Quick links as of June 4th 2010

Mr Carr likes to make big (big) contrary positions and watch as people read and buy his work. He does a service in setting up (some of) these debates, but they rarely seem to hold up.

Nick Carr’s argues that links (aka HyperLinks, aka “the web”) are bad because readers might click on them and get distracted from the quality of the writing or argument. This looks like the 2010 version of Plato saying “Writing is bad because it causes people not to rely on memory but to rely on something external to them and depend on signs belonging to another.” (Phaedrus).

This de-values the reader by not connecting them to the referred content, and de-values the writing in assuming the quality of the writing can not hold them or that the content (the argument) cannot stand up, either to the referred content, or to comments. Maybe in a age of finite page size and dead (fixed media), but this goes against the nature and the technology of the web. It also does not trust the reader. In this age, link to the primary sources, the raw data and to the debate. How to link may be a interesting question. But not linking is to show lack of trust and respect to your audience and to suggest you have something to hide.

See also The Economist’s Tech Blogger Babbage in To link, or not to link? That is the question.

/^([\w\!\#$\%\&\'\*\+\-\/\=\?\^\`{\|\}\~]+\.)*[\w\!\#$\%\&\'\*\+\-\/\=\?\^\`{\|\}\~]+@((((([a-z0-9]{1}[a-z0-9\-]{0,62}[a-z0-9]{1})|[a-z])\.)+[a-z]{2,6})|(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}(\:\d{1,5})?)$/i

I wonder if these results in torturing regexp email address recognizers will hold up given the variations in regular_expression engines?