💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › posts › 80 captured on 2021-12-05 at 23:47:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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Beep boop

~zampano

It's definitely a day that calls for a fire, and I'm glad that there's one nearby. If I can stand in front of it, snifter in hand, and gaze hauntedly into the flames, so much the better. What can I say, we all have an idiom to maintain.

Speaking of old aesthetics, I've been wishing lately that I had the resources to pump into helping out ArchiveTeam. They're a group that tries to archive web sites and software that may become inaccessible for whatever reason. A good example of this is when Yahoo shut down Geocities, and thousands upon thousands of user-created web sites were lost forever. Meanwhile, software can become inaccessible simply by becoming too old and no longer being compatible with modern hardware. It's a great project, and it also appeals to a certain hoarding nature that I have.

Because if I were to hoard, it would definitely be information. This could be books or simply data. When two major publishers released a massive textbook archive (some 50GB) at the start of the COVID pandemic, I jumped at the chance to grab it. I've barely looked at any of them, I just like knowing that they're there and accessible. If I had the resources (read: cashflow), I'd have my own online library in a heartbeat. And while I'm being wistful, I'd want to learn how to properly store old physical books and paper(s) as well. I think most from the last 200 years or so do okay on their own, but beyond that I'm not sure. Give me a basement and a budget, and I'd be a happy NPC.

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Replies

~inquiry wrote (thread):

Hear you.

And it's going to sound oddly paradoxical, but at this stage of my life I'd rather information that leadeth unto the absence of need for information.

I'm just plain/plumb information'd out.

~m15o wrote (thread):

I wish I knew geocities when it was a thing. I’m always amazed when I come across fragments of sites that were in there. I think my favorite thing is seeing how creative and passionate people can be.

Thanks for sharing about ArchiveTeam, definitely didn’t know that. It’s incredibly hard to build software that stands the test of time!