A chart of note, some good points, and in the “more insanity than I can handle this morning” department…
Lately, I’ve been cleaning up some internet files on my computer and finding lots of bookmarked sites no longer exist. It’s frustrating to want to check how a designer you have bookmarked handled a construction problem only to find their website no longer exists. The same goes for bookmarked products saved for future use that now pop up as 404s.
Truth be told, I find myself searching YouTube, the worst source of web information I know. And, while YouTube seems chock full of useless, erroneous, and inaccurate information related to cruising and boat building, it seldom has what I’m looking for.
Sadly, there’s not a lot of books being written to fill this gap either.
Being of a certain age, the realization that my own tiny acre of internet domain will sooner rather than later come up as a 404 as well. Hey, shit happens…
Right?
So, it’s time to do some future proofing. Offhand, I’m not sure what form it will take or in what time frame but if there is anything you want on the internet, my advice is to download it ASAP.
That said, you also might want to collect some books which is where you’ll find most needful information. I suspect books just may be the best investment you can find.
Anyway, just some thoughts on missing bookmarks and an uncertain future.
The “wayback machine” was storing stuff I wanted that is no longer “live”. Worth checking out.
Im sure a website of information of the “third draw down in the kitchen” type depositary for all those “that might be handy one day” snippets of info. The memory on my last laptop got filled by such downloads, the suffered disc failure……….no, never going to the dark side of the cloud either.
I’d recommend the same for any bargain boat plans one might desire. Commonsense boats went bye-bye and with it inexpensive plans for Bolgers Martha Jane, Long Micro, Micro, etc.. The Duckworks plans site about bought it then was rescued but who knows for how long? Atkin & Company stopped selling their huge collection of great boat plans which were very reasonable in cost.
As I’ve mentioned to various folks this would be a great time for some wealthy, idealistic marine architecture patron to just buy up collections (probably from family members of deceased designers) to post on a huge, open source web archive. That’s some kinda pie in the sky delusory thinking but, still, plans exist cheaply now on a few surviving web nodes but who knows for how long?
The Atkin plans went to an outfit who do not even bother to answer mail. Pat would be heartbroken.
FWIW, Mystic Seaport is selling the Atkin plans now: https://atkin.mysticseaport.org/
But yeah, I agree 100% with your point.