Douglas Adams - Hyperland

I just discovered this amazing documentary about hypertext from 1990, written by Douglas Adams, with Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor Who!) as a Software Agent, and featuring many other amazing people, like Ted Nelson! Douglas Adams Hyperland ▶ this video >Douglas Adams: Are you sure you mean Agent? >Software Agent: I mean that I'm a Software Agent. I am merely a simulacrum. An artificial and completely customizable personality. And I only exist as what we call an "Application" in your computer. I have the honor to provide instant access to every piece of information stored digitally anywhere in the world. Any picture, or film, any sound, any book, any statistic, any fact. Any connection between anything you care to think of, you have only to tell me, and it will be my humble duty to find it for you and to present it to you for your interactive pleasure. Is there anything I can do for you now, Mister Adams, sir? >Douglas Adams: Well yes, you can stop being so obsequious, for a start. >Software Agent: It will be my very great and profound pleasure to be less obsequious, oh Master. I am, as I humbly mentioned to you a moment ago, Fully Customizable. Allow me to present you with my Control Panel. link link link link link

Ted Nelson's Computers for Cynics probably doesn't contain technical information that's new to any of you, but Ted has a knack for reframing things in ways that make the arbitrariness of certain historical decisions clear: link On the subject of hypertext, The Web That Wasn't gives a nice history of the idea (for anybody who thinks it starts with TBL -- surprisingly many people!): link Another reframing-oriented talk is Clay Shirky's "It's not information overload, it's filter failure", which ultimately leads to Shirky suggesting the kinds of user-oriented filtering features that Mastodon has implemented: link At the intersection of neurology and information science, Peter Watts always has something interesting to say, and as a former marine biologist focusing on the nervous system of starfish, this is absolutely in his wheelhouse: link This one ("moving away from defensive programming") justified strong typing in a pretty clear way: link Dan Dennett is just as relevant as Doug Hofstadter when it comes to metacognition: link Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science starts slow, but if you don't have much of a historical background (like, if you're only vaguely aware of what happened in CS in the 70s), it's a laundry list of things you should look up and be aware of before you start your next project: link Everybody should understand procedural generation: link Likewise, since AI is hyped up right now, we should all remind ourselves that IA is a thing too: link Mo

This reminds me strongly of "agents" that were going to do your bidding, as prophesied in the early 90's. Here's video of Douglas Adams and Tim Baker giving a tour of the future. ▶ this video