2013-08-05
Reaching back into the past
I started this blog about ten years ago. Mostly as a place to put the odd stories that my kids were too young to understand but might be interested in later. There's always strange things going on in the world, and in my life, so I had plenty to write about. The one thing I didn't understand when I got started though was how ephemeral the web is. Things you link to today are often gone tomorrow. This was especially true with images. These days I make a copy of the image, but originally I linked straight to the source, and now my 2004 pages are filled with broken pictures. I went back to fix a couple that seem to be popular still, one pointing to a favorite cartoon from Ink Tank. The artist took his original site down after a while, moved to a different domain, and has put some of the cartoons back online, but still has hundreds to go through. Luckily I remembered another way to grab the original: The Internet Wayback machine. Yes, there's a site where they scoop up the whole internet and keep it in deep storage so you can see what hairdoos and trendy outfits looked like back in 1999. Ok, maybe we don't need that, but I was able to locate the original page for my Master Geek page, and restore the cartoon. And here's another fun one restored at InkTank's new home: Board Chow.
Actually though, don't try this unless you want to skip lunch.
I started this blog about ten years ago. Mostly as a place to put the odd stories that my kids were too young to understand but might be interested in later. There's always strange things going on in the world, and in my life, so I had plenty to write about. The one thing I didn't understand when I got started though was how ephemeral the web is. Things you link to today are often gone tomorrow. This was especially true with images. These days I make a copy of the image, but originally I linked straight to the source, and now my 2004 pages are filled with broken pictures. I went back to fix a couple that seem to be popular still, one pointing to a favorite cartoon from Ink Tank. The artist took his original site down after a while, moved to a different domain, and has put some of the cartoons back online, but still has hundreds to go through. Luckily I remembered another way to grab the original: The Internet Wayback machine. Yes, there's a site where they scoop up the whole internet and keep it in deep storage so you can see what hairdoos and trendy outfits looked like back in 1999. Ok, maybe we don't need that, but I was able to locate the original page for my Master Geek page, and restore the cartoon. And here's another fun one restored at InkTank's new home: Board Chow.
Actually though, don't try this unless you want to skip lunch.
