Links.net:
Justin Hall's personal site growing & breaking down since 1994

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January 2014 Archives

Happy 20 - long time linking

It was twenty years ago today! I posted this first web page and embarked on an experiment to describe my life to the internet. What did I do? What happened to me? How did my family, friends and romantic partners react to real-time web-wide life-sharing?

I'm making a short film about that, and you can help: share your own reflections of publishing and sharing on the web!

Here's a teaser for that short film, and a little something to celebrate just 20 years touching you through a keyboard:

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#20links

moving Justin pictures from the 1990s

My web site turns 20 years old this month! So I went through a bunch of old media in case I might include it in a 20 years on the web video I'm working on. If you've shared about yourself online, maybe you can help!

I shared these old videos of me so now you can see my old face and hear my squeakier voice:


Francis W. Parker High School Graduation 1993 speech Justin Hall - big thanks to my classmates, they elected me to deliver a speech at our high school graduation.

This was June 1993; I was 17 years old. I worked on the speech for about 10 months; I delivered it better than I did this next speech in 1995!


Web Publishing Empowerment 1995 Justin Hall at RAND Corporation - the video for my Web Publishing Empowerment speech. I've had that speech text on the web for 19 years! Now the video joins it January 2014.

Gosh I sure wish I would have memorized more of the speech so I could have looked up. But I was 20 years old here, I cut myself a little slack.


Justin Hall interviewed by Denise Caruso 1996 on The Site, MSNBC

Thankfully my brother popped a tape in the VCR and recorded my appearance on MSNBC in September 1996. I had just come off my 29 city web page evanglizin' road trip; we can see my wardrobe at that time: sarong, toolbelt, caucasian-colored wrist-gloves, electric minds t-shirt. And a vertical dreadlock - yowza.


Justin's Links from the Underground - 1998 interview with Justin Hall for Filmpoint Sweden:

This film crew came from Sweden to interview me, at my house in Oakland when I lived with Amy. I had just graduated college and then been mugged, and I hadn't yet been fired from my job in television. A moment in time! Like July 1998. They insisted I drive this big boxy old white American convertible. My car was a blue 1988 Honda Civic. Amy and I felt weird about it, but we played along. Funny how those things go.


"Justin Hall & Home Page make it to Sundance" 1999

Filmed in Park City Utah, at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, when I accompanied filmmaker Doug Block to the Sundance showing of Home Page, a documentary about early webloggers and netizens and online diarists. Doug hasn't got a post-VHS copy of Home Page out yet; this is actually one of the few clips from an early movie about web pages that you can see on the web in 2014 hah.


Watching these is a reminder that I wore my hair in distinct variations during 1994-1999. I remember telling people during QA at Sundance that I had the dredlock in a plastic bag in my closet; it's still true. They would ask about it. I would ask about it, looking back. In my 1995 speech I look so feminine! It's wild - I forgot I looked like that - hah! Was I wearing nail polish to speak at the RAND Corporation?

Then by 1996 I look like what the who knows. Whoo wee!

Now I express myself more through my ear hair.

Methods

Ahoy! A pile of old video tapes in personal storage.
Let's activate, while the media is still good!

I used the 20th anniversary of Links.net as an excuse to dust off my refurbished Magnavox ZV427MG9 DVD Recorder/VCR Combo and convert a bunch of old VHS tapes into DVD. Then I use HandBrake to make a digital file from the DVD. Then I upload that to YouTube and post it here! By uploading it I figure that the video might survive the specificity of my personal data storage. I'm still working out the reasons why I think that's worthwhile.

Welcome!

Thanks Steve Rhodes - from @tigerbeat on Instagram
June 2012 dancing in the streets of San Francisco with Ilyse Magy, photo thanks Steve Rhodes on instagram!

Hi, I'm Justin Hall and this here is a personal web site I've used to chronicle my time on earth since 1994. The content on the front page is relatively recent; if you search through the archives, you'll find old pieces of Justin. Some folks have indexed my doings on Wikipedia.

Twitter: jah
Facebook: Justinreach
email: justin@bud.com!

eBooks by Justin Hall

I've published books for sale, somewhere else online! Behold:

Now available for the Kindle: A Story of GameLayers. My experience being CEO of a tech company, 2007-2009:

"A tell-all story of a startup from the very beginning, with lots of info about real-world fundraising. A more intimate look than you'll find in other business reads." says Irene Polnyi in a 5-star review on Amazon.com.

A Story of GameLayers, for the Amazon Kindle.