Tags: permanence

The Internet Is Rotting - The Atlantic

A terrific piece by Jonathan Zittrain on bitrot and online digital preservation:

Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone.

The Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt: Finally, the Museum of the Future Is Here - The Atlantic

Remember Aaron’s dConstruct talk? Well, the Atlantic has more details of his work at the Cooper Hewitt museum in this wide-ranging piece that investigates the role of museums, the value of APIs, and the importance of permanent URLs.

As I was leaving, Cope recounted how, early on, a curator had asked him why the collections website and API existed. Why are you doing this?

His retrospective answer wasn’t about scholarship or data-mining or huge interactive exhibits. It was about the web.

I find this incredibly inspiring.

Permanence - Matt Gemmell

Some good ideas from Matt on the importance of striving to maintain digital works. I find it very encouraging to see other people writing about this, especially when it’s this thoughtful.

Link Rot « The Bygone Bureau

Brilliant; just brilliant. Connor O’Brien remains skeptical about the abstract permanence of “the cloud.” The observations are sharp and the tone is spot-on.

If your only photo album is Facebook, ask yourself: since when did a gratis web service ever demonstrate giving a flying fuck about holding onto the past?