Here lies what we could salvage from the ashes of GeoCities.
A beautiful reminder that by publishing on the web, we are all historians.
Every color you choose and line of code you write is a reflection of you; not just as a human being in this world, but as a human being in this time and place in human history. Inside each project is a record of the styles and fashions you value, the technological advancements being made in the industry, the tone of your voice, and even the social and economic trends around you.
Lysenko vs. Vavilov feels like the 20th century version of Edison vs. Tesla.
A terrific piece by Maria Bustillos on digital preservation and the power of archives, backed up with frightening real-world examples.
Because history is a fight we’re having every day. We’re battling to make the truth first by living it, and then by recording and sharing it, and finally, crucially, by preserving it. Without an archive, there is no history.
Off-site backups of humanity’s knowledge and culture, stored in different media (including pyramidal crystals) placed in near-Earth orbit, the moon, and Mars.
We are developing specialized next-generation devices that we call Archs™ (pronounced “Arks”), which are designed to hold and transmit large amounts of data over long periods of time in extreme environments, including outer space and on the surfaces of other planetary bodies.
Our goal is to collect and curate important data sets and to install them on Archs™ that will be delivered to as many locations as possible for safekeeping.
To increase the chances that Archs™ will be found in the future, we aim for durability and massive redundancy across a broad diversity of locations and materials – a strategy that nature itself has successfully employed.
The promise of the web is that Alexandria’s library might be resurrected for the modern world. But today’s great library is being destroyed even as it is being built.
A fascinating account of one story’s linkrot that mirrors the woeful state of our attitude to cultural preservation on the web.
Historians and digital preservationists agree on this fact: The early web, today’s web, will be mostly lost to time.
All of these moments will be lost in time.
Geocities is no longer here for you to use.
When is an explanation not an explanation?
The difference between being on the web and being archived.