The web's area-code should be 404

Issues of permanence come up again and again for even the casual user of web spaces. Today, though, I ran across an illustrative instance in which the problem (and its seriousness) seems aptly demonstrated.

Earlier, while checking in with the ELO and reading some of N. Katherine Hayles' work, I decided to go visit her webpage that accompanies her most recent publication, Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. I clicked through to the site that is linked from the ELO homepage, and double-checked the site address with the one published in the hard-copy text.

Sadly, this is what I got:
The "Site Temporarily Unavailable" page.

This is, probably, just a fluke. I visited Hayles' page a couple of weeks ago without any problems. But the fact that the ubiquitous "try again" page shows up even among the work of the most diligent digital scholars is disconcerting to say the least. There are problems with digital scholarship, as we all know. I think that sometimes it is easy to get into a hopeful mindset about these problems, thinking that they will "be fixed" soon enough. But I don't know that that is the case with this particular problem of location and fixability. There are tons of people out there writing on the issue now, so I'll leave it up to you to go seek them out. I certainly don't have a solution.

New Media and Narrative

Looking back over the posts I've made in the last couple of months, I realized that I never linked to the my New Media and Narrative website I'm submitting as part of an ongoing process to legitimate myself as a Ph.D. scholar.

I created the site as a resource for people who are looking to begin investigation into the field of narratology (with a leaning towards new media)- here they can learn a wee bit about a smorgasbord of narrative concepts and see them in action as they apply to digital and electronic narratives. The print work I investigate here, "Roman Fever" is a classic short story by Edith Wharton (but don't read my analysis until you've read to the end of her text). The second short story I look into, "My Body: A Wunderkammer" is also a great piece to read if you are looking for a way to fill about an hour of free time or if you are interested in the role of bodies in narratives, and comes from the enormously talented Shelley Jackson. While the third piece, Afternoon, isn't a freely-accesbile work, I also highly recommend people who are interesting in postmodern or non-linear narratives to consider ponying up the $25 for the Eastgate work - it is a foundational piece in electronic literature and can open up some interesting theoretical doors for scholars. Plus, about 99% of people writing in the field will make more than a passing reference to Joyce's work, so it can be helpful to have some first-hand knowledge of it.

Planting a Tree

I found this link to the short history of Twitter (so far) today while browsing through a bunch of saved links I'd been meaning to get to. It is a visually beautiful piece and it gets brownie points for making a reference to Britney Spears' lady-parts. Err... that's twitter for you.

Google Maps + Monopoly

For those of you looking to play the world's biggest game of Monopoly, wait no longer. Google Maps and Monopoly have teamed up to offer you the geekiest version of one of the longest childhood games ever. I've never been a huge Monopolizer before, because the game takes way too long and involves too much strategy, but just in case your employer is forcing you to take an unpaid day off, here is one more way to fill the empty void.