Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It

Hosted by Jason Scott

Technology History

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Episodes

356

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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About the show

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.

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60 recent

June 12, 2026Episode 35510 min

The Aadam Jacobs Episode

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

February 2, 2026Episode 35411 min

The Pile of Badges Episode

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.

January 30, 2026Episode 35313 min

The Scarecrow Video Episode

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/

January 26, 2026Episode 35213 min

The Halo Championship Episode

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.

January 23, 2026Episode 35113 min

The Final March of the Floppies Episode

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.

January 19, 2026Episode 35011 min

The Mirrorball Episode

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!

January 16, 2026Episode 34910 min

The Excessive Air Filtration Episode

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.

January 12, 2026Episode 34813 min

The Upstairs Downstairs Episode

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.

January 9, 2026Episode 34713 min

The Sorting Stacks Episode

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.

January 5, 2026Episode 34611 min

The Video Files Episode

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.