way back
Saturday, June 23, 2007
With my recent changes to this blog (new domain, new look, etc), I have been thinking that its a shame that the medium of the Internet doesn't allow for the ability to have any real history. Any page can be moved, renamed, edited or deleted at anytime, so unless a webmaster/blogger/corporate entity/etc were to be very diligent, there is no way to save anything for the sake of posterity. And in spite of the fact that the paperless society hasn't materialized yet, I think someday it will. And when it does, future generations will no longer have the ability to look at a printed volume and actually see a snapshot of what was recorded as of a given date.
Maybe Orwell's Ministry of Truth wasn't that far off after all. All of that re-writing of history might not be restricted to his particularly bleak work of fiction.
Speaking personally, its too bad that as I've moved through different incarnations of my online presence, I haven't saved any of its content before I've changed it or moved it (the posts on this blog notwithstanding, thankyouverymuchGoogle).
But then I remembered The Internet Archive and The Way Back Machine. I realize the inherent irony in quoting an online source when talking about the fluidity of Internet information, but here is the description of The Archive anyway, as it is written right now:
[begin irony] At least I think so right at this moment anyway. [/end irony]
One point of contention with the archive: I just attempted to wayback a few of my own sites over the years, and found out that stylesheets and images generally don't get saved. So, content yes. But visual context, maybe not so much.
Maybe Orwell's Ministry of Truth wasn't that far off after all. All of that re-writing of history might not be restricted to his particularly bleak work of fiction.
Speaking personally, its too bad that as I've moved through different incarnations of my online presence, I haven't saved any of its content before I've changed it or moved it (the posts on this blog notwithstanding, thankyouverymuchGoogle).
But then I remembered The Internet Archive and The Way Back Machine. I realize the inherent irony in quoting an online source when talking about the fluidity of Internet information, but here is the description of The Archive anyway, as it is written right now:
The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.I think this website and what they are trying to do should get an awful lot more attention than it does. I think that there hasn't been a more paradigm changing thing than the Internet since the invention of the printing press, and if that is true, then archiving its content for the future should have an awful lot more importance than we're currently giving it.
[begin irony] At least I think so right at this moment anyway. [/end irony]
One point of contention with the archive: I just attempted to wayback a few of my own sites over the years, and found out that stylesheets and images generally don't get saved. So, content yes. But visual context, maybe not so much.
Labels: everything else
posted by raistlinsghost at 6/23/2007 02:08:00 AM
1 Comments:
I was just going to suggest the Internet Way Back Machine as I began reading your post... I guess I am one of those freaky people who thinks ahead... I have 2/3 of all the posts I have ever written online currently on my blog even though they span four sites, and three publishing apps. Scary to know someone could stalk me through the intraweb... thanks Al Gore!
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