[00:20.680 --> 00:22.220]  Hahaha, it worked.
[00:23.580 --> 00:24.200]  It worked.
[00:37.420 --> 00:37.980]  Hi.
[00:38.660 --> 00:43.470]  Do you want more questions?
[00:43.950 --> 00:44.090]  Hm?
[00:44.510 --> 00:46.430]  No, just one thing.
[00:48.250 --> 00:48.890]  Oh, that's good.
[00:49.850 --> 00:51.090]  I'll take care of myself.
[00:51.910 --> 00:53.010]  I've got nothing to do with me.
[00:53.150 --> 00:54.130]  No notes, no nothing.
[00:54.530 --> 01:00.830]  You know, I'm not always taking questions.
[01:03.730 --> 01:07.990]  I'll try to keep it so that we have a more extra time, but it's on the shorter side.
[01:09.190 --> 01:16.010]  I don't want to succeed doing that, but that way, people have more time to move around and get back because of the heat.
[01:16.550 --> 01:18.870]  Like, 5 minutes, 45 minutes, then?
[01:19.410 --> 01:20.230]  You can try.
[01:20.750 --> 01:23.050]  At least let me know at 45.
[01:23.350 --> 01:24.010]  Oh, like, wow.
[01:24.670 --> 01:26.790]  Yeah, that's all.
[01:26.990 --> 01:28.930]  Just to know where I am in the thing.
[01:29.770 --> 01:30.770]  Part of the service.
[01:31.510 --> 01:32.230]  And then...
[01:32.230 --> 01:32.530]  Yeah.
[01:34.250 --> 01:34.610]  Excellent.
[01:35.030 --> 01:35.390]  What...
[01:35.850 --> 01:36.790]  It's not really a...
[01:36.790 --> 01:37.650]  Oh, let me get my...
[01:37.650 --> 01:41.250]  I'll get my phone to run as a timer for myself, so I know what time it is.
[01:43.990 --> 01:47.050]  The first one ran over a little bit, but what can I say to the first one?
[01:47.130 --> 01:48.210]  It's giving away free drugs.
[01:48.630 --> 01:49.170]  Yeah, I know.
[01:50.070 --> 01:50.790]  I'm not...
[01:50.790 --> 01:52.030]  Nothing's wrong here.
[02:15.180 --> 02:15.900]  And, um...
[02:15.900 --> 02:16.160]  Mmm.
[02:16.540 --> 02:17.560]  Always a hot bite.
[02:18.140 --> 02:18.620]  Yep.
[02:35.030 --> 02:36.450]  Hey there, folks.
[02:37.130 --> 02:38.090]  So, listen.
[02:38.430 --> 02:41.390]  I'm fully aware that the, uh...
[02:41.390 --> 02:45.650]  sequel to Dune is between this theater and the rest of the con, so...
[02:45.650 --> 02:49.750]  I'm gonna give people probably 120 seconds to...
[02:49.750 --> 02:55.370]  maybe 200 seconds after the actual start of 2 o'clock, just to...
[02:55.370 --> 02:57.190]  just to let them kind of...
[02:57.910 --> 03:01.850]  wander in, come down, realize they're human again.
[03:03.130 --> 03:06.250]  You won't be missing any content, but that's what's going on.
[06:29.150 --> 06:35.990]  I am giving, like, another 60 to 120 seconds for people who are rushing to figure out where the little theater is.
[06:36.150 --> 06:36.690]  This is...
[06:36.690 --> 06:41.450]  People are still peeling the plastic off of this convention.
[06:41.570 --> 06:49.790]  They are still finding that the little thing's on the screen, and they're pulling it off, and they're finding some of the keys are stuck, and everything's going on.
[06:51.110 --> 06:51.550]  I...
[06:51.550 --> 06:54.930]  While I'm waiting, I just have an interest, um...
[06:54.930 --> 06:56.950]  as a human being, which is...
[06:56.950 --> 06:57.210]  and...
[06:57.210 --> 06:59.310]  and give me a show of hands from the darkness.
[07:01.270 --> 07:01.710]  Um...
[07:01.710 --> 07:03.170]  Well, first, let's go for the fun one.
[07:03.330 --> 07:05.610]  Who here has, like, never seen me before?
[07:06.110 --> 07:07.850]  Who's never been part of this show?
[07:08.290 --> 07:08.870]  All right.
[07:08.990 --> 07:09.550]  Not a couple.
[07:09.670 --> 07:10.730]  Couple little hands there.
[07:11.330 --> 07:12.190]  How many people...
[07:12.190 --> 07:15.670]  This is the first time you've actually seen me in person, and not in a recording?
[07:16.510 --> 07:17.050]  Okay.
[07:17.930 --> 07:22.350]  And how many people were like, Oh, just another f*cking episode of the Jason Scott Show.
[07:23.410 --> 07:24.250]  All right.
[07:24.410 --> 07:25.270]  That's fantastic.
[07:25.770 --> 07:32.150]  It's exactly the kind of supportive audience I need as I broadcast into the time and everything else.
[07:33.090 --> 07:33.630]  So...
[07:33.630 --> 07:35.480]  I'm glad we made it, uh...
[07:36.310 --> 07:37.370]  to where we are now.
[07:38.390 --> 07:38.870]  We're...
[07:38.870 --> 07:39.210]  We're...
[07:39.210 --> 07:39.810]  We're at...
[07:39.810 --> 07:42.810]  We're at a save point in the big pandemic game.
[07:44.770 --> 07:45.250]  So...
[07:45.250 --> 07:46.470]  Great job.
[07:46.850 --> 07:48.590]  I only got COVID twice.
[07:48.830 --> 07:49.990]  So I think we're doing pretty good.
[07:54.170 --> 07:55.730]  Like I said, we'll do another...
[07:55.730 --> 07:56.110]  Another...
[07:56.110 --> 07:58.050]  Another 60 seconds just to see if somebody...
[07:58.050 --> 07:59.790]  I see, like, already one person is, like, there.
[07:59.950 --> 08:04.190]  And that is why I think we're going to completely revolutionize this field.
[08:05.670 --> 08:06.390]  Oh, anyway.
[08:14.800 --> 08:16.260]  Just about 10 seconds.
[08:16.460 --> 08:17.020]  Go for it.
[08:17.640 --> 08:18.960]  You might as well go for it while we're here.
[08:22.030 --> 08:23.170]  Good afternoon, everyone.
[08:25.530 --> 08:26.850]  As a reminder, if you see any...
[08:26.850 --> 08:28.950]  If there's any problems that you have at the event, any code of con...
[08:28.950 --> 08:34.770]  Any code of conduct issues that you may come across, please feel free to speak to any person wearing a purple shirt.
[08:34.910 --> 08:35.310]  There's security.
[08:35.430 --> 08:36.190]  They're going to help with this.
[08:36.350 --> 08:38.530]  Or with our friends with Operation Hammond.
[08:38.890 --> 08:40.830]  And we can help resolve these issues.
[08:40.830 --> 08:46.250]  But now, there are very few people where you can say, there's a man that needs no introduction.
[08:56.090 --> 08:57.030]  Hello, everybody.
[08:57.030 --> 09:02.450]  I'm really glad to be here, here at HOPE, coming out of one phase of the pandemic.
[09:02.450 --> 09:15.090]  For the people who will look at this recording in the future, a small, hearty band of people are basically living on the set of Dune, moving between small outbuildings in a college somewhere in Queens.
[09:15.650 --> 09:17.950]  People barely know how to speak English anymore.
[09:17.950 --> 09:21.370]  Some folks haven't talked to a real human being in years.
[09:21.590 --> 09:23.690]  We've relearned some portions of the language.
[09:23.950 --> 09:27.010]  We're not sure who's going to truly survive.
[09:27.370 --> 09:32.850]  But whatever you do in the future, remember, we did it obviously for you.
[09:33.470 --> 09:41.570]  So, greetings from anarchist jurisdiction where people are having a good time here, like I said, at the HOPE conference.
[09:42.510 --> 09:48.430]  My name is Jason Scott, and I work for a wonderful place.
[09:48.830 --> 09:54.350]  It has a beautiful building here, but most people don't know it by that.
[09:54.450 --> 09:58.690]  They know it by the name of the Wayback Machine or archive.org.
[09:58.690 --> 10:06.710]  And the Internet Archive is a massive conflagration of data and dreams and wishes.
[10:06.850 --> 10:13.850]  It's a place that was built on the idea of making as much of life digital as possible.
[10:13.850 --> 10:30.110]  Making as much of it an easily accessible, instantaneous set of media and memories and parts of culture so that we, ideally, could do things better, make life better.
[10:30.850 --> 10:35.010]  And sometimes that's worked out, sometimes it hasn't, but the experiment continues.
[10:35.350 --> 10:40.230]  I did not found the Internet Archive, but the Internet Archive found me.
[10:40.690 --> 10:46.250]  And I joined them about 11, 12 years ago, and I've just been a huge mess.
[10:46.330 --> 10:49.450]  And when they hired me, they were like, well, what job do you want?
[10:49.450 --> 10:51.810]  And I said, I want free-range archivist.
[10:52.090 --> 10:55.750]  And nobody knows what that means, which is perfect for me.
[10:55.750 --> 11:03.310]  I go around and I look at the world and I say, what parts of the world are not advocating for themselves?
[11:03.330 --> 11:06.610]  What I call non-advocated media.
[11:06.870 --> 11:18.270]  Media that's cool and neat or ephemeral or representational of something whose first impression is not to try to preserve it for the generations to come.
[11:18.550 --> 11:23.470]  And so I've gotten my hands on a whole bunch of different places and ideas.
[11:23.470 --> 11:25.190]  And part of that is communication.
[11:25.570 --> 11:28.390]  And I'm very comfortable with communication.
[11:28.830 --> 11:31.490]  I'm very, very comfortable talking to people.
[11:31.630 --> 11:42.650]  And so a lot of times it starts out with phone calls and communications and tweets and DMs and, Jason, will you come help with this thing we're seeing and will you do it?
[11:42.790 --> 11:47.430]  And a lot of it comes from the fact that a lot of other people have kind of internalized that.
[11:47.430 --> 11:52.190]  They have internalized the idea of like, if I don't do it, nobody will.
[11:53.470 --> 12:15.190]  So that means I spend a lot of time out in the world finding out about stuff that's at risk or going away and then helping people either come to terms with its interminable loss and the fact that it'll be gone forever or assisting in some direct way with making it live for various values of forever.
[12:17.010 --> 12:18.770]  Like videotapes, right?
[12:19.030 --> 12:28.030]  So videotapes, especially VHS tapes, represent a certain medium from a certain time whose time is rapidly coming to an end.
[12:28.770 --> 12:43.870]  where you have these, for the kids in the audience, a set of reels built into a small plastic cartridge that click in and then play standard definition, usually video, through a machine mechanism that itself is unbelievably complicated.
[12:44.410 --> 12:55.610]  If you ever want to see the face of God, just open up a VCR and you will have your brain rearranged at what actually goes on inside of this horrifying black box.
[12:57.870 --> 13:01.230]  And I had an opportunity to get a lot of them.
[13:02.050 --> 13:13.130]  So what happened was that I was communicated with by a group and they were like, Hey, there's a... and here's a little trick for you all.
[13:13.790 --> 13:16.090]  So one of the reasons I'll tend...
[13:16.090 --> 13:24.770]  So when I use the phrase win, I don't know how much victory really goes into it, but I will often win the debate of who do we give it to and I'll win.
[13:24.770 --> 13:36.470]  And the reason I'll usually win is because some corpus of material will come out and it'll be a whole bunch of things and somebody will say, I would love that, but I only want this 5% of it.
[13:36.810 --> 13:41.930]  Or I only want these nine things, usually for the purposes of some level of financialization.
[13:41.930 --> 13:43.550]  I want to sell it on eBay or something.
[13:44.210 --> 13:53.830]  And the person who's sitting on top of all this crap says, No, I'm not going to crawl all over my pile like a roach and pull out the three shiny beads for you.
[13:53.990 --> 13:57.390]  And I come along and I go, I would like all of it, no questions asked.
[13:57.410 --> 13:58.550]  And I can come by tomorrow.
[13:59.230 --> 14:00.030]  That wins.
[14:00.030 --> 14:03.430]  But your victory prize is this.
[14:04.050 --> 14:06.090]  You get a big bunch of boxes.
[14:06.430 --> 14:14.910]  So there was an anime store, anime and fan store in New Jersey that had closed 10, 15 years ago.
[14:14.910 --> 14:18.650]  And the family that had this store was moving.
[14:18.670 --> 14:23.630]  And so they said, Hey, could somebody possibly take some of these tapes away?
[14:23.630 --> 14:25.650]  People communicated me.
[14:26.010 --> 14:29.910]  And then I showed up and said, I will take all of it.
[14:30.550 --> 14:32.590]  And they were like, Well, that's pretty funny.
[14:33.910 --> 14:38.430]  And so that's how I suddenly found myself in the VHS business.
[14:39.750 --> 14:42.670]  With whole ranges of these tapes.
[14:43.350 --> 14:52.330]  And I, of course, had done it without really paying much attention to the direct concepts of like, What are these particular tapes?
[14:52.330 --> 14:55.670]  And many of them were what were called anime fan subs.
[14:56.230 --> 15:01.890]  And this goes back to an environment where a whole range of media was available in other countries.
[15:01.930 --> 15:07.070]  And this media would be copied over, but it would be in another language.
[15:07.350 --> 15:19.550]  And then groups of amateurs would take it upon themselves to translate, put on subtitles, And then make them available usually as second and third and fourth and 17th generation copies.
[15:19.770 --> 15:25.290]  Some of which would be sold at events and some of them would be distributed.
[15:25.870 --> 15:30.390]  And there were fan subgroups, people who had different styles.
[15:30.390 --> 15:41.870]  And as you can see here, there was a great ability to use color inkjet printers for labels.
[15:42.150 --> 15:52.270]  And so you would get these really exquisite lost runes indicating, you know, somebody's perception of what they should be.
[15:52.270 --> 15:57.190]  And you'd end up with these weird takes on what part of the movies they were.
[15:57.410 --> 15:58.930]  So to me, it was fascinating.
[15:59.610 --> 16:08.330]  This, however, left me with a problem, which is I don't like things being left on their original decaying medium for very long.
[16:08.790 --> 16:17.590]  And I also know it is very, very hard to get people to do what I call unfunded mandates, which is where I go that you should do this.
[16:18.110 --> 16:25.610]  And when I tell people to do that, they do it for a little while, maybe just on the force of being afraid of the guy in the suit and the hat.
[16:25.610 --> 16:34.770]  But it doesn't last for very long because unlike Sauron, you know, or the Eye of Mordor, I can't really keep watching them for very long before I have to go to the next thing.
[16:35.390 --> 16:37.210]  So I decided I was going to do it myself.
[16:39.010 --> 16:41.690]  So there's a whole variety of anime out there.
[16:42.430 --> 16:48.650]  Obviously, anime has become much more mainstream, but this represents kind of like late 1980s, 1990s anime.
[16:48.650 --> 16:59.310]  And if you look at it, you know, you start to realize that there's these kind of like cross-cultural moves and attempts to move them, but it's all on videotape.
[16:59.570 --> 17:08.110]  Now, when I encounter a new medium, and it's not new in the general sense, but it's new to me, I try to understand, what are we talking about?
[17:08.370 --> 17:09.330]  Like, what is this?
[17:09.450 --> 17:16.970]  Now, for a lot of VHS, it's standard definition video, which is a certain realm of resolution.
[17:16.970 --> 17:33.330]  It is interlaced, which means that a field comes down, and then another field comes down to produce one frame of video, because it dates back to a concept of a phosphorous piece of glass being lit by a laser beam aimed at your children.
[17:34.190 --> 17:41.610]  That would be manipulated by two magnets, and now you're going to turn it into a digital file.
[17:41.610 --> 17:58.570]  And what I have realized over time, this is hard-won knowledge, I didn't realize it here, I just knew it would apply, is you do not, if you can avoid it, get in a situation where nerds have a powwow on how to take an action.
[18:01.110 --> 18:06.170]  Because they all have their own personal beliefs on everything.
[18:06.510 --> 18:14.890]  And it is a religious war, because they will not just state what they do, but they will state it as the one true thing that has to exist.
[18:15.150 --> 18:26.590]  The one idea that has to be the one that absolutely wins, and the other guy is not just getting it wrong, or has an alternate opinion, but absolutely is the devil.
[18:28.370 --> 18:33.930]  So, like I said, you can get incredibly intense, and it's not very pleasant.
[18:34.150 --> 18:39.130]  So, I ended up having this solution, which was, I created a...
[18:39.130 --> 18:44.590]  First of all, I had a Discord, and I created a channel called Tape Everything.
[18:45.230 --> 18:54.370]  Then I went on to Twitter, and I demanded anybody who could respond to me, who knew anything about video or anime, come to that channel.
[18:54.910 --> 18:59.450]  And they all showed up, and they didn't realize they were on a survivor island.
[19:01.410 --> 19:07.470]  Then I created a Google Form survey that asked these questions.
[19:07.910 --> 19:10.550]  You know, how many tapes have you digitized?
[19:11.130 --> 19:12.850]  What method do you use?
[19:12.950 --> 19:14.190]  What hardware do you use?
[19:14.190 --> 19:15.990]  What software approach do you use?
[19:16.090 --> 19:17.050]  What's your biggest problem?
[19:17.310 --> 19:30.730]  And so, basically, I tortured them inside of a small glass jar, centrifuged all their dumb little brains into this high-test, ultra-video nerd, and then ended up choosing that particular method.
[19:30.970 --> 19:40.890]  Now, I want to point out that the ingredients that I used were people who were followers on Twitter, who were not professionals, who were willing to walk into a Discord and be tortured for their information.
[19:40.890 --> 19:43.930]  That is, of course, a built-in bias.
[19:44.190 --> 19:46.630]  But I came up with a methodology this way.
[19:46.850 --> 19:50.910]  And the methodology I chose could be wrong.
[19:51.390 --> 19:52.730]  It could be wrong.
[19:53.050 --> 19:54.410]  But I chose it, right?
[19:54.590 --> 20:10.630]  So, once I knew that I had some sort of methodology that would work a certain way and would work a certain technical way, and I'll tell you those details, because people like those details, I said, okay, and now I'm going to do that forever and see what happens.
[20:12.470 --> 20:19.430]  So, a lot of this, of course, was taking place while an awful lot of people were dying.
[20:19.770 --> 20:32.130]  You know, people who were close to me, people who weren't close to me, people who were very close to my age, people who were not close to my age, and people who were younger than me.
[20:32.230 --> 20:33.030]  My mother died.
[20:33.290 --> 20:34.190]  My uncle died.
[20:34.410 --> 20:37.490]  A number of people who worked with me died.
[20:38.630 --> 20:43.370]  Not co-workers, but friends and friends of co-workers, or people who I'd affiliated with.
[20:43.370 --> 20:46.790]  And this felt like a lot of weight to have.
[20:46.930 --> 20:51.230]  And there's different ways you can respond to that, that emotional hit.
[20:51.390 --> 21:00.710]  And I think if you come from a stressful situation, and I had a heart attack at 46, so clearly I love stress like a meatball sub.
[21:02.810 --> 21:07.910]  You can carry that weight and not know you're carrying that weight.
[21:07.910 --> 21:26.350]  And one way to kind of feed into dealing with that, you know, which is honest and true pressure and trauma, is to get involved in the minutiae and details of a meaningless local civil war.
[21:26.790 --> 21:29.090]  And that's exactly what video is.
[21:29.090 --> 21:39.730]  So, I could have gone into an awful lot of sleeping, or I could just move on into the breach.
[21:39.910 --> 21:41.790]  And you can have your own way of doing this.
[21:42.250 --> 21:45.190]  My advice is, go into the breach.
[21:47.230 --> 22:04.890]  And when you work on stuff like this, be aware that you're going to always have to deal with the fact that there are a later pantheon of yous, progressively grayer and more hunched over, who think that you are an idiot.
[22:06.410 --> 22:07.950]  Don't worry about those guys.
[22:07.950 --> 22:11.030]  They're really old and they can't run fast.
[22:11.230 --> 22:16.870]  So, and they certainly can't run back in time and open hands slap you while you're at your computer.
[22:17.030 --> 22:18.290]  So don't be too afraid of them.
[22:18.410 --> 22:19.290]  But they're there.
[22:19.410 --> 22:20.550]  And they're jerks.
[22:22.610 --> 22:26.110]  I ended up going in various directions with the video.
[22:26.350 --> 22:29.290]  And with video, the first part is the mechanism.
[22:29.550 --> 22:37.210]  The actual machine that you will use to put video tapes into that will then feed out into a format.
[22:37.350 --> 22:44.390]  In my particular case, the initial ones I was using was something called a Sony MD 9500.
[22:44.390 --> 22:52.390]  which is a VCR that goes into a MRI machine.
[22:53.070 --> 22:55.270]  So it's pretty hardcore.
[22:55.790 --> 22:57.690]  It can only do standard definition.
[22:57.690 --> 23:01.170]  It has a manual switch for hi-fi versus regular.
[23:01.310 --> 23:02.530]  So you have to keep track of that.
[23:02.750 --> 23:05.030]  But boy, rock steady.
[23:05.030 --> 23:11.050]  And let me tell you, nothing is more garbage than an anime fan sub tape.
[23:12.130 --> 23:13.210]  Oh my God.
[23:13.450 --> 23:19.170]  It's like throwing a discarded fast food wrapper into a nuclear physics experiment.
[23:19.170 --> 23:21.450]  It's the worst idea you could ever have.
[23:21.750 --> 23:23.750]  God knows what has happened to this tape.
[23:23.870 --> 23:25.310]  It has seen some shit.
[23:27.390 --> 23:29.910]  But this thing does its best to read from it.
[23:30.030 --> 23:37.310]  But it is very much like a clean, helpful social worker talking to somebody who was just run over by a garbage truck.
[23:37.450 --> 23:38.530]  It's pretty crazy.
[23:38.690 --> 23:39.590]  And what's your signal?
[23:39.630 --> 23:40.290]  I don't know.
[23:40.510 --> 23:41.330]  Anyway, so...
[23:42.050 --> 23:46.190]  The card I use is something called a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K.
[23:46.650 --> 23:48.890]  It's about $199 bucks.
[23:49.990 --> 23:52.690]  As you can see right there, you're like, but wait a minute.
[23:52.690 --> 23:53.270]  Aren't...
[23:53.270 --> 23:55.350]  That looks like an HDMI.
[23:57.110 --> 23:59.270]  I thought you're using a VHS machine.
[23:59.430 --> 24:00.650]  Don't those not use V...
[24:00.650 --> 24:01.170]  You know, whatever.
[24:01.590 --> 24:01.770]  Alright.
[24:02.210 --> 24:08.370]  The way that it does it is with a cable that looks like an angel that comes down to grant you your last witch.
[24:08.650 --> 24:09.390]  And it's...
[24:10.790 --> 24:11.750]  It's horrifying.
[24:12.010 --> 24:14.410]  The fact that this is somebody's solution.
[24:14.950 --> 24:15.910]  That exists.
[24:16.430 --> 24:17.550]  That is insane.
[24:17.750 --> 24:18.570]  That's not right.
[24:18.750 --> 24:20.130]  Whoever that is, you're going to hell.
[24:21.730 --> 24:24.090]  The program I use is called Virtual Dub.
[24:24.290 --> 24:24.950]  It's open source.
[24:24.950 --> 24:25.650]  It's available.
[24:25.990 --> 24:30.550]  And again, I interrogated multiple experts and went after them and said...
[24:30.550 --> 24:38.490]  And I mean literally, with a massive stream of profanity, kept flinging screenshots at them and going, what do I select here?
[24:38.490 --> 24:40.690]  What are the frame settings?
[24:40.910 --> 24:42.750]  What is the format?
[24:42.750 --> 24:46.130]  I ended up using a format called Lagarith.
[24:46.430 --> 24:48.990]  Lagarith is a lossless format.
[24:49.290 --> 24:51.070]  It has only one downside.
[24:51.110 --> 24:55.450]  It uses disk space like an out of control coke addict.
[24:55.750 --> 24:56.390]  It is...
[24:56.390 --> 24:58.090]  It is an ever...
[24:58.090 --> 25:02.170]  It was a non-stop Las Vegas bender of video disk.
[25:02.750 --> 25:05.670]  One hour of video is about 35 gigabytes.
[25:06.950 --> 25:07.510]  Yeah!
[25:07.930 --> 25:08.770]  Suck it down!
[25:10.290 --> 25:20.090]  I've always believed that when I am grabbing a crappy version of Dragon Ball Z that I should use more bandwidth than transferred throughout the entire global Internet across the first three years of its existence.
[25:26.250 --> 25:32.870]  But one of the advantages is once it starts running, you start to have some pretty good images that are pretty easy to read.
[25:33.070 --> 25:35.370]  And when you look at this, you go, Jason, is it...
[25:35.370 --> 25:36.630]  Why am I seeing two at once?
[25:36.670 --> 25:39.010]  And the answer is, oh no, I was running this...
[25:39.010 --> 25:41.830]  I was doing this double-handedly.
[25:42.610 --> 25:47.230]  So I had two Sonys doing the work and banging them through.
[25:48.350 --> 26:04.770]  And so I'm popping them in, hoping they don't get stuck, setting the high phi versus regular phi after running it through, putting it in, grabbing it at 35 gigs an hour, cropping the 35 gigs an hour, uploading it to the archive, and having the archive go,
[26:05.010 --> 26:05.270]  ow!
[26:06.270 --> 26:07.210]  But it was working.
[26:07.570 --> 26:10.350]  And I was living the life of Riley here.
[26:10.790 --> 26:14.730]  So bunches of fansubs are going by.
[26:14.870 --> 26:20.390]  Now, you know, if you sit back and look at the fansubs, fansubs are what they are, no big deal.
[26:21.630 --> 26:29.390]  You know, looking back on this now, you can now say, instead of this being an illustration, you suddenly realize, that's my to-do list.
[26:29.770 --> 26:33.790]  I'm going to have to shove each one of these things into a machine over and over again.
[26:34.850 --> 26:37.450]  I've got 600 of them to go through.
[26:37.870 --> 26:39.390]  So I've been going through them.
[26:39.950 --> 26:43.570]  And, of course, sometimes they look much more menacing than they should.
[26:44.610 --> 26:48.910]  This was actually from a different fansub group, where I met this guy.
[26:49.110 --> 26:50.990]  He said, oh, you're doing fansubs?
[26:51.170 --> 26:52.990]  Do you want our entire back catalog?
[26:53.390 --> 26:54.830]  And again, I said, yes.
[26:56.650 --> 27:08.790]  And that is how I worked out an episode of Breaking Bad, where I met this guy in a rest stop in New Jersey to pass this along on Super Bowl Sunday.
[27:08.790 --> 27:18.230]  So he was dressed in pajamas for his team and handing over his anime fansubs and driving into the night.
[27:18.370 --> 27:19.510]  And I was like, do you want credit?
[27:19.630 --> 27:20.630]  And he was like, no.
[27:23.430 --> 27:25.410]  So I can't tell you what group this was.
[27:26.370 --> 27:27.670]  And does it look great?
[27:27.930 --> 27:28.270]  No.
[27:29.550 --> 27:30.770]  No, of course not.
[27:30.770 --> 27:33.650]  I can barely make out who's doing the translation.
[27:34.470 --> 27:37.090]  When it doesn't work, it doesn't work awesomely.
[27:37.230 --> 27:39.930]  But I am capturing it at 35 gigs an hour.
[27:41.350 --> 27:42.970]  You have different approaches.
[27:43.050 --> 27:45.970]  It is not worth it right now to go into the deep vagaries.
[27:46.150 --> 27:48.010]  But I have been progressively going through.
[27:48.190 --> 27:49.630]  And, in fact, I did finish them.
[27:51.590 --> 28:00.510]  Anime fansub groups these days are mostly famous for the fact that there appears to be some where they get super angry in the fansub subtitles.
[28:01.230 --> 28:03.090]  So that's where all the stories are.
[28:03.550 --> 28:06.430]  Once you find them, of course, they're all...
[28:06.430 --> 28:08.230]  They're glorious, right?
[28:08.470 --> 28:10.290]  There's just so much anger.
[28:10.510 --> 28:12.050]  It's mostly one group.
[28:12.050 --> 28:20.410]  One guy really made it his mission to turn the ending of every episode he translated into a personal vendetta blog.
[28:22.390 --> 28:23.710]  But what did it matter?
[28:23.810 --> 28:37.170]  Because what I'll say all the time is it doesn't matter, like, how incredibly great or incredibly okay the process you're doing is, as long as you have a process that you can work on that's non-destructive.
[28:37.530 --> 28:46.630]  So the fact that I'm digitizing these and I'm ending up with these videos is not related to, like, the content per se, but I am closing that air gap.
[28:46.750 --> 28:48.990]  I'm making it digital, putting them up.
[28:50.130 --> 28:56.490]  And so I have been progressively going through hundreds of tapes at this point.
[28:57.130 --> 28:59.670]  And being sent more.
[28:59.950 --> 29:04.890]  And now I am doing VHS tape all day, all night.
[29:05.550 --> 29:08.010]  So naturally I'll want to Twitch stream it.
[29:08.770 --> 29:10.530]  So I've been Twitch streaming.
[29:10.770 --> 29:14.370]  I have been a Twitch streamer for a couple years now.
[29:15.150 --> 29:23.910]  And I don't know, I don't know what 19-year-old me would have thought about 50-year-old me getting into the online influencer business.
[29:23.910 --> 29:24.830]  But here we are.
[29:25.190 --> 29:33.930]  And I have been basically live streaming digitizing VHS video for about two years.
[29:34.330 --> 29:35.550]  And I am in the...
[29:35.550 --> 29:40.610]  I just found out from one of these dumb tracker things that I'm in the top 3% of Twitch streamers.
[29:41.570 --> 29:42.150]  Why?
[29:43.190 --> 29:43.770]  Why?
[29:44.550 --> 29:48.450]  But for me, it's less about that than feeling not alone.
[29:48.830 --> 29:50.330]  That I build up...
[29:50.330 --> 29:51.250]  Let's not use...
[29:51.250 --> 29:52.050]  Let's...
[29:52.610 --> 29:58.110]  Let's not pull the top shelf whine of community into what this is.
[29:58.250 --> 30:02.290]  But let's call it a hangout group who ask me questions and I respond to.
[30:02.430 --> 30:05.490]  And that helps me get over the hill of why am I doing this?
[30:05.770 --> 30:08.590]  Because I can see the reactions from the videos.
[30:09.830 --> 30:11.990]  This is that horror I was talking about.
[30:12.290 --> 30:15.130]  This is a eumatic tape reed head.
[30:15.390 --> 30:19.670]  This is what the aliens will find greeting them when our species is gone and they land.
[30:20.110 --> 30:21.370]  This, just spinning.
[30:21.710 --> 30:25.010]  That and one obsidian statue of Mario.
[30:25.830 --> 30:30.870]  So this is my little office slash hellscape that I spend a lot of my time in.
[30:31.810 --> 30:33.390]  Designed to be a streamer.
[30:33.910 --> 30:36.990]  When I'm on there, I've got different machines that are running.
[30:36.990 --> 30:41.270]  I am now digitizing three tapes at once.
[30:41.510 --> 30:43.410]  I'm about to start up doing five.
[30:43.790 --> 30:47.130]  I think five is about the limit of a normal human being.
[30:48.930 --> 30:54.850]  There's the microphone where I go off on random rants every once in a while because that's what it does to you.
[30:55.310 --> 31:01.230]  So suddenly, I found myself in this new position in this new place.
[31:01.230 --> 31:05.290]  So again, people who had saw that there was somebody who was willing...
[31:05.290 --> 31:12.710]  Now, I should say that in that original survey, when I said, how many tapes do you do before you give up sweating and hating everything about life?
[31:12.950 --> 31:15.530]  And the answer was like, on average, about 25.
[31:16.510 --> 31:19.310]  And I'm up around 800 now.
[31:19.790 --> 31:22.210]  And I found a small number of people who...
[31:22.210 --> 31:23.970]  for whom they were up in those numbers.
[31:23.970 --> 31:27.610]  And they also have found their zen place against all this.
[31:27.990 --> 31:29.850]  But it did mean that I was up for anything.
[31:32.590 --> 31:35.850]  And in the meantime, lots of cool stuff was happening.
[31:36.130 --> 31:41.290]  I only have one slide for this, but this is every variation of every AOL CD.
[31:43.370 --> 31:45.190]  This showed up March.
[31:46.790 --> 31:48.750]  So I'll be digitizing that.
[31:52.330 --> 31:53.510]  For the people...
[31:53.510 --> 31:55.030]  So most of you get it.
[31:55.130 --> 31:59.930]  For the small number of you looking left and right going, what the f*ck kind of group did I just wander into?
[32:00.310 --> 32:04.770]  I want to say that AOL CDs were half of all CDs produced in the 90s.
[32:05.050 --> 32:11.630]  They represent a comprehensive, shameful portion of all CDs made.
[32:11.630 --> 32:15.050]  And there were over 5,000 variations made.
[32:15.150 --> 32:19.170]  Because it didn't take people long to figure out, these things are awful.
[32:20.350 --> 32:21.870]  They worked, by the way.
[32:22.170 --> 32:26.130]  Like, if you go reach the numbers, AOL totally made bank on all this.
[32:26.210 --> 32:27.790]  So here they are.
[32:27.950 --> 32:35.450]  This was a lawyer who worked for AOL, who she had to evaluate each one that came in to make sure that it followed certain rules and stuff.
[32:35.450 --> 32:36.390]  And she kept everything.
[32:36.390 --> 32:37.990]  And she said, I guess you're the person.
[32:38.970 --> 32:40.550]  And I said, I guess I am.
[32:42.410 --> 32:45.550]  So yeah, so I never thought I'd end up in this world.
[32:46.510 --> 32:49.870]  And this video quality is about right for that.
[32:50.130 --> 32:53.210]  So if suddenly you're like, oh, but Jason, where's the goods?
[32:53.950 --> 32:57.890]  It's archive.org slash details slash fan submarine.
[32:58.610 --> 33:04.270]  As you can see, 631 tapes of the most delicious anime you've ever seen.
[33:04.730 --> 33:05.970]  Presented shakily.
[33:07.330 --> 33:13.010]  Remixed so you don't have to deal with the original 35 gig lagarith.
[33:13.150 --> 33:16.190]  You are dealing with a 100 meg MP4.
[33:17.130 --> 33:17.550]  So don't worry.
[33:17.790 --> 33:19.570]  Your bandwidth isn't going to be destroyed.
[33:19.770 --> 33:20.750]  Unless you want it to be.
[33:21.610 --> 33:23.170]  Do you have someone you don't like?
[33:23.330 --> 33:24.670]  Just put this on their Wi-Fi.
[33:27.010 --> 33:28.410]  So that really should be it.
[33:28.530 --> 33:31.030]  But then another person came into my life.
[33:31.030 --> 33:32.930]  And none of you know this person.
[33:33.110 --> 33:34.550]  I didn't know this person.
[33:34.850 --> 33:37.290]  His name is Mark Pines.
[33:37.750 --> 33:38.630]  Mark Pines.
[33:38.810 --> 33:40.890]  And I will never meet Mark Pines.
[33:40.990 --> 33:42.570]  Mark Pines died in 2020.
[33:42.690 --> 33:45.430]  He was a musician.
[33:45.770 --> 33:50.910]  He originally got his start doing writing for Cashbox magazine.
[33:50.910 --> 33:59.450]  He had kind of fallen into the realm of different musicians and industry people.
[33:59.450 --> 34:01.770]  He bounced between a couple jobs.
[34:02.210 --> 34:04.930]  He made his time between Connecticut.
[34:04.930 --> 34:06.910]  But he was really a New York boy.
[34:06.910 --> 34:09.670]  He loved being parts of the clubs.
[34:09.670 --> 34:19.550]  He loved apparently installing AV systems for rock stars that he would know through his various production businesses he helped with.
[34:19.790 --> 34:23.230]  As a result, he became very close with the musician Ron Wood.
[34:23.230 --> 34:29.910]  He was close to Noel Pointer and a variety of people you would consider stars.
[34:29.910 --> 34:31.850]  And he had died.
[34:32.330 --> 34:40.130]  And then a ghoul had grabbed his storage units in Connecticut where all of his old stuff was.
[34:40.410 --> 34:42.630]  And was putting them on eBay.
[34:43.430 --> 34:45.670]  And was originally going to piece it out.
[34:45.870 --> 34:50.850]  And another group of people had suddenly felt the urge to buy it from this guy.
[34:51.130 --> 34:52.090]  From the ghoul.
[34:52.090 --> 34:54.610]  And the ghoul was in a weird position.
[34:55.110 --> 34:58.970]  Because he has the same response of all ghouls.
[34:59.050 --> 35:02.950]  Which is a Smeagol-like loss aversion.
[35:03.290 --> 35:09.770]  Where every transaction of somebody else's life represents an opportunity for exploitation that may be pulled from them.
[35:09.890 --> 35:14.070]  You know, the goal of like, wow, they're offering me this much money for a hundred items.
[35:14.070 --> 35:16.250]  I bet I could turn each item into something.
[35:16.250 --> 35:20.390]  And just, I don't know how, you know, just constantly miserable.
[35:20.710 --> 35:25.090]  Constantly thinking that he's one golden hit away from success.
[35:26.010 --> 35:32.490]  But by pure luck, they were able to pay him $8,000 for Mark Pine's estate.
[35:32.930 --> 35:36.490]  And Mark Pine's estate turned out to be many, many tapes.
[35:36.730 --> 35:39.130]  Many, many different types of tapes.
[35:39.850 --> 35:46.550]  And that's me and the buyer who represented no less than a few dozen people.
[35:46.870 --> 35:53.150]  Something like, you know, 50, 60 people who each put money in for the $8,000 to save what was in there.
[35:53.270 --> 35:56.730]  Just on the theory that it was probably pretty cool.
[35:57.290 --> 36:01.870]  And then the problem was, who's gonna store it?
[36:02.910 --> 36:04.590]  Who's gonna digitize it?
[36:04.910 --> 36:06.330]  Who's gonna make it available?
[36:06.950 --> 36:09.670]  Luckily, all three of those were answered with the same person.
[36:10.410 --> 36:16.470]  So, inside are these very weirdly put tapes of various weird formats.
[36:16.730 --> 36:18.550]  With various weird labels.
[36:19.210 --> 36:22.970]  And formats that I don't even know how to deal with yet.
[36:23.210 --> 36:25.430]  And if you're looking at that going like, what does that say?
[36:25.550 --> 36:28.110]  It says Hall & Oates Reel 3 Master.
[36:28.610 --> 36:33.890]  Which is like, at least something to say like, Okay, maybe I should not throw this one into the trash.
[36:36.170 --> 36:42.070]  You know, these sense of like, the history that was attached to this and what it did and what it's about.
[36:43.250 --> 36:50.050]  So, I started kind of going through and digitizing the VHS tapes to see what was in there.
[36:50.230 --> 36:53.950]  And here's screen grabs from various productions.
[36:53.950 --> 36:56.650]  And they range wildly.
[36:57.590 --> 37:05.130]  Now, Mark Pines was born, you know, late 50s, early 60s.
[37:05.270 --> 37:09.410]  He spent his 20s doing writing and involving with bands.
[37:09.410 --> 37:15.450]  In his 20s and 30s, he's doing club acts.
[37:15.630 --> 37:17.210]  He's doing video production.
[37:17.670 --> 37:21.770]  By his 40s and 50s, he's doing like, cable TV stuff.
[37:21.770 --> 37:24.210]  He's helping with documentary footage.
[37:24.970 --> 37:31.270]  And then into his 50s and 60s, he's, you know, hanging out with his buddies.
[37:31.270 --> 37:35.310]  He's installing cool new video systems in people's houses.
[37:35.310 --> 37:37.750]  He's good for like, playing at the clubs.
[37:37.950 --> 37:47.190]  And so, when he finally dies, he leaves behind just a beautiful spectrum of folks, of interesting folks who like, remember their buddy Mark.
[37:47.690 --> 37:52.050]  You know, he touches in weird ways in life.
[37:52.510 --> 37:55.850]  He had a really close female friend who hung out with him.
[37:55.990 --> 37:58.590]  And she was the victim of the Craigslist killer.
[37:58.590 --> 38:08.090]  So, his name shows up in writings about the Craigslist killer because he ended up speaking for her because she wasn't around to speak about who she was as a person.
[38:08.410 --> 38:11.270]  But on the other hand, he's just kind of there.
[38:11.890 --> 38:12.750]  But where is he?
[38:13.030 --> 38:14.530]  Well, he's in New York.
[38:16.550 --> 38:19.810]  He's going to clubs and filming them.
[38:20.050 --> 38:23.010]  He's going to radio events and filming them.
[38:23.110 --> 38:26.350]  He's going to concerts and filming some of the people.
[38:27.110 --> 38:28.470]  He's interviewing people.
[38:28.670 --> 38:29.710]  This is Mark Pines.
[38:29.870 --> 38:30.770]  And he's at a club.
[38:30.770 --> 38:32.550]  And the club is named Rascals.
[38:32.630 --> 38:34.510]  And it used to be over by the Flatiron.
[38:36.610 --> 38:48.810]  And, you know, this is all I have of Mark, is him smiling in some of the shots and getting in, as only a person who does production can, kind of wandering in at the edges for a moment speaking.
[38:48.810 --> 38:53.330]  And I have hours of Mark talking to people because of it, interviewing them to get it.
[38:54.070 --> 38:57.050]  You can see him sitting around asking questions.
[38:57.050 --> 39:01.290]  Up in the upper left, for the people who know this, this is from Luscious Jackson.
[39:01.290 --> 39:06.290]  He has recordings of Luscious Jackson working out rehearsals of songs that they released later.
[39:07.210 --> 39:10.650]  He's interviewing people at events.
[39:11.330 --> 39:18.150]  Like, Rocket was a video production that he was involved in that was on Manhattan Cable Television.
[39:18.870 --> 39:20.670]  This is an AT&T...
[39:20.670 --> 39:22.810]  I just put this in for the hope nerds.
[39:22.810 --> 39:25.170]  This is promotional material.
[39:26.090 --> 39:36.810]  Promotional material for UNIX System 5 from AT&T, just talking about this hot new operating system that's gonna drop.
[39:37.050 --> 39:50.590]  And it's all these executives, including the later CEO of AT&T, doing skits about how, like, System 5 UNIX is gonna fix us.
[39:50.590 --> 39:53.290]  This is all from, like, 1981, 1982.
[39:54.830 --> 39:56.810]  This is Doug E.
[39:56.990 --> 40:00.810]  Fresh in the studio, just recording one of his pieces.
[40:02.750 --> 40:04.370]  There's Curtis Sliwa.
[40:04.970 --> 40:08.710]  There's a production of WABC, 77 AM.
[40:09.390 --> 40:11.610]  There's a drag event in the lower left.
[40:11.790 --> 40:12.750]  This is another musician.
[40:12.750 --> 40:24.790]  And what it turned out Mark had done over the years was he had captured a little bit of New York that wasn't there in his work, in the world, right?
[40:24.870 --> 40:27.730]  Like, kind of the edges of a world.
[40:27.730 --> 40:34.430]  It wasn't always designed to be produced and put into the media landscape.
[40:34.430 --> 40:37.470]  Some of it was just behind-the-scenes interviews.
[40:37.470 --> 40:54.230]  For some reason, there's a fascination with talking to people at clubs and asking them questions, or doing promotional resume pieces for fashions and musicians to be able to then pitch to others.
[40:54.230 --> 41:03.230]  And it's all sitting in a big pile in Connecticut, years out of date, years away, on a dying format.
[41:03.510 --> 41:06.030]  And suddenly, here I am.
[41:08.110 --> 41:22.330]  These are casting tapes of child actors from 1978, where each one reads from a certain, you know, preformed, one-minute script for a group called Mary E.
[41:22.450 --> 41:23.230]  White Productions.
[41:23.670 --> 41:35.790]  This is the child actor who played Mikey in the cereal commercial, four years after he had been in that commercial, hitting the bricks to try to get himself a brand new job.
[41:37.070 --> 41:43.610]  Here's Tiny Tim, the musician, just sitting around talking to people about his act.
[41:43.770 --> 41:46.990]  At one point, he gets up and just starts performing on the video.
[41:47.090 --> 41:51.990]  A performance of his that has never existed on video, that you can look at online.
[41:53.090 --> 41:56.670]  And this, to me, is the weirdest one.
[41:57.430 --> 41:59.230]  This is Walter Monheit.
[42:00.050 --> 42:07.690]  And again, the lack of gasps in the audience tell me that Walter Monheit was in danger of being forgotten.
[42:08.250 --> 42:27.130]  Walter Monheit was an Austrian bicycle messenger in New York, who had, of course, these many horrifying stories in his past, and a brother who he had lost and everything else, who had become a messenger and had found himself in the grips of the then-growing spy magazine in New York.
[42:27.130 --> 42:33.070]  And they were so charmed by his stories that they made him into a character in Spy.
[42:33.330 --> 42:35.290]  So if you go to Spy, they have Walter Monheit.
[42:35.370 --> 42:42.730]  And all he does is drop fake, massive quotes about movies in the hope that they will reprint them on the movie posters.
[42:43.310 --> 42:44.270]  Which worked.
[42:44.930 --> 42:46.030]  Which worked.
[42:46.030 --> 43:07.210]  And when he died, obituaries talked about the fact that his real stage of performance were clubs where he would constantly chase after ladies and do little balancing drink tricks and tell long, winding stories to try to charm everyone around him.
[43:07.210 --> 43:10.430]  And there was no recording of him until now.
[43:10.990 --> 43:16.470]  So here's these recordings of this lost little slice of a piece of New York that isn't there.
[43:16.690 --> 43:27.090]  And again, this is all because a man died, another group bought him at auction, his estate, and then it fell to me.
[43:27.090 --> 43:36.710]  Just a series of random smashes against random surfaces until it ended up in the pockets of a maniac.
[43:37.650 --> 43:41.730]  And there's so much of life that's saved that way.
[43:41.890 --> 43:43.470]  There's the life that Mark lived.
[43:43.730 --> 44:03.010]  And then, does Mark ever visualize in his life that he would end up being on a screen with a conservatively dressed historian pointing out his own life as if it was a series of points in a beautiful exhibition?
[44:03.690 --> 44:04.930]  I just say no.
[44:05.750 --> 44:10.370]  But I ask people who live their own lives and think that they're building towards something.
[44:10.490 --> 44:11.470]  Is this what you want?
[44:11.810 --> 44:14.330]  Is this a possibility that you want with your own life?
[44:14.570 --> 44:15.370]  Is this a possibility?
[44:15.550 --> 44:28.570]  Is there somebody in your life, like a Walter Monheit yourself, who maybe could use a few frames of your video phone asking them questions about their past before they're gone that may have meaning later?
[44:28.570 --> 44:37.010]  Because one of the greatest sources of energy I tell people is to take what is worthless to you and is priceless to others.
[44:37.330 --> 44:38.670]  It works for everything.
[44:38.990 --> 44:41.690]  It takes no time to babble on about yourself.
[44:41.930 --> 44:54.730]  But to somebody who is your relative, who may be here after you're gone, the words that come out of your mouth are the genetic line of their own family history and will give them insight into who they are.
[44:54.730 --> 44:56.830]  I really encourage this.
[44:57.270 --> 45:04.710]  I know it's strange to encourage people to talk more in the modern era, but we don't talk enough about what makes us what we are.
[45:05.230 --> 45:07.470]  And randomly, Mark did.
[45:07.650 --> 45:08.870]  He talked to everybody.
[45:08.870 --> 45:10.910]  These are people he just scooped up.
[45:11.030 --> 45:12.390]  That's a horror show.
[45:12.630 --> 45:17.730]  That's just outside of a club.
[45:17.730 --> 45:19.930]  There's a drag event going on.
[45:20.130 --> 45:21.370]  Just talking to people.
[45:21.630 --> 45:26.870]  I haven't tracked all these people down, but I've tracked down many and found out where their lives went.
[45:27.530 --> 45:28.750]  Including Joey Wilson.
[45:28.950 --> 45:30.510]  I didn't know who this person was.
[45:30.730 --> 45:35.990]  His music video stopped at various points because it was a rough cut and he's looking at the camera.
[45:37.110 --> 45:41.930]  Created an album in 1980 and it just never worked out.
[45:44.210 --> 45:50.570]  His keyboardist went to work for U2 and did production work and had worked with Blondie.
[45:51.050 --> 45:54.250]  His guitarist, his saxophonist, they all got jobs.
[45:54.410 --> 45:59.470]  Joey just floated around the Philly area and died of a heroin overdose in 1997.
[45:59.710 --> 46:00.950]  A voice gone.
[46:01.550 --> 46:02.850]  But he's back.
[46:02.850 --> 46:07.150]  We've put him on the archive and put him on YouTube.
[46:07.150 --> 46:09.490]  And he writes some beautiful songs.
[46:09.690 --> 46:11.330]  Some one-of-a-kind beautiful songs.
[46:11.450 --> 46:14.890]  And his songs live again because of where they were.
[46:15.350 --> 46:16.510]  And there's me.
[46:17.150 --> 46:18.030]  There's me.
[46:18.270 --> 46:19.150]  I'm on the right.
[46:19.850 --> 46:29.410]  This is just me in 1987 where my friend Jeremy and I had the weirdest band ever.
[46:29.690 --> 46:31.610]  It was called Bovine Ignition Systems.
[46:32.610 --> 46:35.770]  Just the kind of name that two 17-year-olds would come up with.
[46:36.510 --> 46:50.150]  And at the time, the local mall had a weird make a music video shop where for $20, they could put you on a blue screen with props and you would lip sync a song.
[46:50.270 --> 46:51.990]  And we said, can we do our own song?
[46:52.110 --> 46:54.270]  And that's how we shot a 20-minute music video.
[46:56.350 --> 47:01.410]  Jeremy, who's on the right there, has gone on to an incredible career as a musician.
[47:01.610 --> 47:05.910]  He was one of the most popular bands in Seattle called 80-something.
[47:06.310 --> 47:12.890]  He's now a group of a Hamilton and Broadway cover group that does lots of work.
[47:13.030 --> 47:21.490]  And also, he co-designed Internet Explorer and AIM and STEAM.
[47:22.170 --> 47:26.270]  He's gone on to a great life, and me, I've gotten by.
[47:27.670 --> 47:38.530]  But here in this moment is a captured moment of two friends who don't know what extends in front of them, turned into a digital world accessible to everyone.
[47:40.030 --> 47:44.990]  To me, that's all we can really ask for as we look forward in our life.
[47:46.470 --> 47:51.070]  And then somebody offered me 8,000 videotapes, and I said yes.
[47:55.890 --> 47:56.950]  That's what we do.
[47:57.130 --> 47:58.650]  That's what life is about.
[47:58.870 --> 48:00.210]  That's all I ask of people.
[48:00.210 --> 48:05.590]  You will find yourself in a position as the unintended guardian of what came before.
[48:05.850 --> 48:07.150]  Especially now.
[48:08.530 --> 48:19.550]  People who are idiots may debate about whether or not our death rate has slightly exceeded in the last few years, but what we're seeing in fast motion is what's happening anyway.
[48:19.550 --> 48:21.810]  The turnover of generations.
[48:22.210 --> 48:23.970]  The changing of our lives.
[48:24.170 --> 48:27.950]  From things we could depend on to things we can't depend on anymore.
[48:28.350 --> 48:34.510]  To being asked to do things that we didn't ourselves expect we would have to do.
[48:34.630 --> 48:38.190]  To take responsibilities or actions that we didn't expect we would.
[48:39.010 --> 48:40.290]  That's where we are.
[48:40.870 --> 48:55.550]  So when this man died, leaving behind 15 years of recorded network television, along with every TV guide of every day with highlights in yellow, I said yes.
[48:56.910 --> 49:06.710]  And I hope that when you find yourself in a similar position, you will know someone, please don't let it be me, who will also be yes.
[49:07.170 --> 49:10.110]  Who will also be that one voice that says yes.
[49:10.290 --> 49:11.370]  I'll take it all.
[49:11.550 --> 49:12.790]  I'll take your fan subs.
[49:13.010 --> 49:14.070]  I'll take your recordings.
[49:14.390 --> 49:15.550]  I'll take what you have.
[49:15.550 --> 49:17.850]  And I will try to be the guardian.
[49:19.390 --> 49:21.510]  Anyway, to de-interlace, you can use this filter.
[49:21.650 --> 49:22.810]  It does blending.
[49:22.990 --> 49:23.690]  You put it together.
[49:24.790 --> 49:26.590]  And there's professional formats.
[49:26.770 --> 49:29.450]  And then you can, of course, just use what they have as default.
[49:29.650 --> 49:29.950]  Thank you.
[49:30.030 --> 49:31.130]  My name is Jason Scott.
[49:38.000 --> 49:40.600]  I don't have any... I hit time.
[49:40.660 --> 49:41.160]  Look at that.
[49:42.400 --> 49:48.140]  I'm going, like I said, I'm not really... I mean, I guess if we have questions, we can do questions.
[49:48.360 --> 49:53.460]  But to be honest, what's important to me is what I said at the opening event.
[49:53.620 --> 50:00.900]  If for some of you missed it, it can be rather traumatic for a long-time conference to upend its roots.
[50:00.900 --> 50:07.980]  It has moors and traditions and characters who wander in and wander out.
[50:08.160 --> 50:11.840]  And what we've seen here is they've yanked the bulb out of the roots.
[50:11.840 --> 50:16.680]  And they've planted it again in what we hope is fertile ground of Queens.
[50:16.680 --> 50:22.080]  And the hope is that this will flower in its own way.
[50:22.360 --> 50:30.360]  In an ideal world, we don't even truly remember the time it was in the Hotel Penn.
[50:30.580 --> 50:43.160]  That we remember it as this amazing, multifaceted part of the Queens culture that comes by like a beloved ship and lands and births and interacts with the community.
[50:43.160 --> 50:44.840]  And it's dependent on you.
[50:44.840 --> 50:50.400]  Otherwise, it's gonna be nothing but Twitch streams coming from here to the forever.
[50:50.660 --> 50:57.600]  And I'd rather we had a world where people could meet up again sanely, happily, and find connections.
[50:57.780 --> 50:59.600]  So please try to do that at this event.
[51:01.220 --> 51:05.280]  If somebody has a question that they do...
[51:05.280 --> 51:06.520]  They're really like...
[51:06.520 --> 51:09.460]  And it ends with a question mark.
[51:11.540 --> 51:13.860]  Because I said something and you gotta know.
[51:14.900 --> 51:15.940]  Shout it out.
[51:17.560 --> 51:18.020]  Anybody...
[51:18.020 --> 51:18.660]  Hey there!
[51:19.000 --> 51:20.100]  Okay, there we go.
[51:20.300 --> 51:21.920]  Absolutely no social contract.
[51:22.160 --> 51:22.620]  Go for it.
[51:22.800 --> 51:24.880]  This is Mark from the Internet Archive.
[51:25.000 --> 51:25.500]  Oh no!
[51:25.500 --> 51:27.240]  It's Mark from the Internet Archive.
[51:27.240 --> 51:27.920]  Hi Jason!
[51:28.120 --> 51:28.340]  How you doing?
[51:28.340 --> 51:28.900]  Hi Mark!
[51:29.100 --> 51:29.920]  How's it going?
[51:30.040 --> 51:30.560]  What's new?
[51:30.780 --> 51:31.000]  It's going great!
[51:31.200 --> 51:37.060]  I just flew in last night and I was taking the D from the Bronx and I ran into Curtis Silva, of all people.
[51:37.340 --> 51:38.520]  And how did that go?
[51:38.660 --> 51:39.820]  Did you emerge intact?
[51:39.820 --> 51:40.640]  I did.
[51:40.740 --> 51:43.540]  He handed me his card while other people were like doing selfies.
[51:43.780 --> 51:44.880]  The question is...
[51:44.880 --> 51:45.120]  Yes.
[51:45.300 --> 51:47.800]  I believe in improving things secretly.
[51:48.800 --> 51:51.900]  Being really quiet about it so nobody gets in your face.
[51:52.160 --> 51:52.400]  Okay.
[51:52.620 --> 51:55.160]  Only telling people that are helping you.
[51:55.500 --> 52:02.300]  Now how does that reflect in your sense of values with being a guardian?
[52:03.180 --> 52:10.680]  I am very much of the opinion that I can also serve as an extraordinarily bad example.
[52:10.920 --> 52:11.180]  Yay!
[52:11.420 --> 52:22.060]  And so in that way I will say that, for instance, I'm involved with an activist team called Archive Team, which some of you may be aware of.
[52:22.480 --> 52:27.060]  I was a co-founder of it back in 2008, 2009.
[52:27.060 --> 52:35.460]  It was designed to be the group that would come in when a website was being shut down like Geocities or Friendster or hundreds of others.
[52:35.660 --> 52:41.440]  And we would come in and we would grab a whole copy of as much as we could to ensure that it would continue.
[52:41.940 --> 52:53.920]  And over the years we discovered variant responses to a gaggle of nerds hitting every single server on a system of a shutting down service.
[52:54.100 --> 52:55.160]  Some of it rage.
[52:55.940 --> 53:00.840]  So we started to implement a policy that I called Good Cop Antichrist.
[53:03.140 --> 53:09.980]  And so more than once I would come in blusteringly ruining lives.
[53:10.640 --> 53:22.300]  And then we had a number of other Archive Team members who were just little, little quiet hair-cutted, tie-wearing like, oh yeah, Jason's completely off the rails.
[53:23.060 --> 53:26.120]  Maybe we could work with you to quietly do this and a thing.
[53:26.240 --> 53:28.800]  And they would go, oh, thank f*ck this guy.
[53:29.580 --> 53:30.580]  What is with...
[53:30.580 --> 53:32.660]  We don't have any way to control him.
[53:33.820 --> 53:36.680]  He's a loose cannon made of loose cannons.
[53:37.640 --> 53:39.660]  He's killed nine of his own men.
[53:39.840 --> 53:41.260]  We don't have any...
[53:41.980 --> 53:42.460]  Whatever.
[53:43.020 --> 53:45.100]  And then they would say to me, it's all good, Chief.
[53:45.240 --> 53:46.140]  And we would get it done.
[53:47.040 --> 53:48.120]  I'm fine with that.
[53:48.240 --> 54:06.640]  I'm also fine with the idea that, you know, one of the things that was corrupted in the great April Fool's bullshit of the last 20 years was the fundamental joy of the discovery of not knowing something was happening and then finding out it was done.
[54:07.280 --> 54:10.060]  That is a fundamental human joy, right?
[54:10.320 --> 54:14.000]  Like, dropping an album, right?
[54:14.180 --> 54:16.180]  Where it's like, I didn't know you were working on an album.
[54:16.300 --> 54:17.220]  Here's the whole album.
[54:17.360 --> 54:17.940]  It's right here.
[54:18.060 --> 54:18.980]  Come enjoy it, right?
[54:19.580 --> 54:23.920]  At the great expense of a lot of human beings' happiness, Steve Jobs liked that.
[54:24.040 --> 54:26.760]  He loved announcing something and the next morning it's all waiting.
[54:27.960 --> 54:44.820]  That joy of those things happening, I will have people come to me, like Mark indicates, who have been kind of just obsessing in secret trying to come up with things, create a viable 1.0 and then ask me to be the voice of like, guess what just happened?
[54:45.420 --> 55:02.920]  And there has been some amazing things from Apple II RPGs all the way through to like brand new libraries that interpret Morse code from the air or discovering that somebody has been quietly digitizing an entire television show that hasn't existed for 30 years and there were no recordings of it.
[55:03.800 --> 55:05.740]  I totally encourage that.
[55:05.900 --> 55:16.220]  But I also think that I play a part in showing people that there's a fundamental joy in doing this and representing some example, even like I said, if it's a bad one.
[55:16.580 --> 55:17.800]  Any other questions?
[55:19.260 --> 55:20.480]  Or are we...
[55:20.480 --> 55:22.000]  I have a question if there's time.
[55:22.480 --> 55:30.180]  I saw your talk last time and touched on, you know, mortality and heart attack and whatnot and you've talked a lot here about change at HOPE.
[55:30.400 --> 55:39.140]  And I'm wondering about kind of, you know, the Buddhist concept of everything changing and decaying and kind of getting used to the fact that you have to let go of everything all the time.
[55:39.300 --> 55:39.500]  Yeah.
[55:39.740 --> 55:40.860]  And you can't hold on to things.
[55:41.360 --> 55:43.420]  What's your take on that as an archivist?
[55:44.140 --> 55:46.400]  Oh, life is a lossy format.
[55:50.060 --> 55:59.140]  We live in a world where decay is the natural, like the universe is constantly trying to break you apart to make you into a beautiful James Webb photograph.
[55:59.980 --> 56:01.860]  Like that's what it wants to do.
[56:01.980 --> 56:04.280]  And it's only through variant amount.
[56:04.280 --> 56:14.500]  Like, I started to like come up with different ways of psychologically dealing with that because I think people have discovered in the last couple years...
[56:14.500 --> 56:21.020]  Last couple years have been an astounding penalty box to sit in and stew about what we've been doing, right?
[56:21.800 --> 56:36.380]  And one of them was realizing that a lot of people labor in fear and in service to a perceived future instead of adoring a consistent present.
[56:37.120 --> 56:40.880]  And I'm very much of the opinion...
[56:40.880 --> 56:42.420]  For instance, Infocom.
[56:42.620 --> 56:43.340]  Great company.
[56:43.840 --> 56:44.900]  And Steve Moretzky.
[56:45.020 --> 56:45.760]  Incredible man.
[56:45.940 --> 56:48.640]  Who did some of the most famous works of this game company.
[56:48.820 --> 56:49.800]  Planet Fall.
[56:50.080 --> 56:51.700]  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
[56:52.080 --> 56:52.900]  Station Fall.
[56:53.280 --> 56:54.760]  Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
[56:54.760 --> 57:04.580]  I digitized 8,000 internal memos from the company, including memos he had written about there being too many memos.
[57:04.940 --> 57:16.140]  And what came out of it was how Steve Moretzky turned every week of the six-year main life of Infocom into a joy.
[57:16.140 --> 57:17.980]  Crab races.
[57:18.480 --> 57:21.040]  Weird restaurant traditions.
[57:21.700 --> 57:24.100]  Fun games every night.
[57:24.340 --> 57:28.420]  Board games played with like the fervor of warring countries.
[57:28.900 --> 57:38.740]  He made it that the moments of Infocom, of going to work and being there, were a joy to be grabbed every single day.
[57:38.740 --> 57:51.460]  So even though the company ultimately fell apart due to various policies and approaches that I ended up making a film about, he made those days mean something.
[57:51.880 --> 57:56.300]  Even the building that Infocom was in has been raised in the last ten years.
[57:56.640 --> 57:59.100]  There's no record of Infocom in a physical space.
[57:59.100 --> 58:00.260]  There's no plaque there.
[58:00.260 --> 58:15.880]  There's only the fact that in the minds of a few hundred people, they remember the day-to-day office culture that people like Steve Moretzky brought to their daily lives instead of focusing on whether or not Infocom still makes games or how hard they are to reach or anything else.
[58:17.120 --> 58:19.140]  I think we need more of those kind of people.
[58:21.180 --> 58:31.560]  Because life, if you just sit around saying, well, one day I'll do this, one day I'm going to do this, and you don't come up with ways to enjoy your day, you're going to be miserable.
[58:31.880 --> 58:33.880]  So that's kind of where I come from about that.
[58:34.020 --> 58:34.620]  That's how I come.
[58:37.100 --> 58:46.260]  I'm not saying it's not worth it to do work in service, but like I said with my Twitch streams, I have the experience of the Twitch streams and my endless rants.
[58:46.760 --> 58:51.200]  I have a podcast that I, if you're like new to this, I have a podcast.
[58:52.260 --> 58:54.620]  I got hit with a $35,000 tax bill.
[58:54.820 --> 58:55.680]  I don't know how!
[58:55.940 --> 59:00.380]  And so, to help pay it off, I started a Patreon around a podcast.
[59:00.560 --> 59:07.300]  And it was called Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It, in which I tell weird historical stories for money.
[59:08.820 --> 59:10.120]  And I paid it off.
[59:10.840 --> 59:12.360]  And I paid off my medical bills.
[59:12.480 --> 59:13.240]  And I'm debt free.
[59:13.780 --> 59:16.300]  And the way I did it was by...
[59:16.300 --> 59:19.560]  I keep forgetting this is the sad country timeline.
[59:19.800 --> 59:20.500]  We're being out of debt.
[59:20.640 --> 59:21.200]  It is an accomplishment.
[59:21.380 --> 59:22.660]  Anyway, so...
[59:22.660 --> 59:38.580]  But anyway, the point is that what I quickly discovered, and I've just finished episode 205, is there's something to be said for giving emotional tales of what was before and finding the connections and doing that four times a month.
[59:39.660 --> 59:41.460]  That's how I found my place.
[59:41.740 --> 59:58.340]  So even though I'm doing all these other insane infinity works, the day-to-day considering what I'm doing and having to describe it and what I'm up to and what those things are, is its own precious jewel that I will polish and work with and have it.
[59:58.400 --> 59:59.420]  So I encourage that.
[01:00:00.040 --> 01:00:04.220]  You know, when I first gave these HackerCon talks, they were a lot more f*cked up.
[01:00:04.420 --> 01:00:08.400]  And nowadays, there are these very introspective emotional things.
[01:00:08.820 --> 01:00:14.800]  And for the people who used to like the weird comedic ones that were odd, I'm sorry.
[01:00:16.220 --> 01:00:22.100]  There is a talk I gave, for the ones who don't know, called That Awesome Time I Was Sued for Two Billion Dollars.
[01:00:23.320 --> 01:00:26.780]  And it's about the time I was, you know, sued for two billion dollars.
[01:00:27.940 --> 01:00:29.520]  And it's a fun talk.
[01:00:29.720 --> 01:00:31.220]  I really encourage listening to it.
[01:00:31.360 --> 01:00:37.840]  But nowadays, people have the language to understand that person who sued me for two billion dollars, and it's kind of sad.
[01:00:37.840 --> 01:00:42.980]  At the time, I was grappling with, why am I spending ten years being sued for two billion dollars?
[01:00:45.100 --> 01:01:01.940]  But nowadays, I'm gifted with the fact that it was so easy to get a talk slot here, and I didn't have to give them any details, and they just said, do whatever you want to do, that I think of that as a gift that I should pay back by giving people thoughts and advice and emotion that comes deep within me.
[01:01:02.120 --> 01:01:04.260]  So think about that for your talks in the future.
[01:01:04.540 --> 01:01:05.260]  All right, that's it.
[01:01:05.280 --> 01:01:05.920]  Let's get out of here, man.
[01:01:06.020 --> 01:01:06.400]  It's hot.
[01:01:06.400 --> 01:01:07.040]  Thank you.