Ok, I’ll admit it. I really like system archaeology.
It’s like some strange combination of a system administrator, grey hat cracker, security expert, information archivist, hacker, propeller-hat role. I don’t know how to explain it.
And I’ve been doing it on my own system.
For years.
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Note that “digital folklore” (native web culture, etc) is not related.
What’s funny is that everything everywhere has my fingerprints all over it, but it’s been so long that I don’t remember anything. Yet when I stumble across something, it feels like there’s some other version of me that’s still alive and still concerned about that particular bit of data.
I leave witty little comments to myself in the strangest places. FILE_ID.DIZ, 4DOS‘ DESCRIPT.ION files, old TODO lists, old HOWTO instructions. It’s really great.
I still leave copious amounts of comments everywhere I go. I leave them Everywhere possible, really. It’s not that it helps me organize things – because I’m still working on that – but it does help entertain me.
Ok, this post was pointless. It was inspired by my finding an old Nutscrape bookmarks file from 1996 pasted into a links list file. I’m done now. Firefox just released 3.5, so I’ll go play with that.
