http://ascii.textfiles.com Jason Scott's Weblog Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:38:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the BBS Documentary, I dedicated an entire episode to the Artscene, the massive collection of groups doing ANSI artwork for bulletin board systems. I interviewed members of iCE and ACiD (and a bunch of others) and showed both the breathtaking variety of art they'd make, the political battles over ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2313 A little over two weeks ago, I decided to use Kickstarter to fund a relatively radical idea - stand back after ten years, stop doing the crushing day job I had that was way too much health-endangering and painful, and focus on the things I truly loved, things I knew ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2308 As the fundraiser continues, things have been going spectacularly well - I'm very nearly at the halfway mark. Things have slowed down, of course, since the word is out and people who would send cash towards such an endeavor have done so, and there we go. So naturally the concern is ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2303 OK, so here's the high-level report: We Saved Geocities! Obviously, this needs a truckload of qualifications, so let's go over them immediately. First of all "We" is not just Archive Team, badass archivist motherfuckers that we are. While probably 30-40 people from around the world stopped in on the Archive Team tent ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2298 I am sure we all laughed at the end, there, when one of the members of Archive Team, slaving like the rest of us to yank data out, suggested a link to a Geocities page with a MIDI of "The Final Countdown" by Europe.  The perfect tinny music to blast ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2291 I've mentioned it a few times in this weblog, and obviously other people have made the connection over time, but I'm the guy who does stuff with Sockington, the most popular cat on Twitter. His little daily concerns with tuna, windows, toys, and more tuna have been a part of ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2287 Can I just say how blown away I am? Within two days, I'm already at 19% of the goal for this fundraiser I discussed. Two days! People have been sending me kind words about this plan, and really coming out of the woodwork for me. I am pleased and humbled. Energized ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2283 You're stupid and I hate you. I haven't even met you, don't even know where you are or what else you do, and I hate you. It's 7 in the morning. I've been doing a lot of not sleeping lately. I've been doing a lot of not sleeping for months. I've ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2280 All my favorite are the ideas that terrify me. Sometimes the terrifying idea is understandably terrifying - other times it's just so many different ways of thinking about stuff that I'm lost in the possibilities. I think this is the second one. Basically, I'm reaching out to my fanbase and ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2271 This week's sent-in cool stuff came from Steve Ross, who sent me a box of IBM Binders. Sometimes (OK, fine, often) I get to indulge in acquiring material that is personally meaningful to me. In the case of IBM binders, it's one of those connections that, honestly, I find hard to ... http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2269