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		<title>What is a blorkmark?</title>
		<dateCreated>Sun, 20 May 2012 20:10:51 GMT</dateCreated>
		<dateModified>Wed, 23 May 2012 20:10:59 GMT</dateModified>
		<ownerName>Dave Winer</ownerName>
		<ownerEmail>dave.winer@gmail.com</ownerEmail>
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		<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:10:51 GMT" ctSaves="5" flPreview="false" id="2012.05.20.1825" server="xmlrpc://cms.scripting2.com:5337/RPC2" storySerialNum="1825" text="What is a blorkmark?" type="scripting2Post" url="http://scripting.com/stories/2012/05/20/whatIsABlorkmark.html" username="davewiner" versionClient="0.44" versionServer="0.44" whenLastSave="Wed, 23 May 2012 20:11:00 GMT">
			<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:00:44 GMT" pgfnum="3357" text="I'm working on the top-level user interface for the worldoutline software, and have decided, for now at least, that blorkmarks will be a top level feature. I could leave them out in the first version, and introduce the concept as an upgrade a few months after the initial release. I might still do that. But I wanted to see if I could explain what they are to the relatively technical people who read this blog. "></outline>
			<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:01:50 GMT" pgfnum="3358" text="The core idea in the worldoutline is that you can put a marker on a headline that says this place begins a new space. Which allows you to use the outliner to organize all your spaces. "></outline>
			<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:04:00 GMT" pgfnum="3359" text="This way of organizing has lots of advantages. It lets you view a blog as a structure of documents you can edit. And it can allow you to fork off a new blog without increasing the complexity of the world you manage. This is something you're constantly fighting. A lot of spaces shouldn't overly complicate your life."></outline>
			<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:05:17 GMT" pgfnum="3360" text="So how does a seam get expressed? How are these markers implemented? You could either come up with a web service that takes a name and tells you how to find your way to that place, or you could use a system that already does most of the job, DNS. This is one of my basic design principles. When possible use already-deployed and widely-supported protocols instead of inventing new ones. Lots of good reasons for this.  That's why I used DNS. It scales, it's widely deployed, and I've always felt it was under-utilized, that there was a lot of power there lying dormant. "></outline>
			<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:07:02 GMT" pgfnum="3362" text="So here's how it works from a user standpoint. I put the cursor on a headline, and choose the Add Blorkmark command. It suggests a name, which I can override. Then it makes a call to a server which in turn calls Amazon's Route53, to register a cname, and associate it with the node you're pointing to. It takes 20 to 40 seconds for Amazon to do its work. And after that you have a way to get to this place. To the reader it looks as if it's a world unto itself, but in your view of the world, it's just a corner inside a bigger outline. A possibly much bigger outline, containing many such spaces. "></outline>
			<outline created="Sun, 20 May 2012 20:17:22 GMT" pgfnum="3363" text="The path to the node is stored locally on your machine and on your worldoutline server. If you move it, no problem, the marker moves with it. So that's what a blorkmark is. It's something like a bookmark, but it points into content both in the place you edit it and in the place people read it. "></outline>
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