4.1082 Humor & a Query (2/51)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sun, 24 Feb 91 21:51:58 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 1082. Sunday, 24 Feb 1991.

(1) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 09:33 EST (41 lines)
From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu>
Subject: DEC's Humour Department, redux

(2) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:03:04 EST (10 lines)
From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA>
Subject: Newsletters

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 09:33 EST
From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu>
Subject: DEC's Humour Department, redux

For all you Hypertext fans out there, from EDU Magazine (Dec's higher ed organ)
Winter, 1991, p. 27:

Hyperinformation: A "Knowledge Navigation" Technology

The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious
rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to
the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of
square-rigged ships. - Dr. Vannnevar Bush

In 1945, Dr. Vannevar Bush, Franklin Roosevelt's science adviser during
World War II, published an article in the Atlantic Monthly describing
one of the great challenges of the modern world - how to navigate
through vast quantities of information.

Bush envisioned a device which he dubbed a "memex", in which an
individual stores all his books, records, and communications. The memex
could be consulted with speed and flexibility. The device would be a
tool for traversing a huge body of knowledge - not sequentially but
associatively. It would operate the way the human mind operates. It
would be, Bush wrote, "an enlarged, intimate supplement" to the human
memory.

One Mistake
Bush was mistaken in one of his prophecies - he thought that
photomicrography would be the primary enabling technology for
information storage, retrieval, and viewing. But he was on the mark in
every other regard.

Conceptually, at least, he foresaw the marriage of high-capacity storage
and high-performance CPUs.

He envisioned the equivalent of the X Window System (tm)
...

[Somebody tell Ted Nelson, quick.]

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:03:04 EST
From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA>
Subject: Newsletters

Does there exist a directory of academic E-newsletters (such as _REACH_
and _OFFLINE_) that are currently available over Bitnet/Internet?
If such a directory exists how may I optain it?

Michael Strangelove
University of Ottawa