"As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush (1945)

theatlantic.com

19 pointsjoebig3 comments

He was right that curation and distribution of knowledge was the most important problem at the time. A Memex solved both by recording everything that was seen, with context, AND allowing a dump/copy of a portion or all of that data to me made on demand.

It's deeply upsetting that we've never had a widely used implementation of the Memex in the past, and now thanks to DRM, "IP" and copyright, we never will.

Doug Englebart built upon it and gave the mothe of all demos. Watch it on YouTube. It took decades for the software industry to finally take much of his ideas.

Programming is a Balkanized state of NIH, ego and general ignorance of the past. The work at Xerox Park Place, Bell Labs, SRI were revolutionary. And ignored by the “mainstream”.

It is really sad.

Might one be hopeful that A.I. will be able to ingest a person's entire digital knowledge collection and do something useful with it ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com