Remembering a relationship, one chat at a time
When I go to write a letter, I use some software that allows me to put together words on a semblance of a page and then print it. The tool is called a "word processor"<p>When we live our lives, we leave all these digital footprints and clues all over the web. It seems to me that somebody should invent a "life processor" that would collect these traces of our former selves and allow us, after death, to somehow more actively participate than we've ever done before.<p>If nothing else, it would be a central repository of things that we left behind -- words, images, songs, memories, etc. Yes, I know GMail and Facebook do some of that, but a lot is in chat, on blogs, in comments (like this one), and spread all over the place. After all, they're <i>my</i> thoughts. Shouldn't my descendants be able to easily browse and use them? I would think that with a bit of computational magic, there could be all sorts of new things coming out of our thoughts after we pass on -- if only there was a central repository of data to start with.<p>I liked this article a lot. It reminded me how important the traces of our digital lives are. Or rather, how important those traces can be.