He's imagining a novel in where ideas are the cyber world projected into the mind of man.

Brigadoon?

What he said made sense.

Definition of BIZARRE
: strikingly out of the ordinary: as
a : odd, extravagant, or eccentric in style or mode
b : involving sensational contrasts or incongruities

It's an established trope in various subsets of fantasy, science fiction, and horror for one to become "unknown" to the world for various reasons: death, magic, time travel, what have you. I vaguely recall a story about a community that had something like this happen to them, but my memory is failing me for a title or author.

From Wikipedia:
Sunrise is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. Originally called "Sunset," the name did not sit well with the retirees whom developers wanted to attract, so a change was made to "Sunrise."

First, ha ha ha ha ha; and second, could this be the first sign of Google going all HAL, using what power it has in an attempt to isolate its enemies, before they have a chance to change their name again?

I could imagine a post-modern novel to this effect; due to bureaucratic mishaps an entirely zip-code goes missing and all those unfortunates living within it suddenly become a universe to themselves.

What's more unfortunate is the central authoritative position that Google has managed to accrue to itself; Google's inability to maintain their map software properly can potentially destroy the economy of any afflicted areas; I wonder if one would be able to sue for damages against Google on that basis if such a thing becomes more serious. I find myself a little uncomfortable with the power that even a relatively small (employment-wise) company can wield in the information age.

You think that's bad, Facebook died today and went DNS.

@4 Thanks for the Wikip quote. These people have both metaphysical and metaphorical issues.

I immediately thought of that Twilight Zone episode with the omnipotent boy, "It's a Good Life". One of the first things that happened to the town was that either they had been removed from the world or the world had disappeared and only the town was left.

@9, That was one of my favourite episodes.

Invisible Cities, duh.

AT LAST...the future promised me in the original "Rollerball" movie is coming true!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MJju0hWn…

Ah, dang it, Hover Dog, you beat me to it. I just re-read Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life" in an old anthology book I have....