Good post on Google as a shared memory (via jrobb). I have lousy short term memory, especially for things I am not very interested in. And ever since I found google.stanford.edu in 1998, I think of it more and more as an extension of my memory. These days I increasingly find myself not storing an interesting factoid, but a pointer to the factoid, a sort of informal version of Phelp and Wilensky’s Robust Hyperlinks. I’ll probably be among the first to line up for a Google Cybernetic Interface to be wired to my skull :-).

Postscript. Visiting the TBTF Archive is always a rewarding experience — it’s an account of the rise and rise of the Internet, of a more optimistic (euphoric?) era, written by one man long before blogs were even a gleam in anyone’s eye (TBTF started using blogger way before the weblog craze, actually). If there’s a site on the ‘Net I’d say I miss, it would be TBTF. Oh well.