Ramblings & ephemera

The structure & meaning of the URL as key to the Web’s success

From Clay Shirky’s “The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview“:
The systems that have succeeded at scale have made simple implementation the core virtue, up the stack from Ethernet over Token Ring to the web over gopher and WAIS. The most widely adopted digital descriptor in history, the URL, regards semantics as a side conversation between consenting [...]

Terrorist social networks

From Technology Review’s “Terror’s Server“:
For example, research suggests that people with nefarious intent tend to exhibit distinct patterns in their use of e-mails or online forums like chat rooms. Whereas most people establish a wide variety of contacts over time, those engaged in plotting a crime tend to keep in touch only with a very [...]