On Dave Farber’s IP list, Lauren Weinstein sent in a comment about the lawsuit against the Internet Archive, containing an odd but lovely mix of instructions on how to keep sites out of the archive if you don’t want to be part of the public record (as Brewster likes to say to those who choose not to participate) and a digression about the origin of the Wayback Machine name
I must digress for one minute. “Wayback Machine” is a great name.
I’m sure that the late Bill Scott, the voice of “Mr. Peabody” from
the “Peabody’s Improbable History” segments of the animated Jay Ward
series “Rocky and His Friends” — the “inventor” of the original
“Wayback Machine” from the series — would have been thrilled to see
the name preserved in this way.
I met Bill (also the voice of “Bullwinkle”) when he and June Foray
(the voice of “Rocky the Flying Squirrel”) attended a “Jay Ward Film
Festival” that I held here in L.A. more than 23 years ago. They and
other guests performed a full “Rocky and Bullwinkle” script (June
and Bill provided most of the voices on the show) and engaged in a
lengthy Q&A session about the show, and the past and future of
television. Most of their predictions turned out to be right on the
mark.I recorded that fascinating hour-long session with them at the time,
and it turned out to apparently be the only audio record of them
together at a public event. I’ve long had this recording available
online. Fans of the show and the merely curious can visit:
http://www.vortex.com/av#JayWard1
for a fun way to spend an hour.