I totally agree. I was kind of hoping the authors name would be in the source (http://mta.me/js-conductor/) but no such luck. It is pretty interesting code to read through though.
He made a neat (mildly) interactive Flash site for one of his songs years ago: http://www.bellyfull.tv – I loved the concept of doing this instead of video.
Don't you think that posting that is a bit rude? Yeah, you could look my address up in the phone book, but I generally don't go signing my posts on reddit with it.
I've honestly never understood this mindset, and this isn't the first time I've seen it. I'm willing to learn if someone is willing to explain it to me.
The information is there, but please don't share it visibly. Make people look for it!
By posting someone's e-mail address in a very public web site, you are just making it that much more accessible to spammers. It is easier to spider news.ycombinator.com than to do so for many whois repositories, some of which explicitly try to block their records from spammers.
But even more importantly, as a matter of simple politeness, it is a good rule to honor someone's choice about how much they reveal about themselves on-line, even if you possess the technical knowledge to dig deeper.
We're talking about rudeness vs. courtesy here. The world will not be a better place if your algorithm is simply to find out as much as you can about someone and then broadcast it in as public a fashion as possible without regard to the person's wishes.
One practical explanation is that it simply hides the information from "nefarious" elements (e.g., spam bots, etc.) that only have the sophistication to pull low hanging fruit.
Somewhat related: I loaded your profile and then to your linked site[1]. I notice that you don't post your email address anywhere I saw. Is there a reason? I bet it's listed somewhere publicly (and that I could find it if I looked hard enough), but it might feel better to have it somewhat less public.
Privacy issues are tough to compare between people. Each person has a different, often inconsistent, scale. And the metric of choice seems to be how "slimy" something feels.
[1] Also, it may be interesting to note that I actually felt a little uncomfortable even doing that, in order to look for a counterexample to reply to your post with. To me, it felt like it could appear somewhat unnecessary. If it does, I apologize. So it's obvious that my personal scale might be a bit on the touchy side.
Maybe it has something to do Bruce Schneier said once: Privacy is not about hiding stuff, but about controlling what others can see about you (I can't find the exact quote).
There is a huge difference between people who are looking for explicit information and people stumbling upon information.
I agree with you that the information is simply there. But I think context is needed for every little bit of information. And maybe posting this on a very public forum like this will loose some context.
I honestly don't. The question arose as to the identity of the author. It is only a $ whois mta.me away. I saved other the trouble, just like the sister post linked to his blog. If this offends you, I apologize.
Right now, it's great to just see people expending their creative energy exploring the possibilities. They are on the leading edge giving us great ideas on how to make good use of this type of technology moving forward.
In case you haven't discovered it - you can click-and-drag your mouse across the lines to make sounds in addition to waiting for the lines to 'pluck' themselves
It's wonderful, if a little odd, to think of the NYC subway as a plucked guitar, versus the familiar steel-on-steel "ka-chunk, ka-chunk" as the trains rumble on the (unwelded) tracks.