RE: URIs / URLs

Sean B. Palmer wrote:
"'this IP address is the address of my
car', and maybe it could server back details of how fast I'm going,
etc. In fact, my car is broken at the moment, so it wouldn't register
anything."

Yes, but the point is that when I accessed that IP address, I would get
*information* about your car, but I would not get your car or even a
facsimile of it (nor, evidently, would I want to).

"Sean's Car" is that piece of junk parked in front of your house. "Sean's
Car" identifies it, but does not locate it. "In Sean's Driveway" might
locate it in the physical world. As for cyberspace, if you connect your car
to the Internet, then a URL may locate *data* about the car (speed, oil
pressure, maybe video from a dash mounted camera) etc., but it would neither
reflect the location of your car in the physical world nor the identity of
your car. (Even if you provided the current location via the Internet
connection, the URL would still be only the location of the location, not
the location of the car.)

As I see it we need to do one of two things:

a) Decide that we don't give a $%@! about things that can't be accessed from
cyberspace (physical items, abstract concepts, etc.) and that all we care
about is the location and/or identity of the *representation* of that item
or concept in cyberspace, in which instance we are fine with URLs.

ii) Decide that we *do* want to identify things that have no comparable
existence in cyberspace, in which instance we need to think up some sort of
naming system.

or 3) We can say to hell with it all, this is more trouble than it's worth!
The Internet is full, let's turn it off and go have a beer.

As it has been a long day, I am leaning toward option 3.

Good night.

Charles F. Munat,
Seattle, Washington

Received on Thursday, 12 April 2001 03:13:31 UTC