Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It
Historian and loudmouth Jason Scott shares stories of technology, retrocomputing, documentary filmmaking, and general schennanigans from his decades of travels and research. From experiences on the road while shooting documentaries to often-obscure points of order, Jason keeps a fast-moving pace and even he doesn't know where we're ending up at the end.
Episodes
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 ...
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 bre...
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-...
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 d...
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 ...
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 sti...
A Large Collection, Stories in a Collection, Capturing Infocom, Financialization, Families and Friends and Grief, Using The Skills You Have, Settling With Your Choices.
Someone tried to sell an awful lot of Infocom and Infocom-Related items on auction and is trying again, and I had some related thoughts about collecting, selling, and using opportunities.
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