>The Internet is just software.
wait, what ?
We should retire Aaron's number
31–40 of 45 posts
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#32"The Internet is just software."
ah, just noticed your comment :)
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#33Nice thought Dave. Aaron did already address this in his "If I get hit by a truck..." post: http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/continuity And Sean is most definitely on the case. But please give him some time and space.
I agree. We should leave the responsibility of the upkeep of a virtual presence after death to the person themselves. Aaron showed that you can plan for your presence after death: maybe we should all have some sort of plan. (Something like a will).
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Take this sentiment and jump forward 100 years. What's left? I suspect this will happen to any namespace after long enough. Domain names, Twitter handles, Facebook URLs, whatever. Once enough real estate is taken up with immobile monuments to the dead, the living will have to move on to something else. I also think this will happen well before 100% utilization. After some point, the number of collisions you hit when…
In 100 years we'll have some other addressing system for whatever mutation of the all-connected-network we have then.
While it's irrelevant for us to really predict or care about it due to the complexity involved to get some new standard designed and implemented, it's still worth noting: that's what they said about Y2K.
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#35So, if we make a permanent "monument" out of his domain name, what's the deciding factor for or against doing it for any other website? Will the internet become littered with millions of permanent monuments to misguided souls, like the little crosses on side of our highways?
Take this sentiment and jump forward 100 years. What's left? I suspect this will happen to any namespace after long enough. Domain names, Twitter handles, Facebook URLs, whatever. Once enough real estate is taken up with immobile monuments to the dead, the living will have to move on to something else. I also think this will happen well before 100% utilization. After some point, the number of collisions you hit when…
Just more (sub)domains. That's all
france.twitter.com/user
artists.twitter.com/userRe: We should retire Aaron's number
#36Dave Winer has discussed the issue of preserving websites for a long time. He calls this "Future Safe Archives".
http://scripting.com/stories/2007/03/29/fourIdeasForTheFutur... http://scripting.com/stories/2007/12/10/futuresafeArchives.h... http://scripting.com/stories/2009/10/10/onceAgainFuturesafeA... http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/10/nytOnFuturesafeArchi...
Even just a week or so before Aaron's death.
http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/january/makingWebArchives...
I am sure that I have read him write about this many other times, maybe going back over a decade.
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#37Nice thought Dave. Aaron did already address this in his "If I get hit by a truck..." post: http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/continuity And Sean is most definitely on the case. But please give him some time and space.
I agree. We should leave the responsibility of the upkeep of a virtual presence after death to the person themselves. Aaron showed that you can plan for your presence after death: maybe we should all have some sort of plan. (Something like a will).
If you read through Dave Winer's past writings on this subject, you will find that there is currently no good way to implement this such a plan.
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first number ever retired in all of sports was Lou Gehrig's, in 1939. By the 100th anniversary of that ceremony, the Yankees will have retired about 25-30 numbers. The active roster requires 40+ free numbers < 100. What happens when they run out?
> What happens when they run out? 2 digits of base > 10? 3 digit numbers? Hardly a tricky problem to solve...
Got a nice chuckle picturing them wearing hex numbers.
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#39Dave Winer has discussed the issue of preserving websites for a long time. He calls this "Future Safe Archives". http://scripting.com/stories/2007/03/29/fourIdeasForTheFutur... http://scripting.com/stories/2007/12/10/futuresafeArchives.h... http://scripting.com/stories/2009/10/10/onceAgainFuturesafeA... http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/10/nytOnFuturesafeArchi... Even just a week or so before Aaron's death. http:/…
I first got really serious about it when we lost the RSS 2.0 spec on a server upgrade at Harvard. That's when I realized that unless we took serious steps to protect the content, by using least common denominator technology, and not requiring a separate domain, that it wouldn't last very long after everyone who cared about it was gone from Berkman.
It's turned out pretty well. The spec is still there and accessible, and now it's been almost ten years at that spot.
I'm also hosting my uncle's site and now my father's. I'm not happy with the job I'm doing on either of them, but I have my own work to move forward, and as I do that of course I'm creating MORE problems. But I'm also trying to be mindful of separating the content from the rendering. The actual content is stored pretty permanently, and the rendering is considered lose-able.
Eventually I hope to have ultimate editorial flexibility and have it also be very future-safe. CMSes can anticipate these problems, and I've tried to do that in my latest development.
Re: We should retire Aaron's number
#40For the domain name, aaronsw.com . It's currently not possible to register domains for more than ten years.
You could envisage some sort of way have putting the domain in a trust fund. Where there would be funds to renew the domain, you could potential show how much is in the fund, on the trusts's page. And as long as there is money in the fund, the domain would be renewed. The domain technical contacts, and possibly the other contacts too would need to be put in the trusts name so that they can renew with the registrar, and possibly change the DNS if needed.
As for the hosting, you could probably run a script that would take a static snapshot, and save the files in plain HTML. This of course gets more complicated for sites that use things dynamically with database backends.