ASCII by Jason Scott

Jason Scott's Weblog

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All Hands on the Two Hands Project —

A while ago, I mentioned that I had taken over editing of the Two Hands Project, a documentary about Hackerspaces that had been filmed in September of 2009. This was met with excitement from all sides, both the original filmmakers and from myself, because editing is lots of fun. I dumped all the tapes from […]

A Reader Service —

Life working as an archivist for The Internet Archive has been going fantabulous, thanks for asking.  I start to feel like one of those individuals tweeting or writing about “being in an amazing environment working with great people on world-changing projects”, except in fact I am not working in some primary-color-and-convenient-free-coffee cube farm that is […]

An Audio Message to Salon.Com —

Somehow, a post just seemed like it would be drowned in a sea of other posts and the usual sad debates about the mass deletion of information. So, I recorded an mp3. A Message to Salon.Com (3 minutes) If you’d like to help, please visit the Tabletalk.Salon.Com project page on the Archive Team website.

Archive Team! With Friends Like These… —

Archive Team, that ruthless band of site-saving scalliwags, has been working like crazy on a new downloading project, and we really, really need your help. Friendster, one of the first social sites that took off in a big way until being overtaken by other services, has been bought out by a company that intends to […]

FaceFacts —

Hello Jason, I’ve recently learned of your amazing archiving efforts and I wanted to thank you for all that you have done for the internet community. You’ve really got me thinking more than I had before about the fragile nature of personal data and indeed so much of the personal expression ordinary people output every […]

The Case for Manuals —

It has been quite a great time at my new position within archive.org, working as I am from a remote location. Forget hitting the ground running – I’m trying to make the ground have no idea what hit it. I already just mentioned the MUD archiving work I’m calling out for, but there’s lots more […]

Jason at Internet Archive Party, June 5 —

OK, do NOT wear the same dress as me – this is my big coming out party, after all. Well, more specifically, on June 5th, 2011, the Internet Archive ( my new employers) are having a reception and ceremony and open house around their newest building, the Internet Archive Physical Archive in Richmond, CA. Here […]

Blotstation —

You know those stories where you go “man, when I write out the big long memoir and history, that’s gonna be one fuckin’ funny chapter”? And then you don’t? And then they’re gone? This is one of those, except it’s not going to be gone. I’m putting it here, after reading this excellent analysis of […]

Who Designed Mr. Do? —

I know, lots of things are on my plate and all of us are very busy with whatever has the emotive grip of the world on any moment on twitter, but I suddenly had this weird realization. Who designed Mr. Do!? This is what Mr. Do! looks like: Depending on how rich or poor you […]

The Geocities Torrent: Patched and Posted —

Obviously other things are starting to come to the forefront with regards to saving digital history, but starting projects and not seeing them to fruition/completion is no way to go about life, even if it’s a business plan for some people. So, the Geocities Torrent, a 900gb monster compressed to 643gb and spread via the […]