It’s been a long week
Some work was being done on my favorite pier today. I think it is near ready to reopen.
Email from Glitch
Subject: REMINDER: Project hosting ends in 2 weeks ⏳
Hello,
We are rapidly approaching the migration deadline to keep your projects live, as support for project hosting will end on July 8, 2025. Here is what you need to know:
- Your Glitch dashboard will be available through the end of 2025 with code downloads for all of your projects. A script to download all of your projects at once is also available.
- Your dashboard has been equipped to set up redirects for your project subdomains, so all your links will keep working. Make sure your redirects are set up before December 31, 2025. (We’ll make sure they stay active at least through the end of 2026.)
- For help with migrating your projects from Glitch to other hosting platforms, we have added guides in the Help Center, but if you still have questions the Community Forum is an excellent place to find help! The community has been actively gracious in sharing their migration journeys to support others during this process.
- All current Glitch Pro subscriptions will remain active until July 8, and refunds for unused time will be processed on that date.
We will continue to provide updates as we get closer to the end of 2025, and if you have any questions please reach out at support@glitch.com. Again, thank you for being a part of the Glitch community. <3– Jenn Turner
Glitch comms & content strategy
GIFs, Seriously.
The Internet Archive is a treasure! It cares about the longevity of the web. It cares about history. It cares about GIFs.
“GIFs, seriously?” asks a person I just made up who underestimates the value of a GIF.
Yes, “GIFs, seriously.” I reply to that made-up-person.
They released a search engine for animated GIFs a few weeks ago: gifcities dot org.
A search for “dancing baby” rightly brings up many results and variations. That moving image is famous enough to have a wikipedia entry.
The About Page for the site explains that it’s a search archive of Geocities. It also describes the fact that in initial versions of the site they inferred the contents of the images using filenames and file paths. They also used discriminative (as opposed to the odious generative AI tools) to enhance the search results.
In the original GifCities, we used the words in the filenames and directory path text to build a best-effort “full text” search engine. In the 2025 update of GifCities, we used AI tools to create a semantic-based search index to supplement the original search index to improve discoverability. Each GIF in the search results also links back to the original GeoCities page on which it was embedded (and some of these pages are even more awesome than the GIFs themselves).
My first website was on GeoCities. Mine was at SoHo ~ 3384 It’s in the Internet Archive but it’s live, on this site, at /archive/1. I tuned the 1996-era HTML to have modern HTML and CSS. My website ought to be a living representation even if lots of it is out of date. I seldom delete things. URLs should live forever.
I have a large amount of uploaded images on this site and on Flickr. I have toyed with the idea that I ought to use AI-based tooling to spider those images for meaning. I am certain I have gems in there that deserve reappraisal or reuse into my creative projects. Some who have read my work or heard me talk may hear an incongruity in considering AI usage. It is a nuance of AIs that they can be used to extract value, as Internet Archive did for GifCities. I direct you to Léonie Watson‘s talk at FFConf 2024: AI and Accessibility: the Good, the Bad, and the Bollocks. It’s a must watch.
It was a delight to explore GifCities. I kept putting in nouns and seeing the results.
Flashing images. Silly 3-D animation. Pixelation galore. 88×31 images. Such wild raucous creativity. Eventually I put in the word “pizza:”
I was delighted to see an image that I had made!
It’s also in the header for my Guestbook.
That is one of the first animated GIFs I made myself. It was featured on my Newcomer? page. That was on my Earthlink website. Also archived here. A “tilde site.”
The link in GifCities goes to a page in tribute to a Kevin Pomeroy. That’s a different “neighborhood” from GeoCities: WestHollywood ~ Stonewall ~ 2952. It has a graphical subheading of “October 1960 to January 1975.” I suppose Kevin must’ve liked pizza before something happened. It’s not clear what, but despite the dancing pizzas it seems ominous.
There are other related pages on the site. The site belongs to Norman. Norm liked AbFab, the band Erasure, lived in Baltimore and San Francisco, and once ran into OJ Simpson on the street. It’s the kind of website too few people make these days. I find it charming.
There’s enough details on Norm’s site that I could probably track down more information about what has happened since the late 1990s for Norm, but for now I am content to read the time capsule and appreciate that somebody read my page on earthlink.net, liked my silly GIF, saved it, and incorporated it into their website for Kevin.
I don’t have an overall message here other than my usual one: Make web pages. Share web pages.
GIFs, seriously.
What will you find on GifCities.org?
One addendum is that my longtime internet pal Dennis Wilen worked at Geocities when it was under the aegis of Yahoo. Dennis gave a tour to a few folks in the L.A. area for his mailing list Web405. It was amazing. I wish I had taken photos because it was an impressive place. I remember in particular banks of monitors showing off the neighborhoods and servers and how they were working.
Got a thumbs up from a pair of boys on the shore after one ride.
less of the world’s ills reach here
Waves were licking at the bottom of the pier. Big and fun.
“Take Two” as in Television Production
For the June 2025 IndieWeb Carnival by Nick: “Take Two”
- Joe:
- READY CAMERA ONE.
- Joe:
- TAKE ONE.
- Joe:
- CAMERA TWO DOLLY BACK TO A TWO SHOT.
- Joe:
- READY CAMERA TWO.
- Joe:
- TAKE TWO.
In 1988 I took a class at San Diego City College on Radio & TV Production. I learned to read a tv script. I learned to run a video camera. I learned to be a floor director counting down with my voice and fingers for talent on screen. I learned to also be on camera. And I learned to be a director of a live tv production.
In that role, I was “the guy in the chair.” My voice could carry to all the other people on the team. And I could talk to the technical director to hit the switches that switched what was on screen. “Ready camera two” is said in the control room, to get ready to switch to the camera. “Take two” means go ahead and switch to that view.
I do not use what I learned in a job in radio and television. I haven’t ever really done work in television but it taught me about media. How someone is making choices about what is happening on a screen. It taught me about live television. And edited television. And the differences.
Every piece of media we watch has choices that were made. Photography is made of editorial choices. It applies to visual artists and interactive artists of every kind. Nam Jun Paik’s video art. Play Fortnite. The screen is the result of choices being made.
“Take Two” in live television is… different from “Take Two” in a movie.
In film, “Take Two” means let’s try it again.
The “do-over” as Nick said in the prompt for this post.
I have gotten so many do-overs.
I moved around a lot as a kid.
I was born in San Diego. And when I was 3 we moved a hundred miles away to Riverside, California.
And then 60 miles away o Los Angeles right next to General Hospital (L.A. County Medical Center).
Then, Alhambra for age 4. I attended Kindergarten and exceeded expectations so well I was skipped a grade.
I promptly began to fail to meet expectations. Do over.
That lasted a few years and then we were living 11,000 kilometers away. Manila, in the Philippines. Do over.
Each of these were in their way radical changes in scene.
Each one a new take.
But more like a Television “Take Two.”
Not really a Film “Take Two.”
New scene. New script. New setting. New actors. New lighting. New special effects.
I think a Film “Take Two” is more like one of those videos where you see someone trying to land the same skateboard trick over and over. Tony Hawk doing his 1080s over and over and failing and landing on his butt. Or those videos where again and again some eager young person tries to toss that water bottle end-over-end so that it will land on its butt.
So what are my do-overs?
Before I got married Dave Segovia asked me about my wife. I was working in downtown Los Angeles in the mid-1990s. Night shift respiratory therapist. Handwriting HTML on my worksheets on breaks thinking about web pages yet unwritten. I was living with J at the time. My girlfriend.
- Dave Segovia:
- How’s your wife?
- Joe Crawford:
- I’m not married Dave.
- Dave:
- Oh Joe, you’re married.
- Joe:
- I am not married.
- Dave:
- Do you have something about her that drives you crazy? Maybe the way she chews gum?
- Joe:
- …
- Dave:
- But you stay with her anyway right?
- Joe:
- Yes, she’s great.
- Dave:
- See Joe, you’re married.
I married her a few years later. There was a horse and carriage and it was all so romantic and hopeful.
Things changed. And dissolved.
I married again a few years later. No carriage. But there were slot machines. The second was successful enough for a decade and a half.
I don’t think I’ll do a third, though, by my late friend Dave‘s definition I’m married.
I’ve kept moving. Job to job. Place to place.
Every time a new scene. A new story. A new take.
Along the way, even broke or hopeless, I have thought of how lucky I have been to get to try again.
That’s the blessing–and the curse–of the living.
The dead get no do-overs.
My cousin Eddie. My mother. My grandfather. My grandmother. My friend Jennifer.
I didn’t want this post go to take a turn toward meditations on mortality. But it’s unavoidable. Sorry.
I am lucky to get a chance to start again on things. To give things a new try. To practice. I try to appreciate each new try.
Riding waves, which I do often, each time out is a new lesson. Sometimes I get hurt. Sometimes I get a great ride. Sometimes both.
Ahe wave rises, crests, breaks, collapses. Try to time your actions to ride the wave in a way you like.
Each chance is utterly unique. Each wave moving water like all the rest. But each one a new take.
I am happy to have the chance for each new take.
Take Two.
If you liked this, you might also like my post Reboot, Renewal, also from an IndieWeb Carnival.