Free storage is a great offer, but sometimes you only get what you pay for. The internet is neither secure nor permanent. It never promised to be, and users should not assume that it will become so. Parts are rotting and corroding and collapsing as I type this. Just hope and plan to not be resting on that platform when it falls.
Internet
BBC – Future – Why there’s so little left of the early internet
It took nearly five years into the internet’s life before anyone made a concerted effort to archive it. Much of our earliest online activity has disappeared.
From BBC – Future – Why there’s so little left of the early internet
A Survey of the First 20 Years of Research on Semantic Web and Linked Data
ABSTRACT. This paper is a survey of the research topics in the field of Semantic Web, Linked Data
and Web of Data. This study looks at the contributions of this research community over its first
twenty years of existence. Compiling several bibliographical sources and bibliometric indicators, we identify the main research trends and we reference some of their major publications to
provide an overview of that initial period. We conclude with some perspectives for the future
research challenges.
From A Survey of the First 20 Years of Research
on Semantic Web and Linked Data
The Internet’s keepers? “Some call us hoarders—I like to say we’re archivists”
The longtime non-profit’s physical space remains easy to comprehend, at least, so Graham starts there. The main operation now runs out of an old church (pews still intact) in San Francisco, with the Internet Archive today employing nearly 200 staffers. The archive also maintains a nearby warehouse for storing physical media—not just books, but things like vinyl records, too. That’s where Graham jokes the main unit of measurement is “shipping container.” The archive gets that much material every two weeks.
The company currently stands as the second-largest scanner of books in the world, next to Google.
From The Internet’s keepers? “Some call us hoarders—I like to say we’re archivists” | Ars Technica
In 1979, a chain email about science fiction spawned the modern internet.
But the message sent to Cerf’s email wasn’t a technical request. And it hadn’t been sent just to him. Instead, an email with the subject line “SF-LOVERS” had been sent to Cerf and his colleagues scattered across the United States. The message asked all of them to respond with a list of their favorite science fiction authors. Because the message had gone out to the entire network, everybody’s answers could then be seen and responded to by everybody else. Users could also choose to send their replies to just one person or a subgroup, generating scores of smaller discussions that eventually fed back into the whole.
About 40 years later, Cerf still recalls this as the moment he realized that the internet would be something more than every other communications technology before it. “It was clear we had a social medium on our hands,” he said.
From In 1979, a chain email about science fiction spawned the modern internet.
Inside Wayback Machine, the internet’s time capsule
“On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change,” he wrote. “It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours… need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible.”
According to anonymous sources, the Wayback Machine has since become more selective about accepting omission requests.
In a “post-fact” era, where fake news is rampant and basic truths are openly and brazenly disputed, the Wayback Machine is working to preserve a verifiable, unedited record of history — without obstruction.
“If we allow those who control the present to control the past then they control the future,” Kahle told Recode. “Whole newspapers go away. Countries blink on and off. If we want to know what happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, [the internet] is often the only record.”
Web Design Museum
Welcome to Web Design Museum
The museum exhibits over 900 carefully selected and sorted web sites that show web design trends between the years 1995 and 2005.
From Web Design Museum
Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?
For centuries, lexicographers have attempted to capture the entire English language. Technology might soon turn this dream into reality – but will it spell the end for dictionaries?
From Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet? | News | The Guardian
The Problem of Fake News Is Not Recent, But Our Current Internet Ecosystem Is
There were Internet communities at the time, though they did not much resemble the social media of today – Slashdot, for example. MetaFilter was in its infancy, I believe, and I’m pretty sure Reddit wasn’t born yet. I didn’t spent a lot of time in those communities but as I recall it was fairly open – that is, you did not have a social media group of people with whom you could communicate exclusively. Therefore if you went to a community and tried to get people on board with your Venusian unicorn theory, you might get some interest – but you might also get stomped by astronomers and mythology experts.
From The Problem of Fake News Is Not Recent, But Our Current Internet Ecosystem Is – ResearchBuzz
The Internet Isn’t Forever
Because history is a fight we’re having every day. We’re battling to make the truth first by living it, and then by recording and sharing it, and finally, crucially, by preserving it. Without an archive, there is no history.
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