Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It

The DNA New Year Episode: A Tape Playing, VHS Tapes, Dance Not Art, Spencer Coppins, The Events, Recording for Posterity, The VHS Medium, A Bridge to the Past and to Today, Seize the Tape.I was handed a pile of VHS tapes from the 1980s of DNA Lounge, and got to see a lot of people from that time play on my screen while I did my other work in the present day. The collection is from Spencer Coppins, who my research has verified was a Real One.

The Interface Faith Episode: Appreciating Good Times, Walking the Stacks, The Missing Piece, A Little History Lesson, File Directories, Designers, Redesign, Help Is Not Arriving, A Wonderful API, The Many Types of Users, A Call to the World, A Faith of Interface.Pointing out, while a little under the weather, that the Internet Archive has a one size fits all interface, that doesn't quite fit all, and all the pieces of make different skins and experiences are right there. Go for it!

The Crowdsource and Volunteer Episode: Experiments in Crowdsourcing, The Internet Archive Deluge, TEXTFILES.COM Alone, Character, The Lessons of Volunteering.As I do more experiments with having crowds of people sort items at the archive, and as I work with individuals from random walks of line in this, I am reminded of the lessons I've learned about volunteer work from the last twenty-five years. In summary: Don't mistreat volunteers, ever. (Plus a few other details.)

The Medical Tourism Episode: Signing Up for a Medical Vacation, The Hospital, A Robe and a Keycard, Dozens of Rooms, Minutes and Seconds, Expertise and Experience, A Room of Sleeping People, The Shutoff Switch, The Results, The Chance at One Person Convinced.How I went to South Korea and did a little medical tourism. I don't think there's anything to offend or bother the squeamish in it, but I did get a colonoscopy at one point. To make clear, nothing major was found, I just need to take care of myself and see doctors in the future.

Before getting on a plane, I sometimes wonder if I'm leaving the ground with my life in order. Let's find out.

The Pile of Badges Episode: A Soft Crash, Gathering, Badges of All Sorts of Shapes and Materials, Attending Conferences, A Late Start, Some Early Predecessors, Keeping the Badges and Keys, Looking Down the Range of Forever, A Mass of Moments, A Life Lived.Contemplating my many dozens, possibly hundreds, of conference badges now hanging on my wall.

The Scarecrow Video Episode: Visiting Seattle, Walking into Scarecrow Video, My Own Mind, The Shelves, The Subjects, The Uniqueness, A Short History, The Scarecrow Video of Internet Archive, Bang, Disgust-o-Meter, Harvard Square Basements, Textfiles and Materials, The Inevitable Jumble.My experience visiting Seattle's legendary Scarecrow video: https://scarecrowvideo.org/

The Halo Championship Episode: Heading to the Championship, Missing Out, The Layout of the Championship, Missing Out Again, Not Missing Out, Lineups, AARP, Competition, Amazing Staff, The Results, Shotgun.Some experiences from when Kyle and I went to the Halo Championship to finally compete against people half our age and surprising things that happened. Well, perhaps not that surprising.

The Final March of the Floppies Episode: A Visit with John Morris, The Applesauce, The Imaging of Floppies, An Office Becomes a Battlefield, The Forever Trickle, Images and Analytics, The Final Boss of the Floppies.A celebration of what may turn out to be one of the most definite major projects in the big-office era of my work - taking down the thousands of floppy disks people have sent me over the years.

The Mirrorball Episode: A Very Intense Machine, The Birth of Mirrorball, What Mirrors Are, Online Culture, Demoscene, The Ebb and Flow of Interest, A Lifetime of Mirrors, The Harvesters of Data, The Mantle of Honor, A Lottery Win, Holding To The Future.A little bit about the Mirrorball, at http://mirrorball.textfiles.com. No particular indication in the episode, but wow! 350 Episodes!

The Excessive Air Filtration Episode: Why Am I Like This, Air Filtration, The Old and the Plastic, Environments, Buying an Air Filter, Going Hardcore, Features and Facts, Health and Home, 50 Degrees, A Soon Forgotten Appliance.About the excessive air filter I got for the office. This is not an endorsement or a paid promotion - it's just a ridiculous thing to have gotten and having to turn it down from "Storm King" setting to "Off" to be able to record an episode reminded me this little bit of intensity was in the area.

The Upstairs Downstairs Episode: Watching Gosford Park, The Simplicity, Upstairs Downstairs, Process, Exactitude, Logistics, The Archive's Stacks, Users, Servitude, Class, A Pleasant Movie Theater.A rumination on finally seeing Gosford Park (2001) and being fascinated at the arrangement of the kitchen, and, reaching out a bit, comparing it to the arrangements of the Archive.

The Sorting Stacks Episode: Light After Shadow, Facing Down The Stacks, The Nature of Chaos, Order From Chaos, A Lifetime of Sorting, Millions of Choices, Oddity And Insanity, The Joy Of 50 Percent, Amy.With the settlement of Internet Archive's last major public lawsuit, a chance to burst out into the fields of Valhalla and appreciate the great stuff I get to do with an incalculable island of data. https://hiphopradioarchive.org/ was mentioned; I always love that effort.

The Video Files Episode: Hard Drives Locked, Thousands of Hours of Video, Television, Audio Versus Video, The Missing Dates, The Usefulness of Video, The Sheer Disk Space, The Future of Analytics, The Unknown.About how the thousands of hours, soon to become tens of thousands of hours, of television will find a home at the Internet Archive and maybe, with some luck, the future.

The HOPE Seminar Episode: Attending Hackers on Planet Earth, A HOPE Workshop Building, Presenting a Class, The Process of Interviews, The Goals, The Process, How I Apparently Teach, Thoughts of Preparations Beyond, A Different Kind of Hope.I decided to do a workshop/class on interviewing at the HOPE Conference in NYC this year. I've not taught a class before in any way - now I know what kind of teacher I am.

The Decay and Entropy Episode: A General Store, A Long Bike Ride, The Accident, The Changes in the Neighborhood, Decay, Buildings, Malls, Arcade, Personal Times, Formation of Memories, The End of it All.A rumination on a general store that once operated at my childhood home for over 100 years before it came to an end, and what that trend means generally.

The Yard of Hard Drives Episode: Throwing Hands with Backlogs, The Literal Yard, Drives Cast Out, The Grind of Pain, Survivorship Bias, The Success and the Failure, The Arcane Nature of Repair, The Realization of Entropy, The River Styx.I find myself staring down many, many hard drives left in the yard, and try to find value and rescue in what I can get. It's going fine! But it's noisy.

The Game Company Employment Episode: That Time I Worked for Psygnosis, The US Outpost, Temp Job, The Small and Tiny Firm, Deliveries and 800 Numbers, What People Did, The Temptations of Valor, The Wonders That Were Real, An Expanse of Time, The Dreams Yet To Live.A small rumination of my time working for Psygnosis putting some realistic boundaries on what I did while I was there, in reference to people sometimes overplaying their hands as to proximity to greatness.

The Sinistar at Extremes Episode: Synamax and Sinistar, Source Code, Experiments, Sinistar Research, Sinistar Upgrade, California Extreme, A Panel of Legends, An Excellent Evening, Drinks and Chats, The True Meaning, Our Vanishing Opportunity. To watch Synamax's excellent documentary on Sinistar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCuoUSDBVac

The Seagull Painting Episode: A Very Large Painting, a Suburban Life, a Gargantuan Campus, Divorce and Time, Aunts and Couches, Smaller Than I Remember, The Painting for Money, Customers, An Office Wall, a Regret of No Better Memory.An episode about a very large painting that lives in my office, and the story (and life) behind it.

The Audio Engineering Lessons Episode: Bovine Ignition Systems, They Might Be Giants, Mixing, Equipment, Future Plans, Why Audio Engineering, Going to Class, Learning the Lessons, A Part of the Chain, Lessons Learned, Jason and Jeremy Forever.The lessons learned one summer for audio engineering in a college course that still helped Jeremy and Jason even when they stopped making music (together).

The Book Release Episode: A Moment of Pride, Chris and Alexas Orcutt, The Books of Chris Orcutt, The Nine-Book Series, To Hold In One's Hands, Luck and Opportunity, The Years to Come....in which, like some sort of errant fellow at a ceremony, I raise a toast to Chris Orcutt getting review copies of his first book of his new series out. He's at https://orcutt.net/weblog/ and worth every amount of attention I can bang pans to get.

The Catalogs of False Promise Episode: The Meanings of Catalogs, The Promises, The Possibilities, Assistants and Artists, Apps, Crashed TestFlight, Computer Stores, Collections, Walking Among the Stacks, Lost Players, Lost Makers, The Guideposts to What Was.A rumination on computer software catalogs and what they might be, what they matter for, and what might happen.

The Regretted Moment of Decision Episode: Bootleg, The Bootlegger, Stone Cold Hustler, House Flipping 1970s Style, Crank, Apple II Basement, Grey Market, Lost Floppies, Decisions Made, No Regrets.I've mentioned Bootleg before, but it's time once again to talk about the uniqueness of him and an unexpected life lesson he provided me in his basement.

The Couch Episode: Staying Overnight, The Glow and The Sounds, Previous Spaces, The Draw of an Overnight, Dreams of A Hacker Goblin, Welcome Changes. I thought I'd stay overnight in the office.

The Bob Lardine Tapes Episode: A Series of Events, A Pipeline Emerges, Bob Lardine's Career, The Process of Interviews, The Project of Digitization, The Dreams and Hopes, Destiny Laughs.The Bob Lardine Collection is a lovely place to visit. It's at: https://archive.org/details/boblardinetapes

The Unexpected Second Part Episode: You Should Listen to the First Part, The Source of My Anger, GET LAMP's Two Avoided Mistakes, The Second Small One, The Huge First One, The Role of the Documentary, Telling a Story to Tell a Story, An Endorsement of Other Bobby Broccoli Creations.A flashback to when I stood during pre-production of GET LAMP and almost made the same sort of mistake this film I just watched made, and how I barely escaped. Also: What is the role of a documentary anyway?

The Unpleasant Premiere Episode: Rushing to a Premiere, A Creator I Like, Questioning the Film, The Unwanted Twist, 6 hours of Movie, Bewilderment to Anger, Scientist First, Two Parter.A rush of thoughts as I attended a film premiere for a youtuber's documentary and how he unexpectedly broke a few mild rules I didn't think anyone would even take time to break. The film I'm talking about is called 17 Pages by Bobby Broccoli, which you can find at various outlets.

The Paul Rudolph Tour Episode: A Well-Placed Tik-Tok Ad, Halston, A Special Apartment, The Paul Rudolph Building, A Rectangular Walkthrough, Rust, Rot, FDR's Library and Home, Archives for Forever.The Building: https://www.paulrudolph.institute/

The CD-ROM INC Ingestion Episode: We Take Many Things, 16 Boxes of CD-ROMs, Duplication and Destruction, First CD-ROMs, 4 Channels of Ingestion, Ups and Downs, Ultimate Goals, Importance and Obviousness, A Quick Adventure.The arrival of around 1,500 CD-ROMs from the core parts of the CD-ROM era caused me to have to take a week of time pulling them into the archive. Here's how that's gone.

The Infinite Hotel California: The Projects That Keep Returning, Highway 1, Hotel California, Low Power Radio, The Nightmares, Magic and Serendipity, A Recipe For a Lovely Time.A few thoughts about a years-long project I've thought about off and on.

The Lessons of Too Much Halo Episode: Games Buddy Kyle, Doubles Mode, Twenty Years of Twos, No Strategy, Psychological Profiles, Preventing the Quit, Why We're Winning, Moving On, Screaming at the Screen, The Edges of Learning.An episode about how Kyle and I stopped playing Halo Doubles to go get our faces wiped against the floor in Battle Royale.

The Brewster Episode. A flood of memories about my short and sad time in Brewster, New York, and why I'm still around.

The DISCMASTER 2 vs. Piper's Pit Episode: A gargantuan collection, piles of files, IBM Warez Groups, Half a Terabyte, Finder Aids and Lists, DISCMASTER 2 Arrives, The Functions of DISCMASTER and DISCMASTER 2, The Size of DISCMASTER, The Semantic Future. Someone uploaded half a terabyte of programs taken from tape backups of various BBSes in the 1990s, and the entire mountain of data it represents is being made easier to negotiate with DISCMASTER 2, the sequel we didn't deserve but got anyway: https://discmaster.textfiles.com

The Catching a Break Episode: H3, Accordion Hood, The Lifted Weight, Infinite Breaks, Artuo and the 80 Hours, Passing the Breaks, Infinite Payoff, An Office Break, A Traffic Court Appearance. Thoughts on how both giving and recieving breaks, the lifting of obligation, is some of the best investment on both sides. I didn't mention it in the episode, but interestingly, with a nearly 15 year difference, my office where I caught a break in the lease is located roughly 800 feet from the court where I didn't. There is nothing to learn from that fact.

The Hater Tools Episode: A Pleasant Visit to a Discord, A Pillory, The Right to Dislike, Tools of Response, Public vs. Actual, Walls of Separation, Our Neverending Performance, The Time and Distance, Hills and Mountains, Accepting The Hate. A small rumination on that time I visited a community and they didn't like me.

The Third Act of Collecting Episode: What Drives People to Collect, The Roles, The Responsibilities, The Urge and Drive, My Witness To The Third Act, Sentinels of Oblivion, Redundancy, The Process, Indexing Heartbreak, The Time Crunch, The Future, The Hope. Thoughts on when people have spent a long time making a collection and my experiences when they reach that inevitable end of the process.

The Furious Card Episode: Finding an Old Card, The Handover and the Promise, The Fury, Exclusitivity, Teenage Sharing, Providing Access, Improv Everywhere, MP3 Experiment, Unrecorded Experiences, TinyTIM Open Invitation, The White-Hot Fury, The Boston Group, A Constant Reminder. In this I mention The Latitude. Here's some information about The Latitude. https://www.businessinsider.com/my-experience-with-the-latitude-society-2015-10 https://medium.com/@jeslach/the-latitude-society-a-story-45915e489937 https://nonchalance.com/latitude.html

The Arcade Tourist Episode: Visiting Other Countries, Visiting Arcades, The Uniqueness of Each Arcade, The Unplanned Planned Journey, The Outpost in the City, Hundreds of Years, The Enriching Experience, The Shared Machines. Also: A Note on Health. An episode about my visits to arcades in cities around the world.

The Grey Box Episode: A Fine Purchase, A New Fulcrum, Permanent Storage, Memories and Accomplishments, A Personal Set, The Futures and Destinies of Dreams, The Pitfalls and Losses, Our Place on the Timeline, Plus: I'm Fine. Some ruminations as I start putting together another phase of my own personal archive, and what it means. Plus: I'm doing fine! I'm absolutely fine!

The Clocks Episode: Attending The Clock, The Intercutting, The Supercut, Digital Filmmaking, Silent Labor, One to Four Hours, Time Out of Time, Other Artworks, The Dry-Run, The Future Screening. An episode about attending The Clock, a film project that shows a 24 hour film of the passage of time via clock-faces and references to them. Full context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clock_(2010_film)

The SuperBanana Lunch Episode: A Pleasant Meetup, A Conversation, The Cold Arrow of Criticism, A Recurring Character, Why Go to Meetings, Social Gathering as a Component, A Long and Fruitful Life, Meetings and Gatherings, Conventions and Lunch. I may have covered this situation before, but I've had more time to think about it and it's just gotten more ridiculous.

The Chowder Box Deep Dive Episode: Progress into the Chowder Boxes, the layers of years, what we see in the boxes, future thoughts to past experiences, scraps and detritus, the story inside myself, the links easily lost, broken lines and connected threads, an exciting plateau. I've never thought I'd get to this part of my collections!

The Ride to New Hampshire Episode.In which I learned an awful lot about myself and life in a very short time.

The VHS Spectacle Episode: An Apartment in New York City, Realizing the Value, The Spectacle, Television Specials, Long-Form Recording, Inauguration, Popes, Funerals, The Rareness of Long-Form TV, The Hidden Cultural Curator. A long overdue thank-you to the family that invited me in to take a bunch of boxes of VHS tapes, and the discoveries within. Under the new office, with 2-3 tapes being digitized at once, the results will be done in a flash but the benefits will last for a long time.

The Tape Baking Episode: The Cult of Baked Tapes, The Problem With Magnetic Media, Potential Solutions, Tape Baking Recipe, Digital and Analog Solutions, The Singular Moment on Tapes, A Very Long Consideration of Personalities. Weirdly, the best page I found on tape baking as an introduction is so retro you aren't 100% sure if they're not intentionally doing an aesthetic, but here it is, courtesy of Wendy Carlos: If I'd Have Known You Were Coming I'd Have Baked a Tape!

The Internet Archive Downtime Episode: Not About the Archive, Downtime, What My Job Is, Switching Gears, Finding Purpose, A Chain Instead of a Pile, Two Hours, Purpose, Other Shifts. A rumination on what I even am, when the Internet Archive experiences an extensive downtime. It turns out, what I am is satisfied.

The Setback Comeback Episode. A rumination on working through dark periods, set to a cadence of strength and resilience but recognition of the realism of life. I'm breaking the usual rule and making this one public immediately on here, for patrons to send to anyone who needs to hear it.

The Shockwave of Proximity Episode: A Short Trip, Los Angeles, Giving the Best Interview, Honks and Sounds, Return and Forget, Documentary Release, Scrubbing and Watching, The Shocking Revelation, The Arc of Dreams, The Blessed Golden Dias. The name of the documentary I mentioned, "Games that Rocked the World" is currently available at this URL: https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/793efb00a33ba64bbcb44fa4981ca1a2

The Ever-Present To-Do List: The Giving of Advice, Piles, To-Do, Addressing the Options, Understanding the Trudge, The Pile Behind Instead of the Pile Before, The Moments of Confusion, The Dedication, 90 Percent, The Final Tally. Advice and thoughts on dealing with what can feel like an infinite, ever-present to-do list. Since moving to the new office, things have been very productive, but even at 10x productivity, the concerns still reign.