Create Your Own Digital Library

Internet providers, cloud storage options, and social media algorithms are constantly changing, but now information itself is also in flux. Companies come and go, servers are offlined, even the world's biggest encyclopedia changes every second. Here is how you can develop your own digital library that is more stable and resilient.
Let us know in the comments what you would include in your personal digital library.
kiwix.org
gridbase.net
archive.org

[@luciuschappell4648]

Saving a massive library of "how to" KZbin repair videos would be invaluable and an incalculable loss if the cloud went down.

[@bradyclark7185]

or you could just go do it, then you'd already know how to, and can pass on the information like the entirety of human history has

[@ImperiumLibertas]

​@@bradyclark7185 okay caveman

[@BenHonjok]

I agree totally !-)

[@chrisoswald1607]

youtube-dlp, it's a very easy to use program to grab youtube videos, or videos that aren't easily downloadable on a lot of sites (instagram, facebook, twitter, twitch, etc). I use this to grab tutorials myself.

[@user-mp3eq6ir5b]

If ? When.

[@Cyber-f7e]

Decentralization is a choice...until its not. Excellent video as always.

[@ImperiumLibertas]

Embrace Web3 federation. It's the only way we can break out of the matrix

[@riffdex]

@@ImperiumLibertasyou mean web3 foundation?

[@ImperiumLibertas]

@@riffdex no. Web3 is a concept that embraces federation of services which just means decentralization.

[@riffdex]

@@ImperiumLibertas web3 federation isn’t a thing. If you google “web3 federation” it says “did you mean web3 foundation” lol

[@Katana_Gryphon]

3:00 “fortunately I’m already used to the idea of not owning any Ubisoft games” underrated sick burn lmao

[@WartimeFriction]

Right up there with "Capable of Stargate" with the P90 segment. Absolutely hilarious

[@thesickening0169]

Cries in Assassins Creed

[@magistradox39]

That's why you should get warez games, software for everything you ever bought.

[@johnmarston2616]

14:07 What a fantastic little hidden Easter Egg. This absolutely unforgettable scene from Blade Runner mislabeled as Logan’s Run, as a nod to the theme of the video regarding the rewriting of history and passing off falsehoods as truth. I see you guys, you guys are funny.

[@icantdrive75]

First movie is definitely not Twister, but now I'm frustrated cause I wanna watch whatever movie that is.

[@BlakeJoy]

@@icantdrive75 I believe it's The day after tomorrow

[@BenHonjok]

I was already wondering if Rutger Hauer also played a part in Logans run... (besides Blade Runner).

[@thedisposable]

I always new Stargate was a documentary!

[@antadefector]

Had written a comment about that and seen You were first so I deleted it to not make noise.

[@Cooliofamily]

As a cybersecurity professional, homelab enthusiast, and ‘personal cloud operator’, I really enjoy these videos and the creation of this channel generally. Keep it up.

[@reza5337]

as an Iranian, I grew up learning that you can not take a lot of things as granted, I'm working my way out of the cloud (someone else's computer), its much more common to us to loose internet access (thanks to the tyrannical government) and this video gave me a really usefool ideas to what to do for when such thing happens. thank you Isaac and thank you t-rex arms

[@viewatyourownrisk]

I'm glad you acknowledged the movie clip inaccuracies. I was more than slightly confused by it...until I realized the only accurate naming was 1984. Clever

[@SuperBlooper057]

Soldier of Fortune is a very apt example of being able to debunk modern lies with old truth. These days, if you say that the Glock 17 is so-named because of it's 17-round capacity, people will tell you that "ackshully, it's because it was Gaston Glock's 17th patent." However, if you look on the Austria patent's office website, you'll find that there's multiple Glock patents, all of which predate his 17th patent, which only occurred years after the first gen Glock 17 was released. But if you were to look on page 39 in the October 1984 issue of Soldier of Fortune, you will find some of the earliest press coverage of the pistol, which recounts Peter Kokalis's experience with it at Glock's headquarters in Austria, where he writes: "At 21.175 oz., empty, the Glock 17 (referring to its magazine capacity) compares favorably to the competition."

[@DPolk98]

CS Lewis said his best way of helping people to Christ was the catch them unaware. You do the same thing through small, inoffensive truths. Absolutely love you guys

[@utubepunk]

"helping" 😒

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

Helping! 😇

[@utubepunk]

@@PatrickKQ4HBD Stealth marketing isn't helping.

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

@@utubepunk I don't think I can change your mind about it but think of it like stealth marketing of first aid training or the heimlich maneuver. It's not brainwashing victims, it's medicine for the ailing. Just an angle to consider.

[@utubepunk]

@@PatrickKQ4HBD You COULD change my mind. You wouldn't administer Heimlich maneuver on someone who wasn't choking. I wonder if native populations would look back at what was done to them by Christians as "helping".

[@jonwebsterabbott]

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die." Bladerunner (1982)

[@jonwebsterabbott]

LOLOL. I posted this 4 minutes too soon.

[@sliderofelay]

Someone smarter than I said "the cloud is just somebody else's computer."

[@omicrondec]

That quote is in the video...

[@JackNowhere]

mental outlaw

[@deathsgauntlet]

Computers* the cloud itself is often decentralized and is more resilient because of that. It's typically the connection to those servers that fail, not the storage itself.

[@SuperMIKevin]

I am immensely grateful that so many are working on creating libraries. It's not something we can do alone, it may seem easy, as i used to think 10 years ago when i started a library using hard drives, thinking i would have time to transfer it to other types of media, i was wrong, i failed, i lost everything. Life happens, it gets in the way. You will probably fail also if you are doing it alone, unless this is the most important project of your life and you care about nothing else. So thank you all for your hard work.

[@johndunbar2393]

I've collected hundreds of .pdf books and manuals, from a source years ago, that had to do with survival, preparedness, and the like. I just keep it on a few different hard drives, but I need to revisit that and get that more in order and add to it. I'm glad y'all made this channel. I'm not a super tech guy, but Isaac is doing his best to turn me into one. Thanks T-Rex Labs team.

[@MrJayBee8]

So wild that this pops up on my feed from you guys as im researching how to build my own home server and media library. good timing boys we need it now more than ever!

[@FlareLightPro]

I see we are slowly heading towards setting up NAS's (network attached storage) (make sure you connect them to a UPS / uninterrupted power supply). Aside from the usual business / enterprise use cases, they can be your own personal cloud and streaming service. You can easily rip movie files from DVDs and blurays that you own, and place them on a NAS instead of having to rely on netflix, amazon prime, disney plus, ect. It will also protect media from going down the "memory hole", I believe it was WB a couple years ago that was deleting all sorts of old media in order to write it off. As for backing up data, follow the 3-2-1 principle, 3 copies of your data, on two different types of storage media, with one copy being offsite. Blu-ray are a decent pick for more long term back ups. Blu-ray disks can easily hold 15-50gb depending on manufacturer, and can be data safe for anywhere from 15 to 100 years (allegedly), depending on manufacturer.

[@ImperiumLibertas]

If you're doing serious data hoarding you should look into magnetic tape backup. It's the most data dense and long living data storage medium.

[@RenThraysk]

There is a project called protomaps. The project provides the entire current (weekly updates) OpenStreetMap of Earth in a single 120Gb file, and a map tile server. So should be able to run a map tile server locally and add it as a custom map source to ATAK EUDs. Haven't gotten around to trying it but should work if ATAK supports Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT) directly.

[@ImperiumLibertas]

Checking it out now. Thanks king.

[@ImperiumLibertas]

The military has a database called Odin. It doesn't have everything but it lists many of the worlds weapon systems, who uses them, their defense and offense capabilities, and much more. They even have real war games both for bluefor and opfor sides. Great tools. Ive backed that up with kiwix.

[@isaacbotkintrex]

Sweet.

[@hfw3]

@@ImperiumLibertas Link?

[@roflchopter11]

Does it have satellite imaging too? That'd be dope.

[@eldeffe]

Good rule of thumb for backups that has stood the test of time: 3 copies, 2 formats (storage mediums), 1 of them offline

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

That's exactly what that pension fund did. It saved them, but it took two weeks to get back to normal. Oh to be a fly on the wall!

[@eldeffe]

@@PatrickKQ4HBD 10/10 would love to see the post-mortem on that one. (Also whether or not they hit their RTO/RPOs)

[@algonquin7306]

Not just offline but offsite.

[@Yoda63]

It's so weird, literally yesterday I just bought a hard copy encyclopedia at my local thrift store before watching this video. It was a world book to boot!

[@rugerdie4054]

Love to see branching out to help people consider a full spectrum defense of liberty

[@davidellul4716]

The scene from Blade Runner being attributed to Logan's Run is the BEST example of how data can be corrupted 😅😅😅 Well done!

[@earGO]

go go mesh decentralization. Assemble private clouds, control your devices, abolish using OPC (other people's computers)

[@ImperiumLibertas]

Before we go with mesh decentralization can we get to Web3 standards of federated services first? E2e encrypted federated services solves most of the centralization problems until the Internet becomes untenable.

[@earGO]

@@ImperiumLibertas nah, federation sharization :) the whole point of decentralization (to me) is everybody does whatever, and something is more successful, something is less, and eventually there's something that works. But all attempts to centralize and standartize will lead more or less to attempts to seize control

[@ImperiumLibertas]

@@earGO I dont see how federation conflicts with what you said?

[@robertbomer382]

Clip labels were solid gold.

[@bookworm8415]

TREX and PSA are so awesome. Love their philosophies.

[@mynameiszakk]

Hey Lucas, my name is Bob Carter and I absolutely love how much attention to detail was given to properly citing the various clips used throughout this video. That said, I’d like to direct your attention to 10:45 in which the film Animal Farm (1999) was improperly labeled as 1984 (1984). Please take this critique constructively; I have much respect for the entire DYNO LABS team and hope you keep up all the great work you’re doing to make sure “they, the people” are staying informed. “We, the system” owe you a great debt for your efforts… Thanks again! - Bill Chapel

[@_c_y_p_3]

@T.REXLabs a faraday bag SHOULD be a part of ALLLLLLL our hard drive storage BECAUSE of the solar flares release small ( tiny) particals that SHOOT THROUGH our drives and take out sectors, slowly corrupting little tiny parts which can become big parts depending on the way your dice fall.

[@JohnLothe]

2:57 lol burn. So am I.Thank you for everything, yall are doing the Lords work.

[@thesickening0169]

I could see saving any kind of medical journals as a good idea. Anything explaining what antibiotics to use for a specific illness, how to diagnose illnesses, how to suture, etc.

[@willieeverett8978]

I hope that this becomes a regular series with updates. Thanks for the info.

[@BigSil57]

Great content, on a forgotten topic. It's so relevant in this digital age, and we forget got important it is to not let them "change history".

[@thestig007]

I'm a bit of a data hoarder. This is why I have gotten into building my own home servers. I plan on vastly expanding my home hosting and archiving ability this year, great timing on this video. Gives me ideas on how to archive things like Wikipedia.

[@bobtheghost0624]

Also a good repository of information for a project like this is the Survivor Library. You can buy a copy, download the files individually for free, or you can write a script to download them for you. I’m not sure how this differs from Project Gutenberg, but either way, it’s another resource worth being aware of.

[@davidt5085]

Great topic 👍. Waiting for the end to see if there’s a punchline to why several of the movie clips don’t match the titles, lol.

[@DEPORTMAN]

SOF had great reporting on the wars in Angola and Mozambique in the 70s and 80s.

[@bringer-of-change]

Ive had this in mind for a long time; preserving certain information to protect it from a dark age. It's a noble and honorable thing to do. Thats why The Brotherhood of Steel does it. Who knows. Mayne we will have an equivalent to them in the coming future. I think we already know who's gonna become the Enclave. Seems we already have the Enclave actually.

[@ptompkins1976]

That movie clip was from Band of Brothers, not Saving Private Ryan. I noticed that right as soon as it was played.

[@nvirevolution2235]

I highly recommend everyone who cares about their data who has even just a little experience with computers to have a NAS. I recommend models from WD or Synology. Keep a mirrored storage medium with backups of your documents you can pack into a backpack on a moments notice. Synology NAS drives also encrypt all of the data on the drives (if desired) and only YOU are able to decrypt it. Data security is incredibly important.

[@ReptilianXHologram]

Got any links where you recommend for those products?

[@starshiprepair]

I've had similar feelings about reading the first volume of Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip as you describe about the reporting in Solider of Fortune. Great to hear directly from someone who was there at the time.

[@thelifeofjools8384]

Nice work....top notch 👍

[@True_Patriotx]

You mislabeled at least 3 movie clips (probably more, maybe all of them? Will have to rewatch to be sure.). Watching the end of the video explains why you did it. I just figured your editor messed up.

[@StephenShreds]

It was intentional

[@nightowl9519]

​@@StephenShreds And really funny

[@NyneIX9]

Yeah, I think "Independence Day" was actually "2012". lol

[@jaydenbrown2852]

Always a good video from the Labs

[@heatherryan9820]

And here I was thinking I had finally gone bonkers, lol. Because I knew that some of those labels for the movies were off.

[@stupidityonly478]

Kiwix on the phone kinda sucks NGL, but on linux, it's an absolutely wonderful experience.

[@aletter1718]

I also believe switching to Linux is a must for any serious open source advocate. Start with Linux mint and go from there, windows is not your friend.

[@TrenchantEdges]

I did not expect this to turn into a love letter to Soldier of Fortune magazine, lol. Of course, I also have an archive of SoF so lol.

[@morphos2]

14:12 Is this a sarcastic take on the alterations to true historic information?! 😂 Well played! Something seemed fishy all of the sudden. My alarms went crazy! 😄

[@michaelnuttall5896]

wait a second, I'd like to see that documentary on the NZ film industry. My family was heavily involved in the old South African film industry, I still remember cataloging all the old film reels that were later digitized and subsequently sold off or destroyed. Old documentary's, film from different era's dating back to when film was first made here in Africa.. many of the old timers who had immigrated in the 90's would of gone to NZ and Australia, perhaps influencing their film or pulling out of the industry entirely.. as socialism(communism) took over the colonies. Who could doubt that it does not have a foothold today, more like a stronghold.

[@stahme10]

It is amazing how information is transitory. information may disappear at anytime.

[@bigslice4738]

What if you create a home server rack and home network ? Setting up your own firewall, storage, and setup pi hole, the sky is the limit once you setup a home lab.

[@ashersurdu9967]

Independence Day? I seem to remember Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith having a greater regard for tax law. I'm sure I will remember what movie that was actually from Tomorrow- or perhaps The Day After that...

[@chocolatemonk]

Sync / formerly BTSync is a peer to peer file syncing program. your stuff travels over your local network in house or internet to authorized computers, encrypted, set to share files or directories point to point. Not cloud. you can then move these folders to a flash drive and throw them in your safe. download as many books as you can. You can get into Faraday cages too. Buys Vinyl records and CDs please! Books physical

[@nomadhgnis9425]

I wish I have the money to buy storage to archive the data. I have the entire survivors library offline. My drive is old and not sure how long it will last. Hopefully I can get a new one in the future. Excellent video. FYI my WD external hardr dive is over 8 years old. More reliable that ssd.

[@pewdeals]

just started the video, so I might be putting the cart before the horse here by commenting already. I've taken this a step further and built completely local versions of Chat GPT (Llama 3) that can live in a Farday bag. Granted you'll need a power source to use it for longer than a laptop charge. I see this as the future of privacy, oddly enough.

[@julia1992]

Trex, if you sold these storage devices pre-loaded with essential library (such as a static copy of Wikipedia) I would definitely buy one!

[@wpherigo1]

Wow. A lot of good stuff here. My opinion has a good helping of confirmation bias, but I like where you seem to be going with this.

[@richardkennedy815]

Ah yes, SOF magazine. That brings back the memories... Hopefully I can set up such a device in the very near future. Great video. Also, I would love to still have the various articles by Mel Tappan...although even then I did not always agree with him.

[@MillstoneProject]

That’s why I love the ease of reading a digital copy of books, but I buy hard copies.

[@AnneGoggansQHHT]

“You will own nothing, and you will be happy”

[@PERSONA-NONGRATA-13]

I remember a few times iTunes would delete all my music files. It was a big pain in the ass but I had most of it backed up on a separate drive. When it happened again I realized it would be better to back up everything. There's really no such thing as "a cloud" , it's all someone else's computer (I guess Hillary Clinton and Anthony wiener didn't realize this, lol.) I remember reading solder of fortune magazine as a kid, one issues I still have was on spetznaz operator in Afghanistan and WHO was training the Afghan groups, it was VERY eye opening in light of what has happened in the decades since the Russians left Afghanistan it all checked out. Our worst enemy has always been our own government.

[@senpile9736]

"I'm already used to not owning any Ubisoft games" is probably the funniest thing I've heard all week.

[@daleastiles]

I've wanted my own NAS for a long time but finally took action on that desire at the first of this year. I've also owned a Linux machine that doesn't play well with the Internet so the only way I get data on to it is via sneaker net. It's getting old and I really should back it up before the 1993 hard drive decides to give up on me. This is the first video I've seen from this channel and as soon as the video was over, I subscribed. I'm curious what other gems are on this channel.

[@LutherDrucker]

All valuable data should be permanent. Permanence gives data maximum security by eliminating the risk of censorship. Irys guarantees that data on it will function exactly as intended, forever.

[@that.chill.speedsofter1445]

I have a whole Playlist called "learn" with every youtube video I've found and thought I would need to reference. This video is now in it

[@kylegamer48]

A book that everyone needs to read today is Little Brother by Corey Doctorow. It's basically the sequel to 1984 except set in 2004 in San Francisco. The book is free under the creative commons license.

[@sergeii9607]

The clip about book burning is from the day after tomorrow

[@TheBelite]

We did that on propuse to drive engagement in the comment section. Like you are now.

[@seanarcher4956]

SOF lost me when Chuck Taylor said that real men prefer full auto M-14s! As one who has fired one not on a flat range, that was an instant credibility killer.

[@isaacbotkintrex]

It was not true at the time, but I am slowly reaching the age that I want a full-auto M14 again. Or maybe it's not my age, maybe it's the sheer length of time since I fired one...

[@prcotango]

I loved the original idea of Google books. They were trying to make Babylon's library, digitalizing every piece of printed media, in every language, and make it available for everyone. But sadly, greedy publishers made sure it wouldn't happen.

[@jimjab3631]

Best mail order Spanish fly back of the SOF magazine

[@harrkev]

There is a project called internet in a box. It includes kiwix as a part of its install, and I have found that easier to install than kiwix by itself.

[@kg4gav]

how to make microfilm/microfiche? I think this, like celluloid film, will outlast digital storage.

[@RAMZAVFX]

Already beat you there. Building my NAS with a Faraday cage. Its just, high quality 10tb drives aren't cheap 😂

[@d1m18]

Logan's Run clip is from Blade Runner, no Logan's

[@JackMyersPhotography]

Cloud assets are backed up in a minimum of three locations. Those locations can be geographically separated, but that costs more.

[@reza5337]

really excited for this type of videos.

[@PiperUsmc]

I'm glad to have stumbled upon this channel. I have watched T-Rex stuff over the years, but this crossover into "techie" stuff is a bit of a nice surprise. I will admit I almost skipped it, but I am glad I did not. Thanks and Cheers!

[@Oberkaptain]

I have a 20TB Kiwix server at my house.

[@hargrove_here]

These guys are good. I was wondering what was up with the movie clips.... Point well made.

[@jimh472]

Always remember, "the cloud" is just a fancy way of saying "someone else's computer".

[@edstoutenburg3990]

And someone - or in some other countrys- server farms.

[@_Art.Vandelay]

You know what’s underrated? Having physical hard copies of important documents, pictures or even books and games. The cloud revolution was an over correction to declutter and secure our important information from physical destruction. Everything is a balance.

[@QuiGeoJinn]

I started doing this a long time ago, again with Kiwix - which i dont particularly like due to the Zim file format. It works and has good compression. Kiwix also has other things on it (like canadian prepper videos) which can be helpful not just the things you mention. I now also use portable apps not just for my everyday use but also for this purpose - Calibre as an ebook manager and reader for example - and so able to use more common fileo formats. With hardware degradation a purchase plan for storage is necissary; though I havent found storage costs to be dropping as quickly as one would expect givens Moores' law. I think the element missing, in terms of long term is software support. Even if you hold files for decades, when you come to open them, the file format may be obsolete and deprecated and/or apps used to open them the same (or removed from your device due to the app now being banned). I have videos of me and my wife, when we first started dating lost due to obselencence.

[@promytv]

Writing to CDs is surprising durable, provided they aren't scratched.

[@davidsirmons]

Uh....how can you have tears in the rain marked incorrectly as Logan's Run? Wow. That's from Blade Runner, sir. (Oh. I fell for the psy-op. Well-played, sir. And greatly elucidates your observation of supposed fact vs real fact)

[@AJ_Sparten1337]

Hard copies for everything. I'll still have multiple digital copies that are always kept up to date and taken care of but I still like paper copies. Yeah, I may have to reprint some every few decades if I'm not careful but at least I know nothing will be altered or at risk from being accessed by someone off sight. Much harder to move billions of sheets of paper than a few dozen 10TB harddrives.

[@UrNotThatGuyPal]

You can fit almost every important personal file, necessary “how to’s”, schematics, and a lot more on a 512GB USB…….

[@rickwebb1919]

OK, I am going to spend some time in front of my computer this weekend and see if I can automate the process for creating a pi-zero node. I will try to make it as turn key as possible in the hope I can remove barriers to entry.

[@gridbasedotnet]

Kiwix already did it for you

[@MrtrenchTrucker]

I actually have a minisforum server that I've been working on specifically for this reason. Only problem I had was internet... Recently solved that problem tho.

[@Tarburz]

> Me, a digital packrat that's been torrenting since 2006 and hard drive space is cheaper than ever 🏴‍☠🏴‍☠🏴‍☠

[@andrelegris998]

Couple of issues I want to comment on. You talked about the recent event where the $135B AUS ($90B US) UniSuper pension fund in Australia was deleted from a Google cloud server and you referred to it as a network failure. It was in fact, an administrative error in which the program running the pension fund was instructed to retain the updated program and its funds for only a single year and not in perpetuity. And the computer did exactly what it was told to do: keep the data for one year and then delete it. Also, there was a company backup of the entire database so in the end nothing was lost except for some time and effort to restore the database. Regarding your assertion that Wikipedia’s accuracy is suspect, a few years ago a university in Europe (sorry I don’t remember which) wanted to check how accurate Wikipedia actually was compared to the global standard of the Encyclopedia Britannica (EB). They developed a blind and randomized comparison test protocol and published their results, which found that Wikipedia was not only as accurate as the EB but due to its digital nature, was able to update with better and more current information than the EB (the printed version of which is updated only once each year).

[@Strelnikov10]

I love how he screwed up the movie titles throughout. Point taken.

[@lukebrandon5827]

18:22 - that looks like Band of Brothers to me ;)

[@greggullett1272]

Well, I just learned that external hard drives die. My simplistic brain said to save data and put it up somewhere and just open it if needed. Always a learning moment here.

[@Christian_Prepper]

*If it's not tangible and you can not touch it with your hands, then you don't own it.*

[@bradydavidow4470]

Please consider collaborating with S2 Underground!

[@youtrickube1475]

Download Nova's Battle of the X-Planes (2003) when Boeing and Lockheed Martin were in a competition to produce a "cheap" joint strike fighter. I could see this show being disappeared. Were it produced today it would be considered a comedy.

[@dl5244]

perfect for Stargate = subscribed!

[@JoseyStranded]

7:14 Looks more like an S3 Cases T1000 than any Pelican model.

[@proteusblack8913]

Close your eyes and you'll hear Norm Macdonald talking. I bet he could do an amazing spot on impression if he tried even slightly!

[@blooppls]

Syncthing with a private server is pretty good

[@cts3499]

I was wondering if you would bring up gridbase. I put in an order a couple months ago for the base station. Hoping it ships this fall

[@gridbasedotnet]

It will!

[@cts3499]

@@gridbasedotnet keep at it man! Love your content and products

[@EricLatham-dj4cj]

I always push for people to run their own NAS. Can be done cheap or expensive, software can be free or paid... so many options, but I run a trunas box for the very reason that I don't trust anyone else.

[@MeritBiz]

Thank you for this video! Much appreciated.