Thread by @micahtredding

This is a fascinating idea.

You create text, and then that text gets turned into a URL.

And the trick is that all of the text is stored directly in the URL—Nowhere else.

ht @LinusEdwards
itty.bitty.site

Why would this be useful?

The main reasons I can think of are:
1. Styling & formatting (you can use full HTML)
2. Taking advantage of Twitter's built-in link-shortening

That is, you can include a full page of styled content in a URL, which then can be included in a Tweet.

You can do a stripped-down version of this with Data URIs.

Generator:
dopiaza.org/tools/datauri/…

But does it work in a Tweet?

data:text/plain;charset=utf-8;base64,eWVzIQ==

Of course, you can do all this by just creating a webpage.

Or a post on some other site.

But this idea is interesting because it doesn’t need to store that info anywhere else. If your web host goes down, that info is still there in the link.

Here's an example of using itty.bitty.site :

itty.bitty.site/#/?XQAAAAL8AQA…

Push this idea far enough, and you ultimately have three kinds of URLs:

1. Those that contain their entire contents.
2. Those that contain a unique identification of their contents (a content hash).
3. Those that are a pointer to changing set of contents (a traditional URL).

We live in a world of Type 3 URLs—which point to an arbitrary, changing, fragile set of contents.

I’ve spent the last six years trying to figure out how to move the world to Type 2 URLs—which can be used to identify their contents from any point in space or time.

This matters for history, trust, security—and is a prerequisite for a Solar System Internet.

Now I'm thinking I need to give more thought to Type 1 URLs.

Type 1 URLs are essentially trying to solve the problem of the optimal representation of content.

Ideally, a Type 1 URL is

1. Short—no longer than the readable content
2. Interpretable—no proprietary algorithms
3. Similar—small changes in content, create small changes in the URL

(The criteria of "Similarity" is precisely the opposite of what is desirable in a content hash)

Hashify.me is an alternative to itty.bitty.site—with #markdown support!

(And apparently I visited it years ago)

hashify.me/IyBIYXNoaWZ5IH…