ASCII by Jason Scott

Jason Scott's Weblog

Archive for August, 2011

After the Flood —

There’s good and bad in the Star Trek franchise, but certainly The Next Generation had some mighty subtle portrayals buried in among the episodes, especially as things got a bunch of seasons in.  One that has always struck me, personally, is a short scene in the beginning of an episode called The Chase, where the […]

Laughing by Telegraph —

We had a little discussion on one of my mailing lists about the origin of the phrase “LOL”, which has a couple claimed fathers – but I thought I’d throw this into the mix. Reprinted from The Annals of Hygiene, Volume 6, published by the Pennsylvania State Board of Health.  Official date of publication: 1891. […]

The Strangest Music Videos —

I don’t know if it’s entirely public knowledge, and obviously it’s not like the concerts hand out programs with the full staff listing or anything, but for the past few years I’ve been the person who edits the videos that play in the background of MC Frontalot’s concerts, specifically the PAX events but usually anywhere […]

With Friends Like These: Archive Team Saves Friendster —

Let’s get the numbers out of the way immediately before they’re misreported. Archive Team rescued, roughly, 20 percent of all the profiles on Friendster.  This took us many months and reflects the sheer mass of Friendster’s data, well into the 70-80 terabyte range, behind custom software, and which they summarily deleted from their user accounts. […]

The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel —

Hello Jason, I read your blog now since a long time and you’ve also open for me a new (old) world again and I love your project, which is a kind of your personal life-work (and also for us too). But for me – and maybe for other readers of your blog – is the […]

Scanning a WHAT —

I have done my first weblog posting on the Internet Archive Weblog: Scanning a Braille Playboy. I could probably count on half of one hand the amount of group weblogs I’ve posted on, and I can count on one finger the amount of time any institution or company I’ve ever worked for has let me […]

DEFCON 19 —

As per my usual methodology, I’ll be attending the DEFCON hacking and security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, starting this upcoming Wednesday and going through to Sunday. With a couple exceptions, I’ve been there every year since 1999, so it’s kind of a thing I do. I also happen to love Las Vegas, so going […]