week 2 - archiving (rambling notes)

when i first thought of talking about software on my spacehey blog, i wasn't sure whether i'd take a more detached approach and talk about stats, or just speak my mind over the things i'm passionate about - i'm leaning towards the latter right now. so let's chat about software preservation.

i'm a big fan of it. for a few months last year i set aside maybe 5 or 6 days a week where i'd go through the Internet Archive's software database, as well as WinWorld, and see what i could find. i stopped gaming regularly when i was in my early teens, since i just found other hobbies to occupy me.

so far, i've filled three CD cases with discs of software i find interesting/valuable - especially stuff that's impossible to find anymore. it just feels like the right thing to do, and at least i can experience them on a machine i bought just for that purpose. i have a WinXP machine as well as a Win7 desktop specially for testing old software. i've been into productivity and art software for the last few years. 3d modeling and stuff. there's just so much cool software out there that's impossible to find and impossible to run now, which is a real shame! the ephemeral nature of the current software ecosystem and how unfriendly the processes to use them are really irks me. and don't even get me started on how everything's on a cloud now and you need an account for everything. bugs me to no end. i really miss local storage and just making things available without logging into like 15 different services just to... idk, make a graph or a meal plan or something.

anyway, that's it for this week.