Reclaim Video’s 1900 Laserdiscs

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Reverend

Reclaim Video Laserdisc Motherload

As soon as I got back into town on this last trip Tim and I immediately headed down to Ruther Glen, Virginia to pickup 1900 laserdiscs thanks to Fat Kat Records & Books. I first discovered this gem in 2015 when working on the UMW Console. We bought some vinyl as well as a SelectaVision player and over 75 videodiscs. They since moved from Fredericksburg to Ruther Glen, which was only 20 minutes south. There laserdisc collection is impressive, and Tim and I have probably bought 200-300 over the last year. A couple of months back the proprietor reached out letting us know the physical location is closing and they are going entirely online, and were wondering if we wanted to buy the entire 1900 laserdisic collection. And it did not take long for us to respond: “Why yes, yes we would!”

Reclaim Video

It’s massive, and our Reclaim Video employees Matt and Zander have already inventoried everything and we have gotten most of them them out of boxes and onto shelves.

That’s just one of two shelves full of laserdiscs that are bookmarking our recent acquisition of four classic arcade games, making this my single favorite room in the world.

And another one….

I’ll try and get a picture when everything is done, but it is coming together beautifully. There are a ton of films to go through, and so far I watched The Fan (1981) and The Flamingo Kid (1984) from this lot. The audio was not perfect on The Flamingo Kid, which also happened with Magic (1978) —a laserdisc I bought earlier this year. You can almost see the disc rot on the screen:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtHrr5jF_XH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The Fan was perfect though, and Lauren Bacall was pretty amazing in this film. While not a great film, it is an awesome look at early 80s NYC, and it was released soon after John Lennon was shot my a crazy fan, making it timely in a tragic way.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtCV_wfl62o/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

There are so many more to watch, world enough and time! Like Moon of the Wold:

Reclaim Video

Or the Tom Selleck bomb Runaway:

Reclaim Video

And quite a few music laserdiscs, like Queen’s Greatest Flix:

Reclaim Video

And all this and more can be right at you fingertips at your local Reclaim Video store—coming soon! 🙂

Posted in Reclaim Video | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Reclaiming an Arcade of One’s Own

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Reverend

This post is proof that if you work hard enough, kiddies, all your dreams can come true! Don’t listen to the Italians, America is still the land of opportunity, I mean where else can you buy and transport four fully functioning vintage arcade cabinets for the price of a Macbook Pro?

Reclaim Video

And the big reveal…

Reclaim Arcade

Defender, Galaxian, Asteriods, and Kangaroo! Add those four to our mint Centipede and we’re getting quite close to a full blown Reclaim Arcade directly behind Reclaim Video. And on the wish list are Make Trax (a.k.a. Crush Roller), Pac-Man, Joust, Scramble, Star Castle, Phoenix, Pleiads, Tempest, and Bishop of Battle. But who can stop there?!

Tim is even getting in repair mode on these machines, here he is fixing the fire button on Centipede, which entailed cleaning some contracts:

Reclaim Video

Reclaim Video

As for me, I found the Galaxian manual online which allowed me to turn down the volume. It is amazing how detailed and awesome the manual is. We did not buy a video game, we bought a piece of history—a very personal one for me.

Reclaim Video

The fact we have 5 video game cabinets from 1979 through 1982 really places me in a time and place as a ten year old heading up to the pool hall on Grand Avenue in Baldwin to play Defender, the Star Wars vector game, Battle Zone, Crush Roller, Pac-Man, Pole Position, etc. It was a dark little corner of the huge billiard hall where kids (mostly my age) could steal away for an afternoon with their quarters for hours of fun. If I wanted to play Joust or Galaxian I needed to go around the block to The Incredible Pulp—a local comic and D&D shop (filled with Frank Franzetta and Chris Foss artwork that remains burned in my memory). It was all a piece of an era that I still long to have material ties with, and unlike the idea of a barcade which reduces the nostalgia to a transaction, for me Reclaim Arcade will forever be fused with the notion of an adolescent playground of imaginative dexterity. Anyway, I am rambling now, but I really do love this recent kick Tim and I have been on, and all I can say is that there will hopefully be more to come 🙂

Header image credit: Nunley’s Arcade in Baldwin, LI during the 1990s

Posted in Reclaim Arcade, Reclaim Video | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Berg Builds Community

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Reverend

It’s been a week of travel and on-the-ground work at Reclaim’s Headquarters in Fred Vegas, but I would be remiss if I did not share the awesome community portal the folks at Muhlenberg College have built with their Domains instance.

Community site for Berg Builds

It’s a beautiful thing, scores of featured sites  around the community that can be filtered by a few key categories such as research, travel, portfolio, student, staff, faculty, etc. The screenshot above does not capture the long scroll of sites that provides an instant sense of just how much work is happening in the Muhlenberg community, and for me that is everything. I continually return to the idea that these educational publishing platforms are at their core a way to reveal the life of the mind of a community, and Berg Builds has nailed it. From what I understand the great Tim Clarke is behind this project, and he has really done a brilliant job, simple, elegant, and sensitive to the issues that surround be out there in this day and age. 

The opt-in/opt-out form does a nice job of inviting submissions as well as providing a place for users to remove their work if need be. And the blurb introducing the form lays it all out:

We try to keep up with all the great work happening on Berg Builds domains. But sites come and go, people wander, the world forever marches onward. If we’ve missed your site and you would like to be included in this community, please use the opt-in form below and let us know!

Working on the open web adds our voices, knowledge, and experience to the greatest collection of human creativity ever known. But we understand that folks seek visibility of their work on the web in different ways. While we encourage everyone to share their creations within our Berg Builds Community site, we also understand that you may have reasons why this doesn’t feel right. If you would like to have your site removed, please use the opt-out form below and we will honor your request.

I remain a true believer that working on the web can provide a unique space to share our work, and I also believe there is a special place on the web for higher ed given its foundational role in help shaping the internet. That said, we know the other side of that coin all too well these days, which makes the work Muhlenberg is doing to highlight the good work folks are doing all the more special. Opening up the inscrutable black box that is web hosting for discovery and connections is an act filled with hope and promise—it’s hard not to feel inspired.

I am looking forward to a play-by-play of this project, and imagine it’s either already published or on the way. And hey, there may even be a presentation in the works for Domains19—ya never, never know!

Posted in Domain of One's Own, Domains 2019, reclaim | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Domains19: The Art of Accessibility

Posted on January 24, 2019 by Reverend

We are thrilled to announce a keynote installation for Domains19. When we announced Domains a few months back, we were serious about opening up the possibility of allowing folks to submit art pieces/installations as well as presentations and panels, and we have gotten a fair amount thus far. To reinforce this novel way of presenting at an edtech conference, we reach out to the inimitable Ryan Seslow to keynote Domains19 via his artwork. Ryan’s work with animated GIFs has been the stuff of legend for a while now, but his recent work exploring and “communicating his deaf and hard of hearing self” has been revelatory. Ryan articulates the idea behind these works in his blog on the series beautifully:

The works are visual representations for the regular distortions, missing of sounds, words and overall communication struggles that I experience daily. They represent how I feel, react, overcompensate and adjust to communication in various interactions. They are intended to be both subtle, confusing and difficult to follow. â€śCommunicating My Deaf & Hard of Hearing Self – Part 1”is the first installation in the series. It is first published here on my website and shared via my social media platforms. I am seeking to extend this body of work into a series of physical exhibitions, talks and a zine.

His installation at the Domains19 conference will very much be an extension of this body of work, and a focal point for a broader discussion around accessibility. You can read the abstract for the installation below, and this post provides just a small taste of the vaporizing visual extravaganza that awaits you this June at Domains19. 

“The Internal / External Narratives of the Fragmented Meta-Domain Self”
Via an energetic series of multi-disciplinary digital art, animation and video works, “The Internal / External Narratives of the Fragmented Meta-Domain Self” is an exhibition and installation that creates a harmonious environment for the Domains 2019 conference. Drawing from and applying the vapor wave aesthetic with rich glitch and textured visuals, the works come together as a series of experiences both site on scene and on the web. The viewer is confronted with how technology, communication, language and accessibility play a vital role both on and off the web. With some many frequent changes in technology, how will you instigate and re-question your position on such things?

You can read more about Ryan on the Domains site, and if you are interested in showing and/or at Domains19 the call for presentations is open until February 15th and you can register for the early bird discount through the end of February. We really hope to see you in June, and please be sure to spread the love.

Posted in Domains 2019 | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Outdoor Smell

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Reverend

I had a pretty weird email from the Fredericksburg Alert system yesterday, and timed bizarrely while en route to Fredericksburg. The subject was “Outdoor Smell,” and the email read as follows:

This is a notification from the City of Fredericksburg:

Please be aware that with current weather conditions, the noxious outdoor smell that is similar to a gas leak is actually the King George landfill odor wafting into the City. If there is a gas smell inside AND you have natural gas service, then please contact 9-1-1.

Tell a friend/coworker about Fredericksburg Alert! Forward this message to them and have them register for this free service at www.fredericksburgalert.com.

Disquieting to think a regional landfill is perfuming the city given weather conditions (not sure if it was wind, but assuming as much), but I worked at the College of Staten Island, so I’m no stranger to such realities. But about six hours later they sent a second email that was even more bizarre:

Follow up to this morning’s alert.
The source of the odor could not be confirmed.
No gas leaks were found in the city.

It almost reads like a decontextualized stanza to a poem, the idea that the smell is no longer linked to the landfill (I never knew a landfill to smell like gas), and there seems to be no evidence of where it came from now. It’s like I am walking into the beginning of an eerie movie plot, I kinda love it. 

If we don’t, remember me….

Posted in fun | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Postscript on Server Migrations (redirecting network traffic to a new IP)

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Reverend

During the break between Christmas and New Year’s I migrated a server from Linode to Digital Ocean. We have just a handful left, and most of those should be gone this year. This migration was pretty straightforward, no WordPress portal or WHMCS instance, just a straight-up cPanel server. The plan was to run our handy dandy server deploy script which gets about 95% of a new cPanel server setup in about 30 minutes, which is amazing given this use to be a day-long process. Once that server is setup we need to copy all data between the two servers using IP addresses given we want to keep the same hostname, i.e., universityx.reclaimhosting.com. This is easily done with the the Transfer tool in cPanel, and migrating over 500 cPanel accounts took about an hour and a half.

Once all the accounts are migrated over cleanly, we need to point the DNS records in AWS’s Route 53 to the new IP address of the new server on Digital Ocean. If all went well that should be all set, the one mistake I made on this recent migration was not copying over the existing SSL certificate from the old server—it’s always something. So, after that’s done another trick Tim showed me that has come in useful was redirecting all traffic to the old IP to the new IP server-wide. This post spells it out very well, and it ensures that any lingering traffic that may be going to old server for all kinds of DNS reasons would be pushed to the new server right away.

https://www.debuntu.org/how-to-redirecting-network-traffic-to-a-new-ip-using-iptables/

Anyway, just putting this here in the event I need this again so I don’t have to dig through Slack again to find the link, not to mention to remind myself of the mistakes I made the last time so I can avoid them next time 🙂

Posted in sysadmin | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Web Hosting vs. Web Publishing

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Reverend


I appreciate NYU Libraries’ straightforward approach to their Domain of One’s Own project, they basically say, we’re hosting …. that’s it. In fact, it’s right in their domain: http://hosting.nyu.edu

So when someone recently asked me for various examples of how schools are approaching Domains, I headed over to NYU’s instance, and I was struck again by their ability to quickly distill what this service is and is not.

The Web Hosting vs. Web Publishing table breaks down the difference between something like a WordPress Multisite instance versus a Domain of One’s Own quite nicely. You could argue the last point about portability given WordPress sites on WPMS are pretty easy to migrate, but regardless it is spot on.

Web Hosting vs. Web Publishing

hosting.nyu.edu wp.nyu.edu
Requires intermediate web publishing skills Great for those new to website development
Backend Server Access via cPanel, SSH, and FTP Simple User Interface
Allows for one-click installs and endless customization of self-hosted WordPress, Scalar, and Omeka Limited to WordPress and NYU-approved themes and plugins
No charge to NYU users and easy to migrate upon graduation No charge to NYU user

I sometimes get defensive when folks I respect bemoan how hard self-hosting remains. I do think the point is a fair one and a Domains roll-out will never (nor was it ever meant to) replace various other university-provided tools that create less friction for publishing—even if some need replacing. But I do think web hosting as a basic utility should have a more prominent place at universities like it does at the NYU Libraries. The way they frame it around research, scholarship, and publishing for the digital era should not seem alien anymore. It should be yet another service universities offer alongside the others because there will increasingly be more and more faculty and students who want and need control over their publishing environments for the academic work they are doing.

Posted in reclaim | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Back to the Future: The Mothership or The DeLorean?

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Reverend

Cropping from book cover of Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond

We are thrilled to finally announce the first keynote presentation at Domains19, which will be co-presented by Chris Gilliard and sava saheli singh, who will be asking the question: “Back to the Future: The Mothership or The DeLorean?” Chris jokingly wrote when describing the talk: “Think George Clinton, Octavia Butler, and The Mothership meets Domains.” I can’t think of anything cooler, and the abstract will give you a sense of what’s to come:

A common (yet searingly accurate) lament is that so much of our current tech and visions of the future are based on the limited imaginations of the small segment of the population that fits within Silicon Valley’s ideal of “innovation.” Thus we are often burdened with tech (and ed-tech) that suits the vision and needs of people who are overwhelmingly white and male. As we live the consequences of this vision, it’s worthwhile to think about Black and Brown visions of “the future” to inform how we might move forward in a way that looks decidedly different from our current path. This keynote aims to complicate current ways of thinking about privacy, security, accessibility, and ownership, drawing on Afrofuturism and 80’s funk to imagine ways of operating outside of our current paradigm of surveillance capitalism.

You can read more about both Chris and Sava’s work here, and if you are considering coming to Domains19 on June 10th and 11th, it might be high time to submit a proposal or register for the conference. The proposal deadline has been extended out to February 15th, so there is world enough and time to submit and/or register!

Posted in Domains 2019, reclaim | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Unconfirmed

Posted on January 12, 2019 by Reverend

Last week was intense, I came off a week’s vacation and the spring semester was in full effect at Reclaim already. It was head’s down most of the week, but one small highlight for me was getting a ticket from a client that certain students were having problems getting email confirmations after registering, which in WordPress Multisite (WPMS) means the their user’s account sits in limbo. They can’t be seen by the site administrator, but when they try to sign-up again the email is noted as already part of the system. Frustrating. The only real way to find them is to dig into the database, which can be a non-starter for some.

Unconfirmed

Well, I remembered there was a plugin that helped with this, but I had forgotten it was written by the great Boone Gorges. It is a really useful plugin: it lists all unconfirmed users; allows you to re-send the email; and/or you can override the system and add an unconfirmed user so they can get going with a quick password reset. It’s a must have for a WPMS administrator managing a fair amount of users, and it seems odd this is not part of the core code for WPMS by now. What’s more, unlike the WPMU Dev creeps, it’s open and free! Thank you, Boone!

Posted in plugins, WordPress, wordpress multi-user, wpmu | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Few Parting Shots for 2018

Posted on December 31, 2018 by Reverend

Before I close down for a week off I thought I would get in a few parting shots at 2018 on a more personal note. I already did my best to sum up my thoughts around Reclaim for 2018, and admittedly it is hard for me to separate myself from my work on the bava, particularly when my work is what I love to do, but I’ll try nonetheless. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Blpjgs2H-KR/

One of the big changes I made two years ago was embracing exercise. It took a while, but spending as much time as I do in and around the mountains made it next to impossible not to give in. I’ve taken to hiking the last couple of years and it has had a significant impact on my physical and mental health, and that has made all the difference, I am 25 pounds lighter, I can knock-out a 10-mile hike pretty easily (unless it’s Mini Mt. Marcy in the snow), and I no longer get winded when climbing steps. In fact, on average this year I hiked 4 miles and climbed the equivalent of 33 flights of stairs each and every day. That’s a bit more than last year, and extending that streak to two years feels really good. I found hiking provides the time and space I didn’t give myself before. I spend almost two hours every day working through various scenarios in my head, thinking through issues, and generally mulling. If you are a manic depressive like me, mulling and working through scenarios can be a nightmare, but when it is tied to mildly vigorous exercise it’s more like catharsis. I feel so much healthier as a result, and I believe the end result is that I am far less rash and reactive when issues arise at either work or home. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpfUFZmFzQ0/

Family life continues to rule. I am really thankful for the time I have with Anto and the kids. I’m present in ways I don’t think I was previously. I joke a lot about EDUPUNK and ds106, but for a good 4 or 5 years while I was working I felt like I had at least partially checked out. The kids were smaller, we were pretty broke, and I was hustling on the road for rent money. It was a relatively generative time professionally, but by 2013 shit had caught up to me, and I was not healthy in many respects. Quitting the sauce in 2013 was a crucial first step, but it took at least two or three years for me to get back on track. I remember visiting Dave and Bonnie on Prince Edward Island in August of 2015 and I was on the inhaler and Dave straight-out said, “You’re not really healthy, are you?” LOL, I was like “Yeah, not really.” But that was also an eye-opener for me, and I think the last 3 years has put some distance between myself and the inhaler boy I was, at the same time it has also been a way to be more present with the family. No question, the freedom Reclaim has allowed me is a huge part of all this, and for that I’m ever grateful, but I also know my kids are growing up fast and I want to avoid the trap of missing it for work. We all went to London for Miles’ 14th birthday, and that was an awesome time. We made all kinds of memories, like when I told Miles to lie about his age at a movie theater so we could see Halloween together, but he couldn’t close the deal and the usher called us out and made us see Bohemian Rhapsody*—which we loved BTW.  We also got to visit the Victoria & Albert Museum Video Game Exhibit which made a powerful impression for me, and even inspired some maker activity back at the Reclaim HQ. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpcDn37lnMp/

Anto and I also got to visit Helsinki, which was awesome. I am a big fan of that city, one of my favorites in Europe thus far, but I think my company may have colored my experience.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnA3ZXHH7ta/

But arguably the biggest change in 2018 was the adoption of an Italian Spinone who uses the moniker Duke, but is also known as the bavaduke, Duke Nukem, and Freakin’ Duke. I’ve become obsessed with this dog, and if I have my way I will have a puppy Spinone by early Summer. It’s been quite nice to have consistent company on my daily walks for the last few months of 2018, and the old adage is true, we became fast friends and companions. The precarity of our financial and living conditions up and until the last 5 years or so has precluded my having a dog for the previous 30 or so years, but it’s high time to make up for that absence now. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Br50G2mlW6x/

It’s no secret that our first family dog, Daphne, is basically Anto’s dog.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnVlLG2HUWN/

She has one love, and one love only. Duke is a bit more polyamorous, to my chagrin:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BruXwwflT4b/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Br12lJwlOnl/

2018 has been a pretty amazing year on a personal level, and I’m all too aware anything can change at anytime, so I want to be sure to capture and enjoy the good times while I can. Here’s to a healthy and happy 2019 to the one or two people who made it this far, I’m talking to you Pat Lockley—you just may get your server name in 2019  🙂

*NB – I didn’t say I was a good parent, just more present. But really, WTF with the Brits not letting parents decide if a kid under 18 can see an R-rated film or not? Nanny state!

Posted in family | Tagged , | 2 Comments