Douglas Engelbart | Hidden Heroes

The Thorny Problem of Keeping the Internet’s Time | The New Yorker

This story of the Network Time Protocol hammers home the importance of infrastructure and its maintenance:

Technology companies worth billions rely on open-source code, including N.T.P., and the maintenance of that code is often handled by a small group of individuals toiling away without pay.

Jeremy Keith & Remy Sharp - How We Built the World Wide Web in Five Days on Vimeo

Here’s the talk that Remy and I gave at Fronteers in Amsterdam, all aboutour hack week at CERN.We’re bothreallypleased with how this turned out and we’d love to give it again!

Tools & Craft - Episode 03: Ted Nelson

A great interview with Ted Nelson at the Internet Archive where he reminisces about Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, Vannevar Bush, hypertext and Xanadu. Wind him and let him go!

There’s an interesting tidbit on what he’s up to next:

So, the first one I’m trying to build will just be a comment, but with two pages visibly connected. And the second bit will be several pages visibly connected. A nice example is Vladimir Nabokov’s novelPale Fire,which is a long poem by the fictitious author John Shade, connected to a large number of idiotic footnotes by the fictitious academic Charles Kinbote.

Ironically, back in the days of the Dark Brown Project, I actually got permission from the publishers ofPale Fireto demonstrate it on the Brown system. So now I hope to demonstrate it on the new Xanadu.

Pale Fireis the poem referenced inBlade Runner 2049:

Cells interlinked within cells interlinked…

Hypertext and Our Collective Destiny

The text ofa fascinating talk given by Tim Berners-Leeback in 1995, at a gathering to mark the 50th anniversary of Vannevar Bush’s amazing articleAs We May Think.The event also drew together Ted Nelson, Alan Kay, Douglas Engelbart, and Bob Kahn!

Thanks toTeodara Petkovaforpointing to thisvia the marvellousWeb History Community Group.

Man-Computer Symbiosis

J. C. R. Licklider’s seminal 1960 paper. I’ve added it tothis list of reading material.

The title should, of course, read “Person-Computer Symbiosis.”