A link to the future


Even more than its content, the true identity of a web page is the links it contains, one might call it its connections. "Tell me who your links are and I'll tell you who you are." So we're well used to finding all sorts of links on web pages - links that connect to a myriad of seemingly unrelated topics, links that connect to all parts of the world, links that make our insignificant spot in cyberspace somehow seem important. But, though the proverbial "under construction" icon of web pages still appears wherever we look, I have to admit that I can't think of many examples of links to the future, essentially promises of pages to come.

That's essentially what this page is - a promise. These pages have seen numerous links to previous columns that have dealt with topics touched on in later columns, and I suppose that any reader (are there any readers of these columns?) expects to find links of that sort. But a future column? What do you link - a blank page?, a billboard page that annouces "coming attractions"? And then, if and when the promise is kept, is it still a future column? In cyberspace, as in the Talmud, there's no early or late, and one day the link on this page will actually lead somewhere.

A Promise Kept ... or to (I can't bring myself to give it up) ... a page maintained.



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