New Zealand's National Digital Forum conference in Wellington next week. #ndf25
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Generative AI: the ideal case - you're an expert & you can easily review the AI response, like a teacher reviewing & correcting students' essays. Unfortunately, the opposite scenario is typical. AI is a substitute teacher paraphrasing whatever is on hand. We don't know enough to spot what's false.
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Paul Rowe @armchair-caver.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
The Global Risk Advisory Council has voted reputation risk from misuse of AI as the #1 business risk for the next year. With great power comes great (or no) responsibility. #musetech #ai static1.squarespace.com/static/60b54...
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