ASCII by Jason Scott

Jason Scott's Weblog

Author Archive

The Flippy Disk Thing —

This is meant to be a quick overview and primer of the flippy disk and disk hardware situation with regards to 5.25″ floppy drives. It is for reference and referral by others for an easy understanding of the issues. Right now, there are tens of thousands of floppy disks out there that were used extensively […]

The Pit —

2013 was a really excellent year, by most standards. Besides the finishing and the release of the DEFCON documentary, I got to travel to many different places and a couple new ones, get the word out about various projects I was working on, and otherwise move forward on stuff I did working on for years. […]

FTP’s Bright Sunset and Frozen Night —

FTP is kind of over. Now, don’t get mad at me for telling you this. It’s not like I’m the one killing it, and I’m certainly one of its biggest fans. It’s a really mature technology that does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It is flexible, pumps through almost anything, and has features that […]

Let a Thousand Cartridges Play —

On the day after Christmas, the Internet Archive announced that it was going to host a second Christmas. In one big flourish, the Console Living Room revealed that there was now available, via the JSMESS interface, one thousand cartridges to play. One thousand! In many cases, this would be nearly 100% of the total available […]

The Distrust Sphinchter —

I have completed my initial impromptu 10 year survey of the transportation security administration. I was drafted into this wretched task as a side effect of my work with my first documentary. Whereas previously I might travel one or two times a year by plane, I suddenly found myself taking dozens of flights, until I […]

The Fuel Costs of Not Moving —

copy of letter sent to customer.assistance@as.wilscot.com: William Scotsman: I’ve been a very happy customer with regards to the shipping container I have rented from you for several years. That is, I rented a shipping container, paid for the transport to and from the site, and have left it full of stuff in my backyard for […]

The JSMESS Endgame —

  Don’t worry, I’m not talking about an “end” to JSMESS. Oh goodness – far from it. Of the two versions of JSMESS we’re currently working with (the “in-process” jsmess.textfiles.com version and the “dressed for dinner” archive.org version), we’re going to be adding a third version for general distribution out to anyone who wants to […]

The Frightening Cornucopia —

I am an extremely lucky person. I’m lucky for a host of reasons, but in this particular case, I’ve been matched up with the Perfect Job very early in my life – my 40s. Some people get earlier, of course, but many more get it later, if at all. Life at the Internet Archive is […]

A Thing With Feathers —

The challenge to make my presentation outfits more enjoyably outrageous continues, and it escalates. Nobody is telling me my outfits need to be outrageous, of course – I just know, in my heart, that it’s what needs to be done. Just like I know that digging in intractably on the principles of protecting user data […]

JSMESS Makes a Little Noise —

Stuff just keeps falling in place with JSMESS. As of this moment, we have a version that handles sound. If you want to test out if your browser/machine/audio setup works well, you can’t do much better than clicking on this link and seeing if you’re hearing a ColecoVision play Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. Assuming you […]