Tuesday, November 06, 2007

The evanescence of the net

Crooked Timber remembers Faflbog, DeLong and my wife were fans. Fafblog went offline 2-3 years ago, from the comments we learn that the author is known to some and that he stopped writing due to illness.

Another comment references Chris Lightfoot, a 28 yo UK activist, programmer and writer who, I read, committed suicide in February 2007. He left a fairly large amount of writing behind, his last blog post was in July 2006.

I suspect there will soon exist, or may already exist, businesses that will use a robot to snarf a blog and put it on an "immortal" server. Cryogenics may not be the best idea, but blog post "immortality" is a practical runner-up.

Update 11/7/07: On reflection, the funeral home is the obvious site for one's digital ghost. I'm surprised I haven't heard of them doing this already. Well, at least after today the idea won't be patentable.

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