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* CYBERSPACE *
* A biweekly column on net culture appearing *
* in the Toronto Sunday Sun *
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* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer *
* Free for online distribution *
* All Rights Reserved *
* Direct comments and questions to: *
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There's a paradox called Grelling's Paradox that I think plays
itself out on the web every time you forego a search engine and
punch in a domain like www.recipes.com, hoping it comes up with
content suggested by the domain name. Borrowing terms used by
Douglas Hofstadter in his book /Godel, Escher, Bach/, we can
divide domain names into two types: autological domains (domain
names that describe their content) and heterological domains
(domain names that don't describe their content).
For example, food.com is an autological domain because it
resolves to a site about food. The aforementioned recipes.com
is heterological because it resolves to a site selling fancy
domain names, not recipes.
Makes sense, right?
The paradox comes in when you punch in www.heterological.com.
How would you classify this site?
If the content describes the URL, say it's a list of other
heterological domain names, then heterological.com is
autological. But autological content would ultimately make this
site heterological, since heterological.com implies the content
has nothing to do with the domain name. This of course makes
the whole site autological again...
Working it the other way, we encounter the same problem of
classification.
If the content is just a list of porn sites, then the
heterological.com domain name doesn't imply the contents. Hey,
that's autological! We're back to the same problem. A
heterological.com domain that is autological becomes
heterological again which makes it autological which then makes
it heterological...
Every time you try to classify heterological.com as autological
or heterological, you have to reclassify it. It's an endless
regression.
Thankfully no one has registered heterological.com. I'm certain
my browser (Explorer 4.0) would crash in the most spectacular
way. Everything else seems to make it crash.
Safe from the fear of stumbling on www.heterological.com, one
can sometimes have fun punching in various domain names and
seeing what comes up. What becomes rapidly apparent, a number
of cool domains that should be autological were gobbled up by
some pretty dull programmer types back in 1995. They're likely
sitting on them hoping to get rich when a megacorporation
decides the Next Big Thing can be sold under the domain name
gimpy.com.
www.freaky.com
This site promises "All freaks. All the time." What you get is
a front end to some home pages that aren't freaky at all. Just
some poetry by e e cummings (which hasn't been considered
freaky poetry for a couple decades) and some links to Linux
pages (which is no longer considered a freaky operating
system). Geeks, you know?
www.boring.com
One could have some fun with a site at boring.com but it's in
use by an office supply company called Boring Business Systems.
The site is autological on so many levels. The name, the
industry, and the page design are dull. The site at boring.org
also seems to be true to form. The site seems to be in
transition, however the web master promises boring.org will
soon feature something interesting. I can't wait.
www.sick.com
I hesitated visiting this site for fear it would have a bunch
of photos of road kill and things removed from human bodies.
Luckily, it turned out to be a site featuring links to medical
information. If you're really looking for blood and guts, the
page at www.rotten.com fits the bill.
www.silly.com
There's only two silly things about this site. One, that an
employment recruiter sees some need to associate his business
with this domain name. Two, the page plays some very silly
music: Hall and Oates' "Maneater". Is this the kind of person
you want finding a job for you?
www.funny.com
You might find this a funny site. You can select jokes based on
categories, ranging from classic knock knock jokes to the newly
emerging "Yo Mama" form. You can also set a rating, from G- to
X-rated. You'll be more than happy to know the database of
jokes is empty of X-rated lawyer jokes. I suppose the
profession is obscene enough.
www.useless.com
This page admits it's useless. It's primarily just two banner
ads. However, it does provide a useful link to an amusing page
featuring biting satire about useless web pages.
www.godot.com
This is one domain name you kind of wish doesn't resolve.
Unfortunately, you don't have to wait for godot.com.
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