[Gzz-commits] manuscripts/FutureVision vision.rst

[Benja Fallenstein]

CVSROOT:        /cvsroot/gzz
Module name:    manuscripts
Branch:         
Changes by:     Benja Fallenstein <address@hidden>      03/09/15 06:31:27

Modified files:
        FutureVision   : vision.rst 

Log message:
        First attempt at intro

CVSWeb URLs:
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gzz/manuscripts/FutureVision/vision.rst.diff?tr1=1.8&tr2=1.9&r1=text&r2=text

Patches:
Index: manuscripts/FutureVision/vision.rst
diff -u manuscripts/FutureVision/vision.rst:1.8 
manuscripts/FutureVision/vision.rst:1.9
--- manuscripts/FutureVision/vision.rst:1.8     Sun Sep 14 15:33:31 2003
+++ manuscripts/FutureVision/vision.rst Mon Sep 15 06:31:25 2003
@@ -8,9 +8,97 @@
 Introduction
 ============
 
-blaa ...
+Hypermedia was meant to be an extension to the mind. "As We May Think,"
+Vannemar Bush entitled his famous article (1945__); Engelbart(1962__)
+set "Augmenting Human Intellect" as his goal, and Nelson (1965__)
+envisioned a system "holding everything [a novelist or absent-minded
+professor] wanted in just the way he wanted it to be held."
+
+__ http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm
+__ 
http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html
+__ 
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=806036&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=12221347&CFTOKEN=93164645
+
+Today, Nelson suggests that "[i]n the near future, the Wearable 
+computer will be a standard part of the thoughtful person's social ensemble"
+(1998__), for keeping track of "memoranda, names and addresses, appointments, 
+obligations, things to do, things to buy, things to have fixed, payments to 
make,
+transactions, things to say to people, phrases to put into writings,
+etc." (2000__).
+
+__ http://www.xanadu.com.au/ted/zigzag/xybrap.html
+__ http://www.xanadu.com.au/mail/zzdev/msg02237.html
+
+Browsing our notes would be part of our thought process,
+making links would be part of understanding an idea.
+Such a computer would become a part of ourselves, an extension
+to the mind, like the written word. It would *aid the thought
+process* like scribbling down notes on a piece of paper,
+unifying all the notes into a single place, an
+external memory of sorts that would allow us to call up
+all of our thoughts about a subject with the flick of an
+electronic stylus.
+
+This is yet to happen.
+
+Current computer systems are not at all suited to the task.
+
+What is needed is a hypermedia system in which the
+concepts people care about-- the places, appointments, ideas,
+the *items*, in Nelson's words (2000__)-- are visible in
+and linkable the system. What is needed, in technical terms,
+is a hypermedia system in which items are first-class objects.
+
+__ http://www.xanadu.com.au/mail/zzdev/msg02237.html
+
+In such a system, to remember that we have "a meeting with
+Carli today at 2:15 about the book", we would create a new
+item (the meeting) and link it to Carli (another item) and 
+the book (a third item), and also connect the meeting to its
+scheduled time.
+
+Then, whenever we come across the book or the person in any
+context, we could see their connections to the meeting.
+For example, when we are mulling about an issue we have noted
+we must discuss with Carli (a note that would be linked
+to the Carli-item), we could quickly see that we will meet
+with her today. We could then link the issue to be part
+of the meeting's agenda (an item the meeting is linked to).
+
+(Using typed links, we could also turn particular types
+of links on and off, and thus would not have to see the
+connection *all* the time when thinking about Carli--
+only when meetings are on our mind.)
+
+Such a system would be able to appropriately represent
+the interconnectedness of items in our lives, making hypermedia
+truly a tool for thought.
+
+But as long as information is stored in disconnected files,
+as long as it is not naturally connected to the *items* it
+is about, this will not happen (and the best we can do 
+even with advanced navigational hypertext tools 
+is to link information *in addition to* 
+entering it into the system, rather than linking it
+*by* putting it into the system)
+
+Therefore, we need a new computer environment, centered around
+*items* rather than applications and files, an environment
+where everything we do, all information that we enter, is part
+of the network of linked items. 
+
+We need a system in which
+appointments aren't pieces of data entered into a calendar
+application, but items linked to other items; a system where
+letters are not files we need to store in a directory structure,
+but items connected to the recipients of the letter and the
+things that are discussed in the letter; a system where our
+ideas and problems exist as first class objects *at all*, linked
+to the things that we need to know about them.
+
+This is what, we submit, common-use hypermedia can be,
+ten years from now.
+
 
-In this article, we present the Hyperstructure paradigm ...
 
 A Catalogue of Hypermedia Structures 
 ====================================