<div dir="auto"><div><div>Thanks, Marcus.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">So you're saying there seems to be no consistency or standardization of methodology in the so-called review and release process. That is a story in itself. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Also, having to convert PDF to Text is another time suck but necessary at some point.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Another approach would be to FOIA the DOJ for directives from whoTK to those assigned to do the reviews/redactions. Of course given that Trump has shut down many of the offices that responded to FOIAs, it's unlikely we would see those documents in our life time.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Onward,</div><div dir="auto">Tom</div><div>(TK means "to come" in journalize)</div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=======================<br>Tom Johnson<br>Inst. for Analytic Journalism<br>Santa Fe, New Mexico<br>505-577-6482<br>=======================</div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 6, 2026, 1:36\u202fAM Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="word-wrap:break-word"><div class="m_-1727089198362959260WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">So.. The early tranches were the FBI searches of the properties. Then there were a bunch of personal photographs of Epstein and Maxwell on their travels with various famous people. Amusingly, faces some folks on this list would recognize. (Read 2and3.md if so inclined and look-up Maxwell\u2019s recent proffer to Blanche.)<br><br>The early volume was modest enough in the early sets that I could push a lot through Claude, even images. Summaries attached of that.<br><br>The new documents vary a lot in size. There are examples of subpoenaed e-mail accounts that go on and on for hundreds of pages, but also singled isolated e-mails. There\u2019s an unusually large volume on investigating Epstein\u2019s demise in prison. Overall, it is mostly PDF format, and it often the case that text can be extracted, e.g., using pdftotext. It\u2019s just the DOJ convention to use PDF. It doesn\u2019t mean they are composed documents.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I\u2019ve been focused on \u201cDataset 9\u201d as that one is large, and the DOJ failed (or refused?) to make zip file that would be easy to download. This dataset gives more insight into Epstein\u2019s contemptible personality. There are many emotionally manipulative e-mails to some of his more independent young female associates. I haven\u2019t worked with the new data systematically yet, just spot checking the download from time to time. I feel guilty wasting GPU cycles and energy on traumatizing a perfectly good AI on this stuff.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The file numbering has become sparse in the later datasets. In the early batches, that occurred when Donald Trump was in a picture. Just sayin.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Marcus<br><br><u></u><u></u></span></p><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #b5c4df 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">From: </span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> on behalf of Tom Johnson <<a href="mailto:jtjohnson555@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">jtjohnson555@gmail.com</a>><br><b>Date: </b>Thursday, February 5, 2026 at 9:38\u202fPM<br><b>To: </b>The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <<a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">friam@redfish.com</a>><br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [FRIAM] Gauging interest..<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Marcus--<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Congrats and many thanks for harvesting this whole crop and keeping it in various grain bins.<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Quick questions:<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The DOJ, on multiple occasions, has talked about various numbers of pages. How many "pages" do you think you have? Are they all standard 8.5x11 pages? All PDF? If so, searchable PDF?<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Do the various batches released come with any kind of title page, index? Glossary?<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Are the pages/documents in any chronological order or any categorical order? <u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Do you think we could do a word count vs. lines (each containing an words-per-line estimate) redacted? (i.e a story reporting X percent of the documents still hidden or useless).<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I'm sure I can bug you for more.<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Tom<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">=======================<br>Tom Johnson<br>Inst. for Analytic Journalism<br>Santa Fe, New Mexico<br>505-577-6482<br>=======================<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">On Thu, Feb 5, 2026, 10:37\u202fPM Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I\u2019m closing-in on a full download of Dataset 9 of the Epstein Transparency Act. (I have the rest.) I\u2019m thinking of building a vector database (e.g. pgvector for Postgres). I was thinking of wrapping a MCP server around it so LLMs can get a directory of articles and then summarize, or cross-reference sets of them. RAG is what Perplexity does, but apparently, they don\u2019t have the content yet. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I imagine a SETI-at-home type project to reduce the data. Another analogy that comes to mind is annotations of the genome: Line all the documents up and then slowly fill in the summaries. The vector database could help inform how to combine documents for consumption within context window limits (PCA vicinity). <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I could keep my Max subscription on it and make some progress, but really such a project needs tens or hundreds of workers.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Marcus<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><br>archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><br> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a><u></u><u></u></span></p></blockquote></div></div></div>.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..<br>
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