All persistent URLs on the planet are down for maintenance 

The global purl resolver is down this morning -- essentially, the Net just broke.

Persistent URLs... aren't.

No one will notice, because no one really cares about metadata or library science -- that is why we are so dependent on DNS.

However, using a purl resolver gives you a nice alternative to DNS lookups.

The global, free one used by everyone on the planet who wanted to create or search persistent URLs is broken this morning. purl.org is run by archive.org.

In particular, http://purl.org/thedailystormer will no longer resolve to http://thedailystormer.name (which is still there)

Stanford University Digital Library Systems has published code for a purl resolver, if you don't want to write your own: https://github.com/sul-dlss/purl (in Ruby)

I have long predicted that pURLs, and in particular purl.org, will be attacked as a they are the best viable alternative to DNS ... if DNS were run by librarians rather than merchants.

What is a purl? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_locator

purl.org, run by archive.org ('The Wayback Machine') is the free, cooperative, pURL repository for the entire planet.

pURLs are an important part of the XML metatdata infrastructure, known as the Dublin Core:

https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/dublin-core/dcmi-terms/