Brain on Fire Tim McCormack, distilled.

As I watch my browser fill with extensions which enhance web pages by adding scripts (Greasemonkey, Platypus, Cocomment, ), I wonder whether some sites may start fighting back. Perhaps Google may detect Platypus removing a text ad, and add a page script to re-insert the ad. Will scripts begin to battle, wage wars of privilege, namespace, obfuscation, and timing? Will the javascript sandbox become a bloody battlefield, littered with object literals, new troops parachuting in via JSON headers and asynchronous XML HTTP requests? Will the DOM tree be hung with broken and battered functions? I envision closures spawning closures, surveiling the digital landscape, emerging from their window.setTimeout bunkers to strike again...

I'm seeing a very interesting conflict of interest on the web recently, involving semantic content and advertising. If you're involved with either of those, you may already know what I'm talking about. It's an issue that affects anybody who wants to either a) find/present information or b) avoid/push advertisements. In other words, everybody.