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Included this last week, but a bit late so less eyeballs. Hope it's ok to repost... Chrono: chronological inventions and academic breakthroughs of mankind as a
by gbrits 12y ago
Included this last week, but a bit late so less eyeballs. Hope it's ok to repost...
Chrono: chronological inventions and academic breakthroughs of mankind as a dependency graph. This is a lingering idea that has been coming back to me a couple times a year over the last decade or so.
What if there's a kind of semantic wikipedia that is built upon a dependency graph of inventions and academic breakthroughs. What led to the invention of the internet, to nano-tubes, etc? How cool would it be from an education standpoint to be able to jump back in time and see invention upon invention replayed (with backgrounds on how these breakthroughs came to be) up to today.
Check out what led to invention X (the galaxy S you're reading this on), played back . Or reversely, lookup which inventions were build (transitively) upon the discovery of Y.
Socio-economic backgrounds, anecdotes, etc. what led to invention X, and how X was important for Y, etc. An interactive "Short history of nearly everything"
- olalonde 12y agoReally cool idea. I wonder how hard it would be to initially populate the database using existing sources (Wikipedia/http://www.freebase.com/ http://www.freebase.com/) and some AI.
- rz2k 12y agoTake a look at the older BBC "Connections" documentaries by James Burke.[1] They're really fascinating, however they have a strong editorial presence. In my view, like with Sagan's Cosmos, the presence of the series creator's point of view can make the content more interesting than a collection of data alone. However, people do really enjoy TV tropes, so a huge effort to categorize everything could attract a huge audience, too. Such a site would be a good source of inspiration for new ideas incorporating older ones, too. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plgLCYha7pE&list=PLGi4Jd5YfR_lnV68fTIlPMZQzVAjeeg5g&feature=share&index=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plgLCYha7pE&list=PLGi4Jd5YfR_...
- gbrits 12y agoThe editorial aspect could be in the "Socio-economic backgrounds, anecdotes, etc. what led to invention X, and how X was important for Y, etc." Part of why I found A Short History of Nearly Everything so great is the backdrop in which Bill Bryson is able to frame the great inventions.
- nandreev 12y agoVery cool idea. We could finally validate Sid Meier's tech tree(s)!