Jason Scott's Weblog
When Brewster hired me in 2011, he had the foresight to recognize I’d spread in many directions once I was under the auspiciousness of the Internet Archive, but he definitely had one overarching goal with my employment. Paraphrasing, it was this: the Archive had done very well with books, music, visual items, and of course […]
Here is how not to treat your customers, especially ones that think you’re doing a great project and support you at a time before you’ve proven yourself. In February of 2012 (be sure you read that correctly, 2012), I attended a screening of Linotype: The Film at the Typekit offices (now fully owned by Adobe). We were […]
From my posting on the TOSEC development forum: Hello, everyone. My name is Jason Scott, and my position is “free-range Archivist” at the Internet Archive (archive.org). I’m here as a private individual, and not as a spokesman for the Archive in any way. I’ve been working there for about two years and have used them […]
Been working a long time towards this moment. A lot of good people working on a lot of good code, and helping each other towards this insane goal. JSMESS is in open beta. Four game consoles and one computer are supported. Many more are coming. I first postulated this was possible in October of 2011, […]
As I indicated, my response to the loss of my friend Aaron has been to throw everything I do into high gear. Terabytes have been uploaded to archive.org, lots of backlog has been knocked back, and plans are being made at an enormous clip. 2013 is shaping up to be a very accomplishing year for […]
As you might harken back, I announced two things last year: that November was “Just Solve the Problem Month”, and that the first “problem” to solve was “File Formats”. I even had a logo! Well, let’s quickly discuss what’s happened since the month came to a close. Most notably, we got a bunch of data on […]
I wrote an entry a while ago about a crazy idea called The Charge of the Scan Brigade. The idea was simple: use some of the downtime in the Internet Archive SF offices to have a line of volunteers do scanning of computer history and other material on the Scribe scanners Internet Archive uses. In […]
My buddy Aaron Swartz hung himself on Friday. Try to imagine a ball of energy, whipping around, looking for somewhere to strike, somewhere to hit, somewhere to find a stopping point or grand finale. Ultimately, just coming to a standstill because there’s just no real place to end up – a miserable standstill. That’s […]
I attended MAGfest this past weekend. It’s a festival with thousands of people, held in the Northern Virginia/Maryland area, and packed with music, anime and videogames. Lots of videogames. It was also the first Games on Film festival, where a film I made (GET LAMP), a film I edited (Going Cardboard), and a pile of […]
Everybody needs a new year’s resolution. Most of them also need to follow through. I am going to try both. It’s a simple one, too: “By the end of 2013, change online computer history forever.” I’ve been working at the Internet Archive for nearly two years now, every day better than the last, with memories […]