5 ms·

"If I hadn't snubbed Jobs and Woz, I might've been the Jef Raskin of Apple" That quote made me look up who Ted Nelson was. His most notable project that I see

"If I hadn't snubbed Jobs and Woz, I might've been the Jef Raskin of Apple" That quote made me look up who Ted Nelson was. His most notable project that I see is Xanadu which Wired described as "the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing". Started in 1960, it didn't ship a working version until 2014. I don't disagree that the Media Lab often overhypes things. But you need to be able to sell your ideas and get people excited about them to have an impact on the world. That involves being positive and having genuine excitement for the potential of something which today might be very hacky. I'm convinced this positivity is a lot of what makes Silicon Valley work. A long time after Xanadu was founded, a contractor at CERN put together a basic, very imperfect way of publishing and connecting research papers on the computer networks called the World Wide Web. The Xanadu team said he stole their ideas and it was a "bizarre structure created by arbitrary initiatives of varied people and it has a terrible programming language". Tim Berners-Lee just kept shipping code and getting people to join his vision of the future and so today his WWW is what we're all using.

dustingetz 7y ago
it’s true though, we pretend to attribute success to merit but really it’s all just the butterfly effect and being in the right place at the right time.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 7y ago
  In enterprise it's might makes right.
wpietri 7y ago
> But you need to be able to sell your ideas and get people excited about them to have an impact on the world. This is true. But there's a notional dial I think about. It's labeled "effort distribution". The left end says "substance" and the right end says "hype". I've come to accept that 0% hype is a setting that mostly doesn't work. You need to make some people aware of your work, or you'll never get word of mouth. So let's say 5%. And really, you have to go higher than that, because you need to compete some with other people's hype. So maybe 10%? The trouble is that hype is an arms race. So if the Media Lab is hoovering up money by overhyping things, then a) that money is being pulled from more substance-focused efforts, and b) to compete, now everybody has to burn more time on hype. Except funders, of course, who have to burn more time and money hoping to see through hype. I can almost accept this in commerce, where we burn hundreds of billions of dollars per year on this arms race via advertising, PR, etc. But it makes me especially sad to see it happening in research.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  > I can almost accept this in commerce, where we burn hundreds of billions of dollars per year on this arms race via advertising, PR, etc. I dunno, given that marketing is almost certainly overhyping marketing the amount of human effort wasted on this is kind of depressing too
- saalweachter 7y ago
  There is also a social equivalent, which is highly regional/cultural: How much do we talk ourselves up, versus how modest are we? If you talk like you're the hottest thing since sliced cheese in some places, you're looked upon as an arrogant braggart; if you don't in other places, it is assumed you are completely incompetent.
azeirah 7y ago
Ted Nelson is one of the most important figures in computing history. Everything on the web prefixed with the word "hyper" is his invention. It saddens me that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. He wrote a couple of very influential books on what computing would be as early as the sixties. Very notable people have gone on record saying he was one of the most important inspirations for their work: Alan Kay, Tim Berners Lee, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and many others. It's difficult to pin point his precise contributions, because he's all over the place, but his contributions are many.
- kabes 7y ago
  > Everything on the web prefixed with the word "hyper" is his invention He coined the terms, but didn't invent the concepts. Memex was much more important in that regard.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8bitsrule 7y ago
    This article muses about how much debt Bush may have owed Paul Otlet ... who'd been working along similar lines since 1895. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/in-search-of-the-proto-memex/371385/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/in-se...
    - kabes 7y ago
      Yes, as a Belgian myself I'm aware of his work, but it was the work of Bush that directly inspired Ted, Douglas etc. Of course Bush's work builds on top of others as I'm sure Otlet will also have had his predecessors.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
> That quote made me look up who Ted Nelson was. Oh FFS. This is Hacker News. And you had to look up who Ted Nelson is?? He thought up 90% of how you spend your time today, and he did it in the 60s. Yeah, he had a big problem shipping. And we now know how big a mistake that was. But nevertheless Ted Nelson is a god.
DonHopkins 7y ago
I recently read Ben Shneiderman's review of Ted Nelson's Computer Lib (1974) in his list of books that were key influences on his professional and personal life, and his criticism of Ted rings true. His criticisms are fair and well thought out, and I definitely agree with him in this case, both his high praise of Ted and his books and other work, and his criticism of him for not joining the party the rest of the wide world is having on the real web, as deeply flawed as it is: https://eagereyes.org/influences/ben-shneiderman https://eagereyes.org/influences/ben-shneiderman >Ted Nelson’s clever and innovative Computer Lib (1974) book and other writings demonstrated what truly innovative thinking was like. I’ve had the chance to meet Ted occasionally and am constantly impressed by his innovative thinking, but I am among those who wish he would link himself more closely to practical realities. Maybe that is too pedestrian of me, but it reflects my desire to be innovative while also having an impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines >Computer Lib/Dream Machines is a 1974 book by Ted Nelson, printed as a two-front-cover paperback to indicate its "intertwingled" nature. Originally self-published by Nelson, it was republished with a foreword by Stewart Brand in 1987 by Microsoft Press. Ben Shneiderman is quite positive and excellent at explaining and sharing and selling his impactful ideas, which are based on empirical research and user testing. (For example, Berners-Lee used his recommended light blue colors for links, which user studies demonstrated had the best balance of visibility without disrupting reading.) http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/about.html http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/about.html >The direct manipulation concepts led Ben Shneiderman and his students to develop the interface for the hyperlink. Originally called "embedded menus" empirical evaluations appeared in the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies in January 1986 and in the Communications of the ACM in April 1986. These projects led to the commercially successful Hyperties hypermedia system, which was produced by Cognetics Corp., Princeton Junction, NJ. Hyperties was used to produce the world's first electronic journal, the July 1988 issue of the Communications of the ACM. The ACM sold 4000+ copies under the title Hypertext on Hypertext. >Hypertext on Hypertext: World’s first electronic journal for CACM, July 1988 >This electronic journal was cited in Tim Berners-Lee's Spring 1989 manifesto http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html for the web as the source of the "hot spots" or links idea. Berners-Lee even used our recommended light blue colors for links, which our user studies demonstrated had the best balance of visibility without disrupting reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History >In a series of books and articles published from 1964 through 1980, Nelson transposed Bush's concept of automated cross-referencing into the computer context, made it applicable to specific text strings rather than whole pages, generalized it from a local desk-sized machine to a theoretical proprietary worldwide computer network, and advocated the creation of such a network. Though Nelson's Xanadu Corporation was eventually funded by Autodesk in the 1980s, it never created this proprietary public-access network. Meanwhile, working independently, a team led by Douglas Engelbart (with Jeff Rulifson as chief programmer) was the first to implement the hyperlink concept for scrolling within a single document (1966), and soon after for connecting between paragraphs within separate documents (1968), with NLS. Ben Shneiderman working with graduate student Dan Ostroff designed and implemented the highlighted link in the HyperTIES system in 1983. HyperTIES was used to produce the world's first electronic journal, the July 1988 Communications of ACM, which was cited as the source for the link concept in Tim Berners-Lee's Spring 1989 manifesto for the Web. In 1988, Ben Shneiderman and Greg Kearsley used HyperTIES to publish "Hypertext Hands-On!", the world's first electronic book. Here's more I wrote about Xanadu a long time ago, after reviewing the open source code (Smalltalk machine translated to C++!) that they released in 1999: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154 >I think his biggest problem is that he refuses to collaborate with other people, or build on top of current technology. He's had a lot of great important inspirational ideas, but his implementation of those ideas didn't go anywhere, he's angry and bitter, and he hasn't bothered re-implementing them with any of the "inferior technologies" that he rejects. >Back in 1999, project Xanadu released their source code as open source. It was a classic example of "open sourcing" something that was never going to ship otherwise, and that nobody could actually use or improve, just to get some attention ("open source" was a huge fad at the time). http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/08/27/web_precursor_xanadu_project_goes/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/08/27/web_precursor_xanadu... >Register believe it or not factoid: Nelson's book Computer Lib was at one point published by Microsoft Press. Oh yes. ® >They originally wrote Xanadu in Smalltalk, then implemented a Smalltalk to C++ compiler, and finally they released the machine generated output of that compiler, which was unreadable and practically useless. It completely missed the point and purpose of "open source software". >I looked at the code when it was released in 1999 and wrote up some initial reactions that Dave Winer asked me to post to his UserLand Frontier discussion group: http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010163.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010163.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010164.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010164.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010165.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010165.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010166.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010166.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010167.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010167.... >A few excerpts (remember I wrote this in 1999 so some of the examples are dated): [continued in old hn thread here:] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154

dustingetz 7y ago

it’s true though, we pretend to attribute success to merit but really it’s all just the butterfly effect and being in the right place at the right time.

0xdeadbeefbabe 7y ago
In enterprise it's might makes right.

wpietri 7y ago

> But you need to be able to sell your ideas and get people excited about them to have an impact on the world. This is true. But there's a notional dial I think about. It's labeled "effort distribution". The left end says "substance" and the right end says "hype". I've come to accept that 0% hype is a setting that mostly doesn't work. You need to make some people aware of your work, or you'll never get word of mouth. So let's say 5%. And really, you have to go higher than that, because you need to compete some with other people's hype. So maybe 10%? The trouble is that hype is an arms race. So if the Media Lab is hoovering up money by overhyping things, then a) that money is being pulled from more substance-focused efforts, and b) to compete, now everybody has to burn more time on hype. Except funders, of course, who have to burn more time and money hoping to see through hype. I can almost accept this in commerce, where we burn hundreds of billions of dollars per year on this arms race via advertising, PR, etc. But it makes me especially sad to see it happening in research.

vanderZwan 7y ago
> I can almost accept this in commerce, where we burn hundreds of billions of dollars per year on this arms race via advertising, PR, etc. I dunno, given that marketing is almost certainly overhyping marketing the amount of human effort wasted on this is kind of depressing too
saalweachter 7y ago
There is also a social equivalent, which is highly regional/cultural: How much do we talk ourselves up, versus how modest are we? If you talk like you're the hottest thing since sliced cheese in some places, you're looked upon as an arrogant braggart; if you don't in other places, it is assumed you are completely incompetent.

azeirah 7y ago

Ted Nelson is one of the most important figures in computing history. Everything on the web prefixed with the word "hyper" is his invention. It saddens me that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. He wrote a couple of very influential books on what computing would be as early as the sixties. Very notable people have gone on record saying he was one of the most important inspirations for their work: Alan Kay, Tim Berners Lee, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and many others. It's difficult to pin point his precise contributions, because he's all over the place, but his contributions are many.

kabes 7y ago
> Everything on the web prefixed with the word "hyper" is his invention He coined the terms, but didn't invent the concepts. Memex was much more important in that regard.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  This article muses about how much debt Bush may have owed Paul Otlet ... who'd been working along similar lines since 1895. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/in-search-of-the-proto-memex/371385/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/in-se...
  - kabes 7y ago
    Yes, as a Belgian myself I'm aware of his work, but it was the work of Bush that directly inspired Ted, Douglas etc. Of course Bush's work builds on top of others as I'm sure Otlet will also have had his predecessors.

dreamcompiler 7y ago

> That quote made me look up who Ted Nelson was. Oh FFS. This is Hacker News. And you had to look up who Ted Nelson is?? He thought up 90% of how you spend your time today, and he did it in the 60s. Yeah, he had a big problem shipping. And we now know how big a mistake that was. But nevertheless Ted Nelson is a god.

DonHopkins 7y ago

I recently read Ben Shneiderman's review of Ted Nelson's Computer Lib (1974) in his list of books that were key influences on his professional and personal life, and his criticism of Ted rings true. His criticisms are fair and well thought out, and I definitely agree with him in this case, both his high praise of Ted and his books and other work, and his criticism of him for not joining the party the rest of the wide world is having on the real web, as deeply flawed as it is: https://eagereyes.org/influences/ben-shneiderman https://eagereyes.org/influences/ben-shneiderman >Ted Nelson’s clever and innovative Computer Lib (1974) book and other writings demonstrated what truly innovative thinking was like. I’ve had the chance to meet Ted occasionally and am constantly impressed by his innovative thinking, but I am among those who wish he would link himself more closely to practical realities. Maybe that is too pedestrian of me, but it reflects my desire to be innovative while also having an impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines >Computer Lib/Dream Machines is a 1974 book by Ted Nelson, printed as a two-front-cover paperback to indicate its "intertwingled" nature. Originally self-published by Nelson, it was republished with a foreword by Stewart Brand in 1987 by Microsoft Press. Ben Shneiderman is quite positive and excellent at explaining and sharing and selling his impactful ideas, which are based on empirical research and user testing. (For example, Berners-Lee used his recommended light blue colors for links, which user studies demonstrated had the best balance of visibility without disrupting reading.) http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/about.html http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/about.html >The direct manipulation concepts led Ben Shneiderman and his students to develop the interface for the hyperlink. Originally called "embedded menus" empirical evaluations appeared in the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies in January 1986 and in the Communications of the ACM in April 1986. These projects led to the commercially successful Hyperties hypermedia system, which was produced by Cognetics Corp., Princeton Junction, NJ. Hyperties was used to produce the world's first electronic journal, the July 1988 issue of the Communications of the ACM. The ACM sold 4000+ copies under the title Hypertext on Hypertext. >Hypertext on Hypertext: World’s first electronic journal for CACM, July 1988 >This electronic journal was cited in Tim Berners-Lee's Spring 1989 manifesto http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html for the web as the source of the "hot spots" or links idea. Berners-Lee even used our recommended light blue colors for links, which our user studies demonstrated had the best balance of visibility without disrupting reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History >In a series of books and articles published from 1964 through 1980, Nelson transposed Bush's concept of automated cross-referencing into the computer context, made it applicable to specific text strings rather than whole pages, generalized it from a local desk-sized machine to a theoretical proprietary worldwide computer network, and advocated the creation of such a network. Though Nelson's Xanadu Corporation was eventually funded by Autodesk in the 1980s, it never created this proprietary public-access network. Meanwhile, working independently, a team led by Douglas Engelbart (with Jeff Rulifson as chief programmer) was the first to implement the hyperlink concept for scrolling within a single document (1966), and soon after for connecting between paragraphs within separate documents (1968), with NLS. Ben Shneiderman working with graduate student Dan Ostroff designed and implemented the highlighted link in the HyperTIES system in 1983. HyperTIES was used to produce the world's first electronic journal, the July 1988 Communications of ACM, which was cited as the source for the link concept in Tim Berners-Lee's Spring 1989 manifesto for the Web. In 1988, Ben Shneiderman and Greg Kearsley used HyperTIES to publish "Hypertext Hands-On!", the world's first electronic book. Here's more I wrote about Xanadu a long time ago, after reviewing the open source code (Smalltalk machine translated to C++!) that they released in 1999: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154 >I think his biggest problem is that he refuses to collaborate with other people, or build on top of current technology. He's had a lot of great important inspirational ideas, but his implementation of those ideas didn't go anywhere, he's angry and bitter, and he hasn't bothered re-implementing them with any of the "inferior technologies" that he rejects. >Back in 1999, project Xanadu released their source code as open source. It was a classic example of "open sourcing" something that was never going to ship otherwise, and that nobody could actually use or improve, just to get some attention ("open source" was a huge fad at the time). http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/08/27/web_precursor_xanadu_project_goes/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/08/27/web_precursor_xanadu... >Register believe it or not factoid: Nelson's book Computer Lib was at one point published by Microsoft Press. Oh yes. ® >They originally wrote Xanadu in Smalltalk, then implemented a Smalltalk to C++ compiler, and finally they released the machine generated output of that compiler, which was unreadable and practically useless. It completely missed the point and purpose of "open source software". >I looked at the code when it was released in 1999 and wrote up some initial reactions that Dave Winer asked me to post to his UserLand Frontier discussion group: http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010163.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010163.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010164.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010164.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010165.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010165.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010166.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010166.... http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010167.html http://static.userland.com/userlanddiscussarchive/msg010167.... >A few excerpts (remember I wrote this in 1999 so some of the examples are dated): [continued in old hn thread here:] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224154