The Internet Is Rotting An Essay by Jonathan Zittrain www.theatlantic.com Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone. Links work seamlessly until they don’t. And as tangible counterparts to online work fade, these gaps represent actual holes in humanity’s knowledge— they represent a comprehensive breakdown in the chain of custody for facts. The web in decay is the web by design wwwhypermediadecayknowledge
The blind men who felt the elephant It is so easy to fall into the trap of contemplating a city’s uses one at a time, by categories. Indeed, just this—analysis of cities, use by use—has become a customary planning tactic. The findings on various categories of use are then put together into “broad, overall pictures.” The overall pictures such methods yield are about as useful as the picture assembled by the blind men who felt the elephant and pooled their findings. The elephant lumbered on, oblivious to the notion that he was a leaf, a snake, a wall, tree trunks and a rope all somehow stuck together. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities The blind men and the elephantThe group of blind mullahs