Intelligence, AI, web systems, and local tech history. How things actually work, with the sources attached.
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McClatchy cut more than 90 journalists last week. I pulled the robots.txt files from seven newspaper sites, including the two I ran for thirteen years, and found four owners with four different answers to who gets in. Then I wrote down what I would do with those settings if the papers had them back.
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Intelligence, AI, web systems, digital strategy, and occasional opinions on how things actually work.
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Local News Needs More Ways InMcClatchy cut more than 90 journalists last week. I pulled the robots.txt files from seven newspaper sites, including the two I ran for thirteen years, and found four owners with four different answers to who gets in. Then I wrote down what I would do with those settings if the papers had them back.
OSINT & Research
Before the Web: The Tri-Cities Called Each Other FirstBefore anyone here sold internet access, the Tri-Cities was already online. It just wasn’t the internet. It was home computers in bedrooms across Kingsport, Johnson City, and Bristol, answering the phone for each other. I pulled every weekly FidoNet list from 1988 to 1998, and then the sysops started writing in. The first board was on an Atari in 1983. The last one hung on until 2004.
OSINT & Research
Updated
Who Was Online First in the Tri-Cities: The Fifteen Oldest Domains, VerifiedI pulled the registration date of every domain I could tie to a Tri-Cities organization and sorted the list. The oldest belongs to a Kingsport graphics shop in February 1993. Eastman was second. The third belongs to a teenager’s bulletin board. Updated in October with accounts from the people who built the first ISPs.
OSINT & Research
Updated
What the Internet Thinks Bristol IsTwo cities, two states, one main street. A sourced OSINT audit of what the internet and AI get wrong about Bristol, TN and VA, and what is genuinely good.
OSINT & Research
What the Internet Thinks Johnson City IsThe one the rankings keep crowning the best of the Tri-Cities. I checked whether the local favorite holds up. The part that broke was not the part anyone expects.
OSINT & Research
What the Internet Thinks Kingsport IsI pointed my own tradecraft at my own city, asked five AI systems the same question, then checked every number against a primary source. The internet's Kingsport is confident, tidy, and wrong in the places that matter.
OSINT & Research
Screenshots Are Not EvidenceA screenshot proves one thing: that someone, somewhere, at some point, made an image that looked like that. It does not prove the post was real. It does not prove the account belongs to who the file name says it does
OSINT & Research
The Difference Between Searching and InvestigatingAnyone can search. Type a name into Google, hit enter, scroll. That's not investigation, that's reading. Hypothesis. A searcher types what they hope to find. An investigator works on a question and lets the evidence answer.
OSINT & Research
Describe the problem on the contact form. I read every message myself and tell you where I would start.
