Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It

14:03

The Interface Faith Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/07/26

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!

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14:53

The Crowdsource and Volunteer Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/07/25

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.)

en

13:17

The Mark Pines Auction II Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/07/06

The Mark Pines Auction II Episode: Mark Pines, The Second Surprise Auction, The Life of a Reseller, Bidding from Korea, The Contents of the Second Set, An Unexpected Subset, More Mark to Come.About the previously unknown second set of Mark Pines materials that was bid on, and what it means for the Mark Pines collection. https://archive.org/details/markpines?sort=-publicdate always has the new Mark Pines stuff.

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13:13

The Stacks of Catalogs Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/07/04

The Stacks of Catalogs Episode: A New Round of Sorting Catalogs, The Miracle of the Catalog, Desktop Publishing, Forgotten Labor, The Rise of the Instant Change, The Guided and Adored Catalog Scanning, Treasure.Another rumination in just how much I love old catalogs, on the occasion of sorting the 40,000+ catalogs collection at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/catalogs

en

12:50

The DMZ Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/07/02

The DMZ Episode: Visiting the DMZ in Korea, A Bus Ride With a Passport Count, Burgers, Grenades, Bridge, Mines, Observation, Denial of Visitation, A Very Deep Tunnel, The Spectacle and the History. Plus: Not Forgetting.Some notes while visiting a war zone, albeit one with a relatively small amount of action by the day.

en

15:09

The Medical Tourism Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/06/30

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

en

09:55

The Ending Not Ending Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/06/29

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

en

10:24

The Aadam Jacobs Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/06/12

The Aadam Jacobs Episode: A Six Hour Round Trip, A Documentary, Aadam Jacobs, Collections and Curation, Professional Recordings, Melomaniac, A Special Power Outlet, Club Owners and Bands, The Internet Archive Collection, The Live Music Archive, The Results of a Life, No Crash.About Mellomaniac, a documentary featuring Aadam Jacobs. The documentary is actually available online: https://vimeo.com/866218283 And the archive of tapes is growing here: https://archive.org/details/aadamjacobs

en

11:32

The Pile of Badges Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/02/02

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.

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13:21

The Scarecrow Video Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/30

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/

en

13:50

The Halo Championship Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/26

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.

en

13:33

The Final March of the Floppies Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/23

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.

en

11:51

The Mirrorball Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/19

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!

en

10:39

The Excessive Air Filtration Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/16

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

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13:35

The Upstairs Downstairs Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/12

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.

en

13:15

The Sorting Stacks Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/09

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.

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11:44

The Video Files Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/05

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.

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09:45

The HOPE Seminar Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2026/01/02

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.

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10:43

The Decay and Entropy Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2025/12/29

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.

en

10:09

The Yard of Hard Drives Episode

Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It ·

2025/12/26

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.

en

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