Hi Processing Engelbart followers,

Some of you may not be on the Future Salon mailing list.
This is why I repost this collection of events commemorating the 40th
anniversary of Doug Engelbart's mother of all demos.

Here is the repost:

I wanted to let you know about some upcoming events related to the
40th anniversary of Doug Engelbart's "Mother of All Demos". Detailed
agenda for Program for the Future follows the event lists.

November 20 (evening):
* Engineering Leadership SIG: Featuring World-famous Doug Engelbart
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM November 20, 2008
SAP Building D, Southern Cross Room
(No pre-registration required, info. at:
http://sdforum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventID=13250)

December 8 (day):
* Program for the Future: Speakers and Workshops on collective
intelligence at The Tech Museum of Innovation. An interactive
conference inspired by Doug Engelbart's vision of harnessing
technology for human betterment.
7:45AM - 5PM
Tech Museum of Innovation San Jose, CA
(Registration at: http://www.programforthefuture.org)(250 max)

December 8 (evening):
* Program for the Future Dinner Talk
Andries van Dam, Professor of Computer Science, Brown University in
conversation with Joel Orr
6PM Adobe Cafe 345 Park Ave San Jose (100 max)
(Registration at: http://www.programforthefuture.org)

December 9 (morning):
* "Program for the Future Organizing Workshop"
8AM-12 Noon
Stanford University Wallenburg Hall (150 max)
(Registration at: http://www.programforthefuture.org)

December 9 (afternoon):
* "Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing: SRI's
Revolutionary 1968 Demo — A 40th Anniversary Celebration"
1PM - 530PM
Stanford University Memorial Auditorium
(Registration at: http://www.sri.com/engelbart-event.html)




Program for the Future

Program for the Future is dedicated to Douglas Engelbart's quest to
harness technology for human betterment. Sponsored by The Tech Museum
of Innovation, the MIT Museum, The New Media Consortium, and SDForum,
this two-day conference is a dialog with people developing new tools,
interfaces, research and methods to augment collective intelligence.
It will be held December 8 and 9 in San José and Stanford, California.

Speakers on December 8 include Professor Thomas Malone, author of The
Future of Work and Director of the MIT Center for Collective
Intelligence, Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, and The
New Media Consortium www.nmc.org an example of Engelbart's prescient
concept of a networked improvement community. Professor Andries van
Dam of Brown University who hosted the 50th anniversary of Vannevar
Bush's groundbreaking article "As We May Think." will be the highlight
of the December 8th Evening program. Program chairs are Professor
Hiroshi Ishii, Associate Director of the MIT Media Lab, and Joel Orr,
Founder of the Congress on the Future of Engineering Software.

December 9th's morning program is a Call to Action to organize
ourselves to move forward to harness the collective intelligence of
our community. The afternoon program shifts to the Stanford Memorial
Hall joining with the SRI commemoration of the team that created the demo.

On this, the 40th anniversary of Engelbart's legendary "mother of all
demos," the Program for the Future will launch a global competition
for new tools that improve collective Intelligence. In keeping with
Engelbart's vision of mass collaboration, this event also brings
together many communities -- education, business, nonprofit, social,
political and technology. Together we will brainstorm ways to enhance
our capability for problem-solving, decision-making, knowledge
organization, and planning in every field of human endeavor.


SPEAKERS
* Professor Hiroshi Ishii, Associate Director, MIT Media Laboratory
* Joel Orr VP and Chief Visionary, Cyon Research
* Peter Friess President, The Tech Museum of Innovation
* Sam Hahn, eGain - industry panel 12/9
* Professor Tom Malone, Director, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
* Professor Andries van Dam, Brown Univ. Dinner keynote speaker
* Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google
* William Mark, Vice President, SRI, Information and Computing
Sciences Division
* Paul Resnick, University of Michigan
* Alan Kay, President, Viewpoints Research Institute
* David Nordfors - Director Center for Innovative Journalism, Stanford
University
* William Mark - Vice President, Information and Computing Sciences
Division, SRI
* New Media Consortium - Larry Johnson CEO,
- Rachel Smith, VP NMC Services and
- Alan Levine, VP Community and CTO


Program for the Future:
A Summit & Workshop on Collective Intelligence
Dec. 8, 2008 The Tech Museum of Innovation
SCHEDULE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

7:45 Registration (Coffee and pastry bar)

8:15 Joel Orr, Doug Engelbart, Karen Engelbart
"Welcome to the summit on Collective Intelligence"
How can individuals participate in integrating Collective Intelligence
into their studies, business, or art in order to achieve beneficial
results that exceed the expected output?

8:30 Peter Norvig Director of Research, Google
"Walkthrough the Collective Intelligence Mural and Timeline"
Where are we? How did we get here? Where are we going? Understand the
connected revolution through a graphical timeline. Learn how
visualizing time provides insight into things that have happened and
things to come.

9:00 Thomas Malone Director of the Center for Collective Intelligence, MIT
"The Landscape of Collective Intelligence"
A central question for whole field of collective intelligence is "How
can people and computers be connected so that - collectively - they
act more intelligently than any individuals, groups or computers have
ever done before?" This talk will describe some early answers to this
question in business, science, and other areas.

10:00 Hiroshi Ishii Associate Director of the MIT Media Lab, Director,
Head of the Tangible Media Group
"The Art of Tangible Bits - Inspired by Engelbart's Vision"
Today's technologies will become obsolete in one year, and today's
applications will be replaced in 10 years, but true visions – we
believe – can last longer than 100 years. Tangible Bits is our
vision-driven research that aims at 2200, and it was inspired by
Engelbart's grand vision demonstrated in 1968.

10:20 Larry Johnson, CEO; Alan Levine, VP Community & CTO, and Rachel
Smith, VP NMC Services – executive team of the New Media Consortium
"The Story of the New Media Consortium" – a networked improvement
community inspired by Engelbart

10:40 Break

11:00 Peter Friess President The Tech Museum and John Durant President
MIT Museum
"Redefining the Museum in the Connected Age" Science and technology
centers worldwide are redefining themselves as experiential
environments where new interfaces and new concepts can be shown.
Learn why interactive museum exhibits are staged to become sought
after spaces for technology companies and thought leaders to not only
test new interfaces and ideas, but to interact with valuable audiences
in new ways.

11:30 Activity: "Collective Intelligence Brainstorming and Insight
Groups" (led by Joel Orr and Team ) Activity: Assemble around tables
in up to 5 (or more if needed) topical groups. Groups brainstorm on
aspects of a networked present and futureand how they might shape the
topical business or study area. Post it notes, clustering and other
mural activities. White sheets are used with markers to sketch-up
ideas, keywords, and defining trends.


12:00 Brownbag lunch

12:30 William Mark, Vice President, SRI, Information and Computing
Sciences Division "SRI - Innovation inspired by Engelbart"

1:00 Professor Paul Resnick of the University of Michigan
"Reputation Systems & Collective Intelligence"

1:30 Activity: Breakout Groups report back.
Breakout groups send 1 spokesperson to deliver a 5 minute summary of
their work and insight.

2:00 "Program for The Future: The Collective Intelligence Prize" The
Tech Museum and the MIT Musuem Introduction to Program for the Future
2009 competition. Learn the overall goals of the competition and how
to participate. Official launch of the competition with rules,
contacts, parameters, and introduction to the sites and tools used.
Learn how individuals or companies can generate entries. Learn how
your company or organization can benefit by sponsoring a topic or
industry based prize.

2:30 Open Forum discussion, Q&A, Open Mic, and networking

3:00 Group Tour: "Leonardo: 500 Years into the Future"
Tour together and in groups for inspiration on new ways to overcome
the challenges to collective intelligence. Networking in the
exhibition lobby.

5:00 Museum closes: Leave for Reception and Dinner

5:30 Reception and Networking

6:00 Program for the Future Dinner Talk
Andries van Dam, Professor of Computer Science, Brown University in
conversation with Joel Orr
Activity: White sheets from breakout groups on walls for discussion

7:00 Dinner + discussion continues

9:00 Wrapup


Dec. 9, 2008 Stanford University Wallenberg Hall
Directions to Wallenberg Hall

Call to Action: Organizing Ourselves - Morning Program

8:00 am Registration – Open to the public
Join Program for the Future organizers, participants and New Media
Consortium for networking prior to the Stanford program

8:15 am "Program for the Future Organizing Workshop" , Stanford
location tba. (Organized by Valerie Landau, Eileen Clegg and Mei Lin
Fung) Timeline Mural and group worksheets on view. Open to all who
wish to get information, network and take action.

10:15 Journalist Panel - To be announced

11:00 Industry Panel - To be announced

12:00 Wrap- up and walk to Stanford Memorial Auditorium

1:00 - 5:30 pm
Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing: SRI's Revolutionary
1968 Demo — A 40th Anniversary Celebration
Stanford Memorial Auditorium

Detailed agenda at: http://www.sri.com/engelbart-event.html
They call it the "mother of all demos".
On December 9, 1968, Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart and the Augmentation
Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute staged a
90-minute public multimedia demonstration at the Fall Joint Computer
Conference in San Francisco. It was the world debut of personal and
interactive computing: for the first time, the public saw a computer
mouse, which controlled a networked computer system to demonstrate
hypertext linking, real-time text editing, multiple windows with
flexible view control, cathode display tubes, and shared-screen
teleconferencing.

It changed what is possible. The 1968 demo presaged many of the
technologies we use today, from personal computing to social
networking. The demo embodied Doug Engelbart's vision of solving
humanity's most important problems by using computers to improve
communication and collaboration.

On December 9, 2008 at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium, SRI
International will present a commemorative 40th anniversary of this
historic event. Join us to hear original participants recount what led
up to the 1968 demo, the drama of the demonstration itself, and its
impact — which no one could have imagined at the time. Learn about
Doug Engelbart's vision to use computing to augment society's
collective intellect and ability to solve the complex issues of our time.
Detailed agenda at: http://www.sri.com/engelbart-event.html



ADMISSION

VIP Registration for the two-day conference: (includes everything)
$210 ($275 after Nov. 21)
$175 (for Tech Museum, SDForum, NextNow members, and MIT, Oregon
State, UCBerkeley alumni)

Dec 8 day only
$129 ($199 after Nov. 21)
$99 (for Tech Museum, SDForum, NextNow members, and MIT, Oregon
State, UCBerkeley alumni)]

Dec 8 dinner only
$85 ($95 after Nov. 21)
$75 (for Tech Museum, SDForum, NextNow members, and MIT, Oregon
State, UCBerkeley alumni)

Dec 9 morning only
$20 ($25 after Nov. 21)
$15 (for Tech Museum, SDForum, NextNow members, and MIT, Oregon
State, UCBerkeley alumni)

Discounts: Tech Museum, SDForum, NextNow members, and MIT, Oregon
State, UCBerkeley alumni. Discount subject to verification.
New Media Consortium members order through New Media Consortium


Dec 9 1PM SRI Event at Stanford:

"Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing: SRI's Revolutionary
1968 Demo — A 40th Anniversary Celebration"
Information on this separate event can be found at
http://sri.com/engelbart

See you all there, Mark.

Hi Andrea,

Thank you for the messages.

> ... it appears Yahoo does not delete groups ever.

That resolves our concern ... at least for a while, hopefully!

Regards.  =ppy
--

On Dec 13, 2007 11:32 PM, andrea <fallinghawks@...> wrote:
>
> --- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, "andrea"
>
>  <fallinghawks@...> wrote:
>  > I'll look into ways of making a backup and also
>  > try to learn Yahoo's policy on inactivity.
>
>  And the answer is, it appears Yahoo does not delete groups ever.
>
>
>
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgBaX2bgbYRkY51XOOwklP8jzKIX;_ylv=3\
?qid=20070925081549AAaHpic
>
>  I'm sure that will eventually change, though.
>

--- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, "andrea"
<fallinghawks@...> wrote:
> I'll look into ways of making a backup and also
> try to learn Yahoo's policy on inactivity.

And the answer is, it appears Yahoo does not delete groups ever.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgBaX2bgbYRkY51XOOwklP8jzKIX;_ylv=3\
?qid=20070925081549AAaHpic

I'm sure that will eventually change, though.

Hi Peter, I appreciate the condolences.  I remember meeting you at
Engelbart's home.  I still work for the SMFC school district as a DBA.

I've seen a few Yahoo groups that have been empty for months, so the
time limit could be quite long, or activity may simply mean someone is
simply accessing the group.

At present all messages are stored online at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/processing_engelbart and there is a
page of about 40 links to articles David gathered about Engelbart and
related information.  I'll look into ways of making a backup and also
try to learn Yahoo's policy on inactivity.

Thank you everyone for your participation.

-andrea-

I'm not sure if they still do it ... but Yahoo used to close lists
down (and everything will not be accessible any more) if they stay
inactive for a while.  =ppy
--


On Dec 12, 2007 6:45 PM, Sam Hahn <SamHahn@...> wrote:
>
>
> Since this list is closed to new members and new posts, what's the
>  downside to keeping this list, and making the archives read-enabled to
>  all? Why move the posts elsewhere? Curious... Thx - Sam


>  ----------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Peter Yim (12/12/2007 4:52 PM) wrote:
>  >
>  > Paul,
>  >
>  > Thank you for the update.
>  >
>  > While I only had met with David once, he had impressed me as being a
>  > very intelligent and approachable person. Therefore it is sad news to
>  > learn that he has passed on.
>  >
>  > I agree with the suggestion to retire this list, but would suggest
>  > that someone archives this good work of David's and other (and make
>  > that archive openly available) before deleting the yahoo!group
>  > permanently. I don't have all the early message (as I joined fairly
>  > late in the process) but am willing to help in whatever way I can.
>  >
>  > With condolences to Andrea and those close to David,
>  >
>  > Very sincerely. =ppy
>  > --
>  >
>  > On Dec 12, 2007 4:26 PM, Paul King <email@...
>
>  > <mailto:email%40pking.org>> wrote:
>  > >
>  > > Dear members of the Processing_Engelbart Yahoo Group:
>  > >
>  > > I recently heard from Andrea who was married to "davibennett"
>  > (David) who
>  > > started this group in November 2004.
>  > >
>  > > Apparently David passed away earlier this year after a 6-year battle
>  > with
>  > > cystic fibrosis. He was 51.
>  > >
>  > > In reviewing the history of the list, only 53 messages were sent in
>  > its 3
>  > > years of existence, 47 of those (90%)
>  > > were sent during one month in 2004, and 37 of those messages (80%) came
>  > > from David.
>  > >
>  > > So it seems to be time to put this discussion group to rest as well.
>  > >
>  > > There are 33 current subscribers, only 8 of whom subscribed during
>  > the one
>  > > month in 2004 when all the discussion happened.
>  > >
>  > > Andrea, David's window, describes David (davibennett) as follows:
>  > "He was
>  > > incredibly intelligent, a voracious reader, and had this remarkable
>  > ability
>  > > to put diverse concepts together and come up with new ideas. He had a
>  > > powerful mind despite having little formal education, and good
>  > empathy made
>  > > leadership natural to him. However, he was easily discouraged by
>  > negative or
>  > > closed people, and his health problems were a constant interruption"
>  > >
>  > > Thanks everyone for the discussion in late 2004. I'm sure there will be
>  > > many more opportunities to discuss Doug Englebart's ground-breaking
>  > ideas in
>  > > Future Salons and other venues.
>  > >
>  > > The list has been closed to new members to prevent robot spammers.
>  > The plan
>  > > is to close it to future posts shortly, so if anyone has any additional
>  > > comments, better make them quickly!
>  > >
>  > > Best Regards,
>  > > Paul
>  >
>
>  [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

Since this list is closed to new members and new posts, what's the
downside to keeping this list, and making the archives read-enabled to
all? Why move the posts elsewhere? Curious... Thx - Sam

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Yim (12/12/2007 4:52 PM) wrote:
>
> Paul,
>
> Thank you for the update.
>
> While I only had met with David once, he had impressed me as being a
> very intelligent and approachable person. Therefore it is sad news to
> learn that he has passed on.
>
> I agree with the suggestion to retire this list, but would suggest
> that someone archives this good work of David's and other (and make
> that archive openly available) before deleting the yahoo!group
> permanently. I don't have all the early message (as I joined fairly
> late in the process) but am willing to help in whatever way I can.
>
> With condolences to Andrea and those close to David,
>
> Very sincerely. =ppy
> --
>
> On Dec 12, 2007 4:26 PM, Paul King <email@...
> <mailto:email%40pking.org>> wrote:
> >
> > Dear members of the Processing_Engelbart Yahoo Group:
> >
> > I recently heard from Andrea who was married to "davibennett"
> (David) who
> > started this group in November 2004.
> >
> > Apparently David passed away earlier this year after a 6-year battle
> with
> > cystic fibrosis. He was 51.
> >
> > In reviewing the history of the list, only 53 messages were sent in
> its 3
> > years of existence, 47 of those (90%)
> > were sent during one month in 2004, and 37 of those messages (80%) came
> > from David.
> >
> > So it seems to be time to put this discussion group to rest as well.
> >
> > There are 33 current subscribers, only 8 of whom subscribed during
> the one
> > month in 2004 when all the discussion happened.
> >
> > Andrea, David's window, describes David (davibennett) as follows:
> "He was
> > incredibly intelligent, a voracious reader, and had this remarkable
> ability
> > to put diverse concepts together and come up with new ideas. He had a
> > powerful mind despite having little formal education, and good
> empathy made
> > leadership natural to him. However, he was easily discouraged by
> negative or
> > closed people, and his health problems were a constant interruption"
> >
> > Thanks everyone for the discussion in late 2004. I'm sure there will be
> > many more opportunities to discuss Doug Englebart's ground-breaking
> ideas in
> > Future Salons and other venues.
> >
> > The list has been closed to new members to prevent robot spammers.
> The plan
> > is to close it to future posts shortly, so if anyone has any additional
> > comments, better make them quickly!
> >
> > Best Regards,
> > Paul
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Paul,

Thank you for the update.

While I only had met with David once, he had impressed me as being a
very intelligent and approachable person. Therefore it is sad news to
learn that he has passed on.

I agree with the suggestion to retire this list, but would suggest
that someone archives this good work of David's and other (and make
that archive openly available) before deleting the yahoo!group
permanently. I don't have all the early message (as I joined fairly
late in the process) but am willing to help in whatever way I can.

With condolences to Andrea and those close to David,

Very sincerely.  =ppy
--


On Dec 12, 2007 4:26 PM, Paul King <email@...> wrote:
>
>  Dear members of the Processing_Engelbart Yahoo Group:
>
>  I recently heard from Andrea who was married to "davibennett" (David) who
> started this group in November 2004.
>
>  Apparently David passed away earlier this year after a 6-year battle with
> cystic fibrosis. He was 51.
>
>  In reviewing the history of the list, only 53 messages were sent in its 3
> years of existence, 47 of those (90%)
>  were sent during one month in 2004, and 37 of those messages (80%) came
> from David.
>
>  So it seems to be time to put this discussion group to rest as well.
>
>  There are 33 current subscribers, only 8 of whom subscribed during the one
> month in 2004 when all the discussion happened.
>
>  Andrea, David's window, describes David (davibennett) as follows: "He was
> incredibly intelligent, a voracious reader, and had this remarkable ability
> to put diverse concepts together and come up with new ideas. He had a
> powerful mind despite having little formal education, and good empathy made
> leadership natural to him. However, he was easily discouraged by negative or
> closed people, and his health problems were a constant interruption"
>
>  Thanks everyone for the discussion in late 2004. I'm sure there will be
> many more opportunities to discuss Doug Englebart's ground-breaking ideas in
> Future Salons and other venues.
>
>  The list has been closed to new members to prevent robot spammers. The plan
> is to close it to future posts shortly, so if anyone has any additional
> comments, better make them quickly!
>
>  Best Regards,
>  Paul

I can totally understand the decision to shut down this list,  it has
long gone silent.

It is great that Doug's legacy will live on forever thanks to the
technology that he helped pioneer.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-
8734787622017763097&q=engelbart&pr=goog-sl

This video has long been one of the most inspiring things I have ever
seen.   Just to imagine that this was so long ago and the concepts
still hold true in much the same way as they were demonstrated...
amazing.

Larry Velez
http://www.sinu.com/believe

Dear members of the Processing_Engelbart Yahoo Group:

I recently heard from Andrea who was married to "davibennett" (David) who
started this group in November 2004.

Apparently David passed away earlier this year after a 6-year battle with cystic
fibrosis. He was 51.

In reviewing the history of the list, only 53 messages were sent in its 3 years
of existence, 47 of those (90%)
were sent during one month in 2004, and 37 of those messages (80%) came from
David.

So it seems to be time to put this discussion group to rest as well.

There are 33 current subscribers, only 8 of whom subscribed during the one month
in 2004 when all the discussion happened.

Andrea, David's window, describes David (davibennett) as follows: "He was
incredibly intelligent, a voracious reader, and had this remarkable ability to
put diverse concepts together and come up with new ideas.  He had a powerful
mind despite having little formal education, and good empathy made leadership
natural to him.  However, he was easily discouraged by negative or closed
people, and his health problems were a constant interruption"

Thanks everyone for the discussion in late 2004.  I'm sure there will be many
more opportunities to discuss Doug Englebart's ground-breaking ideas in Future
Salons and other venues.

The list has been closed to new members to prevent robot spammers.  The plan is
to close it to future posts shortly, so if anyone has any additional comments,
better make them quickly!

Best Regards,
Paul


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Processing Engelbart
Sadly, it appears that the only "people" posting to the Processing Engelbart
list these days are automated spam robots that join the list using fake
accounts.

A quick review of the message history shows that there were no postings at all
in 2006 (except for one in January).  And in 2007, there were 29 postings, 100%
of which were spam from fake people added by spam robots.

It's too bad that the spam robots are ruining this communication channel.

Paul


   ----- Original Message -----
   From: processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com
   To: processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 5:07 AM
   Subject: [processing_engelbart] Digest Number 58


   Processing Engelbart
   Messages In This Digest (1 Message)
     1a. I have added you to my friends network today! From: newecfriend
   View All Topics | Create New Topic Message
     1a. I have added you to my friends network today!
     Posted by: "newecfriend" newecfriend@...   newecfriend
     Sat Dec 8, 2007 1:37 am (PST)
     I created this cool friends network and added you to my friends network.
Hit-up now:
     http://makecggirlfriend.googlepages.com/girlfriends.htm


     Back to top Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Engelbart Fans,

Almost forgot. New date for Doug Engelbart Collective IQ Future Salon.
http://www.futuresalon.org/2005/12/raising_collect.html

Details: Future Salon Friday 20th of January. It has the following
structure: 6-6:30 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored
by SAP. 6:30 to 7:30 Cafe Conversation style discussion about
Collective IQ to set up the presentation.

From 7:30-9+pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America,
Building D, Room Cafeteria, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304
[map] As always the event is free and open to the public spread the
word. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check
the Ride Board for opportunities.

Please RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/8zevs

See you there, Mark.

Sorry Everyone,

Update: Future Salon Postponed
http://www.futuresalon.org/2005/11/future_salon_wi.html

Just talked to Doug Engelbart and he caught a virus and is not
feeling well, so we postpone the Future Salon with him. Instead of
raising the collective IQ, let's collectively wish him all the best.
Get well soon Sailor.

As soon as he feels better we will create a new event and you can
already fill in your thoughts and links at the Large Scale
Collective IQ Wiki: http://www.socialtext.net/futuresalon/index.cgi?
large_scale_collective_iq

All the best, Mark.


--- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, "markfinnern"
<markfinnern@y...> wrote:
>
> Hi Processing Engelbart Members,
>
> One of the outcome from last year's Future Salon presentation of
> Doug Engelbart was this Yahoo Group.
>
> He got 200K funding recently and will discuss what he is going to
do
> with it at the next Future Salon this Wednesday the 30th of
> November.
> More: http://www.futuresalon.org/2005/11/future_salon_wi.html
>
> It will be very interesting again. Hope you can make it.
>
> See you there, Mark.
>
> Details: Future Salon has the following structure: 6-7 networking
> with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+pm
> presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D,
> Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304
[map]
> As always free and open to the public. Improve your commute by
> sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for
> opportunities. Free and open to the public.
>
> Please RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/9jbfj. This time especially
> important to see whether we need the bigger room and so we can get
> enough food and drinks.
>
>
> The event will be Webcasted check the Large Scale Collective IQ
Wiki
> for the details and we will have an IRC chat too: Server:
> irc.freenode.net Channel: #futuresalon
>

Hi Processing Engelbart Members,

One of the outcome from last year's Future Salon presentation of
Doug Engelbart was this Yahoo Group.

He got 200K funding recently and will discuss what he is going to do
with it at the next Future Salon this Wednesday the 30th of
November.
More: http://www.futuresalon.org/2005/11/future_salon_wi.html

It will be very interesting again. Hope you can make it.

See you there, Mark.

Details: Future Salon has the following structure: 6-7 networking
with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+pm
presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D,
Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [map]
As always free and open to the public. Improve your commute by
sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for
opportunities. Free and open to the public.

Please RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/9jbfj. This time especially
important to see whether we need the bigger room and so we can get
enough food and drinks.


The event will be Webcasted check the Large Scale Collective IQ Wiki
for the details and we will have an IRC chat too: Server:
irc.freenode.net Channel: #futuresalon

In the following comment Scott Rosenberg notes that the old NLS (oN
Line System) supported something similar to blogs.

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2005/01/19.html#a815

This isn't surprising, a relatively rich set of tools should allow
expression of a variety of specialized forms.

In an ideal world perhaps the ruch tool sets would come first.  It
seems in the real world that simple, easy to use methods attain mass
penetration and then expand.  For example Ted Nelson continually
claims the web is what he fought to invent, but the original role of
HTML was to provide a simple tool that could easily format data being
produced from a large number of incompatible sources.

Blogs provide a natural, easy to use means of organizing data.  As a
general rule most blog comments are relatively short so referances
(links) to them provide the precision of page numbers in traditional
referances, this isn't as good as paragraph and word kinks, but
superior to the PDF format chosen by academia.

Blogs also allow comments on articles and can include additional
links.  A mechanism called "trackback" marks other pages which refer
to a specific blog entry thus recreating some of the complex weaving
designed into early hypertext systems.  Counts of such crosslinks are
used by a number of "meta tools" to weigh the importance of entries.
There does exist a growing number of mapping tools still in flux as
the main XML map (rss or real simple syndication) reaches it's limits.

Venture capital is swarming and one of the goals is new and improved
tools.  However it is uncertain how quickly commercial development
will provide rich power.  IMO one of the more interesting engines is
the open source SCOOP.

http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/


One basic feature this offers is threaded addressable comments
allowing the discussion to attain or exist the importance of the
original post. It can also be configured to allow secondary users to
write "diaries" allowing parallel topics to be raised along with
methods of weighing.  I would argue that it might provide a good
platform on which to add other tools.

A group in Brazil has (influenced by Vannever Bush's paper:
http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/pub/vbush/vbush.txt) created a
program for "co-links" where web page designers can allow users to
mark specific words with relevant links thus deepening the text.

http://www.co-link.org/

The page isn't particularly well designed.  For example the "URL Box"
doesn't change when one shifts to sub pages, but it is easy enough to
follow and the example (now filled with spam) gives an idea of the
technology.  Source code is availible along with access to a group of
individuals who appear to have independantly reinvented one feature of
early hypertext systems.

In Engelbart's speeches one item that is mentioned frequently is thatt
as size increases linearly, volume cubes.  This reslts in fundamental
shifts in the nature of things: a mouse dropped 5 floors has a good
chance of surviving, a human will probably die, an elephant explode.
A land animal the size of a sperm whale would require legs as thick as
it's body, when living forms reach a certain size they can't breathe
off their surfaces which essentially square as the area needing oxegen
cubes, the folded up massive surface of lungs is reqired...

All of these things provide a useful metaphor for the kinds of shifts
that occur as information systems expand.  Another perhaps more
relevant example is also found in Boulding and others who made the
first step in fields popularly refered to as "complexity" and
"systems" theory in the fifties.

This example is that as the number of members in a system increase the
number of possible links between them increase by (number times
(number  minus one)) divided by 2.

(n (n - 1)) / 2

Thus  a system with 2 members has 1 possible (2 way) link.

A 3 member system has 3 (a <-> b, a <-> c, b <-> c)

A 10 member system has 45, a 100 member system 4950 and so on
expotentially.

The human mind being finite and human time limited this means that
very rapidly we need organization.  With 10 or 20 people it might be
possible to keep track of the various relations and roles, it might be
possible to go to each one directly, but as the members grow this
possibility ceases.

Choosing what links are important and arranging them is a key problem.
  To my knowledge only partial solutions have been found, each has
their limits which are often not fully appreciated.

For example in the fifties Koestler, Bateson (going back to Bertrand
Russell) and others postulated hierarchy as an approach.  Yet we as a
society are increasing wary of hierarchies seeing the limitations, the
bottlenecks that develop as relevant things try to move to the top,
the tendency of top down methods to predominate, the unfortunate
political tendencies that develop when we employ this structure of power.

  Even when successful institutions are strongly hierarchial in form
there are other chains of information flow and power: for example in
the military system the network of non coms which can have more
influence than lower grades of officers, also in the old army the
"club of southern colonels" as well as various command structures
(such as inspector general) that allow a lower ranking individual to
act on his "superiors."  And rule of law or regulations.

Within the organization of subjects, hierarchy has often acted to keep
scholars from researching things directly connected to their problems
because they belong to another discipline, thus the 40 year old call
for multi disciplinery approaches.  A call typically still ignored.

The fact of the matter is that we don't know how to order complexity
though we have a number of approaches such as heterarchies
(mathematical networks as opposed to hierarchial trees,) matrix models
in management theories, relational orders in data bases...

Perhaps (perhaps ...) most importantly humans order in the recesses of
the brain more than we can do formally and though it's hit or miss
often make the important connections in logically inadequete
structures.  But often they don't.  And often the obvious can't be
acted on because of the way we structure our institutions and models.
Indeed it is not uncommon for people to see a problem that directly
effects them and find it perfectly natural to do nothing because it's
outside of their role.

One very important idea that comes out of Engelbart's approach is that
well designed tools will automatically increase our capacity to order,
that certain problems may dramaticaly diminish when the machine
automatically sorts and links.

I agree with this, the computer tools we employ don't provide certain
very useful capacities, often they are difficult to add.

I also find something that is certainly touched on by Engelbart, but
perhaps not stressed enough.  The use of these tools requires human
learning and committment.  Even people who claim to know the value of
this approach, fail to *really* see the uses.  For example there is
certainly no example of (that I know of) of someone who claims
Engelbart's approach taking a relatively large set of facts or
concepts, the sort that might take a year or 2 to gather and arranging
it into a set of relationships which show the power of this approach.

I have seen others with no idea of the big issues of organizxation
take such sets and organize them in often impressive ways with widely
availible (even if inferior) tools.

While better tools will do much of the work in and of themselves, I
continue to believe that for the most part the theory of tools is more
interesting to those who know the issue while the practical use of
tools belongs to another set of people who are of little interest to
the theorists because if the right tools were there this could be done
so much more easily and so much better.  Thus the theorists are not
going to the people and saying, "would it be useful if you had this
and this."  Perhaps because the people might respond, "no but I do
want this," something which may have been outside of the imagination
of the theorist and which may contradict the theory.  Thus the
development of new powers isn't proceeding as rapidly as it could.

I do think this will change, probably in the next few years.  This is
because people actually using the tools will see their limits and
grasp the potential of extensions.

An example involving another progression in power was the development
of the computer.  It also involves issues of "scaling."

To simplify things let us suppose a computer can do a task in one day
that used to take ten.  There is 90% increase in turn around time.
Now another 10 fold increase in power reduces this to a few hours.
Put this in the context of the early sixties and for the tasks deemed
most important, eg. the automating of the banking system, social
security, the big models, putting more and more power into an
individual system so that one gets real returns in real time makes
little sense.

Because the huge investment can be more efficiently scaled by
increasing the number of tasks that are so speeded up.  With simple
numbers does one use to make one task 99% more efficient or 10 tasks
90% more efficient?

Now by the seventies this ratio started to change.  Computing had
cheapened, the ratio of expences had shifted.  In the fifties one
might be paying a million bucks for a room full of tubes, and a much
smaller sum for people to run and program it.  Now software, it's
creation, debugging and updating were the big money eaters.
Interactive systems which provided real time feedback and allowed
people at an electronically organized picture became worth their money.

I think we are at a juncture similar to this.

But if we go back to the late seventies there was another tradeoff.
There were the Xerox Parc altos connected to a rather powerful set of
minis at a cost of $6000 per workstation.  Does the rational
organization go this way and provide computation to a few people or
buy dumb terminals at a couple hundred bucks a piece with a lot less
mini power needed in the center?

Again one deals with issues of scaling and how much each investment
reduces cost.  For example in typing documents a relatively minimal
system means that major corrections and changes can be made without
restarting, carbon paper and the like isn't necessary for sending out
multiple copies, a small number of functions provide the first chunk
of big savings that computerization of the old document production
process provides.

This isn't to say that the evolution that institutions took was the
best.  A lot of important stuff was ignored, including the fact that
Moore's law and other features suggested great expansions in capacity,
the movement to new levels.

But the subject wasn't clear.  In the school of "structured
programming" it was felt that the next step required proven
"correctness" or at a minimum better mechansims for understanding the
whole.   There was a sense that many programs were out of control and
that it was uncertain that we could reliably make them much larger.  I
remeber in the mid eighties Djikstra (he of "goto considered harmful")
saying a hundred thousand line program was too far over the borders,
no one could know what was happening.

While there have been a number of new techniques built into languages
(though as with XML versus Lisp s-expressions the capacities consisted
in many older languages) and more importantly an awareness of ideas
that are a development of structured programming; along with a much
higher level of abstraction...

...nowadays people (often only moderately experienced programmers) are
working with programs many times the size of those that made Djikstra
shudder.  They often do so without really advanced editors or tools or
even close collaboraton, open source programmers often pick at one
piece or another, borrow huge chunks of code without understanding...

In short based on the approaches of the seventies and early eighties
thay are putting together things in a way that is dangerous and
improper.  And while many bugs occur, on balance the results are rapid
and amazing.

So we have somehow crossed into a radical new capacity to create tools
while the need for better tools is going to increasingly strike those
who push the current ones.  But it is also quite possible that we will
hit new and unexpected limits.  The thing is we simply don't know the
nature of griwth, expotential results, radical shifts in the nature of
systems.  We have some examples and patterns which should probably be
known to people in every subject, but the nature of transformation and
it's possibilities is primarily mystery.

One thing we need to understand is that the events are "multi
dimensional."  One may have a set of facts which are absolutely true
and extrememly important as Engelbart had, but within a different and
also extremely important context or of little interest.  Eventually
the aproaches will start to combine, but not necessarily in ways which
are rational or efficient; also quite typically the merging will
involve the unexpected.  My personal history is that in the late
seventies and eighties I latched onto some approaches which I still
consider valid and in many respects superior to what has happened, I
also had some awareness and sympathey for other approaches; while
being oblivious to obvious implications of others that became crucial
(eg. the full implications of Xerox Parc technologies) and then I saw
these things that developed in ways that were not imagined.

For example Apple took the GUI interface from Parc, it however
rejected the ethernet because connected systems would bring back big
brother, then of course in the late eighties it "invented
connectivity" after networks proved so successful on DOS systems which
in addition to a lot  of personal tools also were strengthened by an
influx of despised Cobol type programmers who built programs which
allowed small enterprises to acquire the accounting and other
functions once confined to large enterprises.  The mixing of pieces
was unimagined, then the 360 let Ds systems support GUI, then the
network theory intruded once again with the internet...

It is perhaps this merging of various approaches and systems, most of
which exist barely noticed in the background which have allowed the
development of such massive complexity.  To put this into perspective
one of the key reasons for the success of the west was it's ability to
produce large, complex organizations which adapted better than those
in other regions.  For example when the British first started
conquering India the technology was roughly equal (the Indian did
steel better for example,) but the British had organizations that
could direct power thoudands of miles, exploit weaknesses in the
overall system and developed relatively stable institutions of it's own.

This pattern repeats itself over and over, such as the capacity of the
United States to organize it's vast industrial scale in WWII.  There
have always been limits to size and in many sectors of society, large
institutions have rigified, have become increasingly unstable and
devote more and more of their resources to mantaining (an often
unhealthy) homeostasis.  Now almost spontaneously we have created an
increasingly ordered system at a scale previously unimaginable.  This
is the Internet.

For the most part people don't grasp this miracle because they
(esepcially in the west) don't understand the difficulties of order
and because with the net (on the surface) it looks so easy.  The
problems of extending it and enriching it are problems of complexity
and tradeoffs, though one should note that many aproaches can exist in
parallel.  Indeed this may be one thing that balances it because there
is always an alternative approach.  Many parts are actively developing
and trying to extend their realm.

I don't believe I every said that I see no reason for using Java and
XML in so many words.  If I did would you be so kind as to point it
out?   I really don't hold that position and I regret if I managed to
directly say otherwise.  However, Java and XML do in fact have many
deficiencies.   If either of them makes it more difficult to do what
we wish to do then we should logically look at alternatives to that
degree.


>
> > You seem to be making a mountain of this molehill.   I made a brief
> > <nod> sort of comment about XML and it expands into all this.
> >
>
> Uhmm, I don't think you understand the purpose of this group.  It is
> the serious discussion of various choices and methods.  You remarked
> that Java and XML were inferior and that you could see no reason for
> their use.

No, I don't believe I said that at any time.


>
> Indeed you begged to be restrained on the subject because you had so
> much to say.
>

Now you seem to be descending into pure argument.  I don't believe
that is productive.  Do you?

  - samantha

One wonderful thing about the net is that whenever one has an idea it
is usually at least partially realized elsewhere.  For example I wrote:

> One obvious development is search engines or sub domains of a single
> search engine devoted to specific topics.  From there comes the human
> selection of web publications to be searched.  When the numbers are so
> small, typically in the low thousands, then search algorithms can be
> made more exhaustive.

Today I found:

http://www.bloglines.com/

While it does not have all the features desired it does let one create
a list of web sites, not just blogs and make this list *public*  The
"advanced search" algorithm is moderately powerful.

There are also a growing set of tools for connecting to other
environments.

--- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, Samantha Atkins
<sjatkins@g...> wrote:


> I guess I am confused.  How did we get to jumping from XML to the
> early definition of the PC as it relates to Lisp?


Because you asked why XML, not Lisp and I responded:



>The simple answer is XML is there and Lisp wasn't.

>This has been a habit with Lisp. 20 years ago spreadsheets were ...

It had to nothing to do with the relative virtues, but Lisps failures
to strategically position itself.






> You seem to be making a mountain of this molehill.   I made a brief
> <nod> sort of comment about XML and it expands into all this.
>

Uhmm, I don't think you understand the purpose of this group.  It is
the serious discussion of various choices and methods.  You remarked
that Java and XML were inferior and that you could see no reason for
their use.

Indeed you begged to be restrained on the subject because you had so
much to say.


> That doesn't mean I should just accept it for even those purposes it
> is very ill-suited for.

You don't bother to state what purposes it's ill suited for.  It's an
extension of a markup language designed to provide some simple data
structures including hierarchies.

If richer powers are required the interface is already somewhat built.
XML parsers exist for emacs which contains a lisp engine.

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki?XmlParser

So besides the fact that XML is there in every new browser there are
points like this.



"The point is that you are not comparing s-expressions as they are with
XML as it is. You are comparing "S-expressions, if the people who
invented them took all of the best ideas from XML and added them to
s-expressions." Fine. In that circumstance you are probably right that
s-expressions would be better than XML by virtue of having merged its
best ideas with theirs."

http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200210/msg01731.html




> > So imperfect "standards" (both formal and informal) take hold and we
> > work within their context.
> >
>
>
> Only until enough people decide to do something different because the
> standards are in their way.   It isn't that hard to do something
> different with some adapters to deal with the parts of the world that
> are done by the questionable standard.


I doubt this.  The evolution of computer technology has typicaly been
second or third best technologies.  At some point good ideas tend to
be reinvented but within the context of the the new standard.  It
seems unlikely to me that all the people doing things like writing
standard medical record forms are going to go back and do them in with
lisp s-expressions.

Especially when the primary ise is simply an agreed upon data
structures to connect web pages to programs.  Most major programming
languages are learning to read it, it is becoming the native language
of tools like rss.

And when additional powers such as eval are needed people will do
things like what's described here.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6021

And if java isn't desired it's possible xsl will evolve.

http://mailman.ic.ac.uk/pipermail/xml-dev/1999-February/009150.html

There are also tools like xquery.

http://www.w3.org/XML/Query

So specifically what are your objectins to xml?  Is it because it
doesn't map onto object oriented, relational structures and
heterarchial structures particularly well?  It's wordiness?
The quality of current parsers?

All of these are valid complaints.

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 05:15:15 -0000, davibennett <davibennett@...> wrote:
>
> > > The simple answer is XML is there and Lisp wasn't.
> >
> > Huh?  Lisp is the second oldest computer language of all.  A Lisp
> > parser is one of the simplest powerful small programs it is possible
> > to write.
> >
>
> If you read what I am saying it is that Lisp advocates failed to
> position the language to become a key player.  Basic players did in
> the early definition of the PC.
>

I guess I am confused.  How did we get to jumping from XML to the
early definition of the PC as it relates to Lisp?   No wonder we are
talking at cross purposes.


> > > There was no interest among the Lisp fans I talked to.  They wanted to
> > > do "important stuff."  Let the thinking associated with the Basic
> > > language define the PC.
> > >
> >
> > This is a bit less than fair.   If you had a great idea then why
> > didn't you do it?
>
>
> I was not the Lisp fan.  If Lisp advocates did not position themselves
> to show the strength of their methods then other and often inferior
> methods would dominate.
>
> The Lisp community chose to focus their energy and the *huge* amounts
> of research money floating in during the early eighties on other
> purposes.
>
> Just as I can find no record of you claiming that Lisp would provide a
> better, already existing  method of data definition than XML.
> Probably you would have had some support from the Emacs community.  Or
> did you post such comments and were they excised from the relevant
> discussions?
>

You seem to be making a mountain of this molehill.   I made a brief
<nod> sort of comment about XML and it expands into all this.

Personally I was rather busy with other things and missed the
significance of this XML thing until it was a bit late.

That doesn't mean I should just accept it for even those purposes it
is very ill-suited for.   I didn't sign any agreements to speak some
time back then or forever hold my peace about this or any other
current technology standard that may be flawed.

> So imperfect "standards" (both formal and informal) take hold and we
> work within their context.
>


Only until enough people decide to do something different because the
standards are in their way.   It isn't that hard to do something
different with some adapters to deal with the parts of the world that
are done by the questionable standard.

- samantha

I will start this post with an interesting partially related link.

http://findory.com/

Findory claims to adjust the articles it offers you based on previous
choices.  Theoretically after some use you can have newspaper/blog
organizer prioritized to your desires.

The organization of the vast amount of information out there is
becomng a big topic on the net.  Venture capital senses possibilities
in all these blogs and all the other "content" and wants to turn it
into something.  Anyone who tries yo do much research (even informal)
on the web sees the need for tools which cut down the clutter and
sharpen the search.

Given the vocabulary we have evolved the "seacrh engine" (which
includes amazon and ebay) is going to a major player here.

I believe the method is consistent with Engelbart who has (I believe)
argued that AI or clever algortihms can only go so far and at that
this stage we need humans in the selection process.

One obvious development is search engines or sub domains of a single
search engine devoted to specific topics.  From there comes the human
selection of web publications to be searched.  When the numbers are so
small, typically in the low thousands, then search algorithms can be
made more exhaustive.

In addition users can be given the capacity not only to recommend
pages, but to rate them and categorize them.  Thus by using advanced
search techniques one might be able to do things like find the
comments of Marxist oriented sites on George Washington.  In limited
domains it also becomes possible to map out key terms and
relationships, looking at these people get some sense of the questions
to ask and many basic questions may already be filled at with
appropiate summations and links.

These search engines would also point to the various discussions and
projects based on their domains.

This approach has the advantage in that the first steps require only
moderate organization.  Complex structuring of information is not
something that occurs naturally on the web.  For example with a dozen
hours of labor the bookmarks for this group are probably the richest
set of Engelbart links availible.  And this is a figure of historical
importance to this medium.

But simply by selecting a good chunk of the worthwhile sites dealing
with a specific subject, a specialized search engine will
auotmatically provide organization not currently availible.  Putting
in place tools for further structuring one can hope the steps and
opinions of various other searchers can be partially recorded.

I believe that once the tools are provided that we might be surprised
at the amount and richness of spontaneous ordering occuring through
the "swarm" method.

--- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, Samantha Atkins
<sjatkins@g...> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:11:21 -0000, davibennett <davibennett@y...>
wrote:
> >


> > The simple answer is XML is there and Lisp wasn't.
>
> Huh?  Lisp is the second oldest computer language of all.  A Lisp
> parser is one of the simplest powerful small programs it is possible
> to write.
>

If you read what I am saying it is that Lisp advocates failed to
position the language to become a key player.  Basic players did in
the early definition of the PC.

> > There was no interest among the Lisp fans I talked to.  They wanted to
> > do "important stuff."  Let the thinking associated with the Basic
> > language define the PC.
> >
>
> This is a bit less than fair.   If you had a great idea then why
> didn't you do it?


I was not the Lisp fan.  If Lisp advocates did not position themselves
to show the strength of their methods then other and often inferior
methods would dominate.

The Lisp community chose to focus their energy and the *huge* amounts
of research money floating in during the early eighties on other
purposes.

Just as I can find no record of you claiming that Lisp would provide a
better, already existing  method of data definition than XML.
Probably you would have had some support from the Emacs community.  Or
did you post such comments and were they excised from the relevant
discussions?

So imperfect "standards" (both formal and informal) take hold and we
work within their context.

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:11:21 -0000, davibennett <davibennett@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, Samantha Atkins
> <sjatkins@g...> wrote:
> >What exactly makes XML
> > blessed while simple Lisp sexprs just wouldn't do?
>
> The simple answer is XML is there and Lisp wasn't.

Huh?  Lisp is the second oldest computer language of all.  A Lisp
parser is one of the simplest powerful small programs it is possible
to write.

>
> This has been a habit with Lisp.  20 years ago spreadsheets were the
> rage on the personal computer.  Lisp translators were also being
> written.  I suggested to some Lisp fans that with a little bit of
> tweaking Lisp would be ideal.
>


> Lisp could support sparse matrixes while existing spreadsheets created
> every cell whether or not they were used.  Existing spreadsheets also
> had to recalculate everything when changes were made.  Lisp could
> support pointers to the cells which meant it could atomatically
> reflect changes and one only had to calculate the structures one
> wanted to look at.  Potential efficiences added to with powers such as
> "multi-dimensional" structure, referance to actual names not just
> numbered cells, symbolic operations not just arithmetic, the
> expansions possible with a general purpose language...
>


Sparse matrices are and always have been not difficult in Lisp.   Yes
you can make a nice spreadsheet by such means.  I wrote a
muti-dimensional spreadsheet myself in 1981.  Unfortunately it was
proprietary and in a much  less friendly language (Fortran, the only
language older than Lisp).

> There was no interest among the Lisp fans I talked to.  They wanted to
> do "important stuff."  Let the thinking associated with the Basic
> language define the PC.
>

This is a bit less than fair.   If you had a great idea then why
didn't you do it?   If it wasn't appropriate for you to do then why
would you think that (by above implication) that it was appropriate
for others and that they somehow blew it?

> The systems which are accepted are those which occupy strategic
> niches.  When HTML was formed there was a very active community
> working on "open hyperertext" products and standards.  They didn't see
> the opportunity in trying to define the product for the net, so now we
> have the web with all it's limits.
>

Well, the others went to the theoretically complex without putting
something out there for use.  That was a big mistake.

> As far as I know nobody made a major case for Lisp sexprs when
> discussion began on creating a data definition standard.

Or most people simply drank the kool aid that Lisp was just an AI
language and that AI was busted and therefore they assumed Lisp was
busted.

>So other
> ideas came into play.  They may have flaws, but it seems to me that
> they do provide a rich and powerful structure.
>

Pointless repetition, barely a way to do simple pointers dependably.
Little way to represent much but simple hierarchical data.   There is
no doubt whatsoever XML has flaws.   It is also increasingly being
pressed into service for purposes it was never intended for and
thoroughly unsuited to.


> Perhaps too rich, too byzantine, but if a more elegant model will work
> it seems possible to me to express it as a subset of XML.

Since XML is already a dumb subset of anything at all elegant I rather
doubt there would be much point in representing something more elegant
in it.

>If people
> agree to work in this it will become a standard.
>

Yeah, sure.  People can become habituated to a lot of nonsense.  That
doesn't make it good or fit for our purposes.

> But one needs to propose something and work for it.  And in many cases
> to accept and development what is agreed upon.
>

I hear you and I do understand.  But sometimes we need to question.
How will we get something vastly better if we start out accepting
mediocre tools?   Why hamstring ourselves?   Why spent time assembling
and disassembling XML and busting our chops to express interesting
things therein?  Yeah it is a standard and has the key to
inter-operability as a result, sort of.   But man, what a waste of
time and brains!

- samantha

--- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, Samantha Atkins
<sjatkins@g...> wrote:
>What exactly makes XML
> blessed while simple Lisp sexprs just wouldn't do?


The simple answer is XML is there and Lisp wasn't.

This has been a habit with Lisp.  20 years ago spreadsheets were the
rage on the personal computer.  Lisp translators were also being
written.  I suggested to some Lisp fans that with a little bit of
tweaking Lisp would be ideal.

Lisp could support sparse matrixes while existing spreadsheets created
every cell whether or not they were used.  Existing spreadsheets also
had to recalculate everything when changes were made.  Lisp could
support pointers to the cells which meant it could atomatically
reflect changes and one only had to calculate the structures one
wanted to look at.  Potential efficiences added to with powers such as
"multi-dimensional" structure, referance to actual names not just
numbered cells, symbolic operations not just arithmetic, the
expansions possible with a general purpose language...

There was no interest among the Lisp fans I talked to.  They wanted to
do "important stuff."  Let the thinking associated with the Basic
language define the PC.

The systems which are accepted are those which occupy strategic
niches.  When HTML was formed there was a very active community
working on "open hyperertext" products and standards.  They didn't see
the opportunity in trying to define the product for the net, so now we
have the web with all it's limits.

As far as I know nobody made a major case for Lisp sexprs when
discussion began on creating a data definition standard.  So other
ideas came into play.  They may have flaws, but it seems to me that
they do provide a rich and powerful structure.

Perhaps too rich, too byzantine, but if a more elegant model will work
it seems possible to me to express it as a subset of XML.  If people
agree to work in this it will become a standard.

But one needs to propose something and work for it.  And in many cases
to accept and development what is agreed upon.

It's interesting how when one thinks about something it starts popping
up everywhere.  Slate just ran an article on the movement to make
medical research widely availible.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111023/

Coupled with google's plan to open university libraries to the public
today has been good for those hoping for the end of oligopolies of
knowledge.

The ability of small poor institutions and even individuals to match
the rich and big is growing.

I will be busy for a while, but this is a major story.

At the bottom of the previous post in this thread I argued that the
academic world had failed to move significantly towards opening up
their information.

Now a number of research libraries have agreed to allow google to
automate a part or all of their research libraries.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a9TVWzkITJ3E&refer=us

A better article is availible at the New York Times, but you have to
register.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14cnd-goog.html?pagewanted=2&ei=509\
4&en=0638a3b95ac46555&hp&ex=1103086800&partner=homepage

Ecerpts from books still subject to copyright will be availible, books
beyond copyright will be fully availible.

I have changed the text on the home page of this group.  I think it
better expresses a purpose and becomes more neutral.

I will admit that when I started this group one of the forces driving
me was a deep frustration at the tendency of innovative clusters to be
blind to what others are doing.  While I accept that genuis such as
Engelbart might need to cut out outside influences the role of
followers is to develop the ideas and integrate them into the
formulations of others.

I'm not as bothered that this doesn't happen, emotional balances have
shifted in me.  I am willing to focus more on the way in which aspects
of the "pardigm" are not accepted rather than ways in which it is (up
thread.)  A great many very obvious things are not commonly availible.

However they will not become availible if we don't look at what others
are doing:

http://www.io.com/~casburn/pers/acad/hyper/Final/

This is a students answer to a final examination.  These are the
"common places" of a decade ago.  So what are "argumentation systems?"
Van Amy Pearl's paper still be considered a classic?  Are "literary,"
"scholarly" and "informational" hypettext a good way to class systems?
How useful is the Dexter model?  What is the validity of HAM the
hypertext abstract machine?  ... through a list of at least a dozen
more important questions.

Though my knowledge is admittedly outdated, I'm still surprised that I
had heard of none of these things with the possible exception of the
name Dexter.  Relevant information simply isn't passing into differing
cliques.  People simply don't see what others are doing.  This leads
to multiple reinventions and failures to develop "communities" with
enough "critical mass" to effect the general shape of things.  By
default the standards fall to companies like Microsoft.

While better "tools" will partially address this situation, it remains
a matter of social choice.  I saw rejection and ignorance of other
approaches when the common means of idea transmission was books and
journals, at that time it wasn't difficult to get some sense of what
was occuring.  Lots of stuff was important, lots of stuff was intriguing.

The problem is that people found ways of not seeing it, they avoided
the obvious.

This is still with us.  Many see the powers of the interactive model
and despise "batch."  But it is still with us.  Cern and others are
working on "grid" models so that computers all over the world can work
for days on very important and sometimes literaaly very small problems
such as the behavior of a single atom or how a strand of DNA folds
into a 3 dimensional protein, for these types of problems we still
lack the power.  In any standard dataprocessing environment, it is
often necessary to run computers for hours to generate reports.  And
as much as I love the relational model, it's power is paid for in
speed and sometimes simpler file formats are useful.

When Engelbart's concepts were developing, computational power was far
more valuable.  In 1980 a manager would be faced between the choice of
spending 5 or 6 thousand a piece for a Xerox "Star" and getting a
handful or buying a few minis and connecting them with dumb terminals
providing a "real time" environment to ten times as many people.

The obvious solutions are not so obvious as they might seem.  There
are legacy programs, training issues, all kinds of things which
determine even a rational allocation of resources.  When do you decide
to rebuild millions of software and devote perhaps greater sums to
teach people to use new powers?

Even if rational decision making occured (and it often doesn't) there
is no simple balance.

And improved capacities don't always result in improved performance.
The statistics from the eighties showed declining "white collar"
productivity, in part this came from expensive workers engaged in desk
top publishing and other tasks once done by the clerical.  Despite
major assumptions otherwise we still can't be sure that in many areas
white collar performance has improved, things like increaed
productivity in China (which sheds factory workers faster than we do)
may be more important.

Simply in researching I find that even the currently imperfect tools
are sometimes distracting.  There is so much material, so easily
gotten that I often read it quickly, not delving deep.  This is a
potential consequence of easy linking.

Strengths can create weaknesses.

I originally started this piece to remark that I disagree with a
number of things I have written in the past few weeks.  I became
distracted  and wound up repeating some of the themes.

There are so many valid approaches, how we weigh them depends on our
needs of the moment.  Integration of them requires at a minimum the
ability to know that we hold contradictory opinions, that at different
times different ones hold sway, it requires us to know that while
"they" often miss the obvious, so do "we" and "they" frequently have
parts of the obvious we blatantly ignore.

This dialogue can be carried on within ourselves, it is made easier if
we access to other opinions.  These can be found in books, magazines
and all over the net, the discussion is often improved if we write
these things down, we are forced into a process of some clarification.

Obviously it can be further helped if others interact with us.
Similarly it can be hindered.  Methods of debate (the "rhetoric"
touched on by the second link on the home page) are as much a tool as
those we build in machines.

One thing we can dare in a discussion group is imperfectly formed
ideas, drifts (such as this piece) vaguely aimed at something we think
is important.



This needs to be addressed in

comments at:

http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2004/12/07/desktop_search_.html

--- In processing_engelbart@yahoogroups.com, "markfinnern"
<markfinnern@y...> wrote:
>


> Welcome Doug, and I hope you enjoy the discussion and the excellent
> posts mainly form davibennett who seems to seldom sleep.
>


Actually I try to schedule about 10 to 15 hours per week, though
lately some have been at odd hours.

I am trying to build some "infrastructure" before I do much
advertising.  I remain convined that no matter what the state of
tools, a crucial factor will remain simple old fashioned human
organization.

Right now the key element is:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/processing_engelbart/links/Engelbart_Quotes__00110\
1754367/

I would like this to grow to about 70 or 80 topics with referances to
Engelbart papers and speeches in each.  At some point I (or other
members of the group) will add links to the more relevant posts within
the group remembering that a lot which has been written is
"brainstorming" and unfinished.   Whenever possible it helps if
replies are created within the Yahoo interface since this allows
threading.  That way a few articles can provide links to larger debates.

But one key issue is the "data mining."  I find in browsing
Engelbart's papers and speeches that there are many crucial points
which are easy to miss, similarly many of his presentations are
attempts to describe the entire system which simplify his actual
historical positions on many points.

Working alone I expect it will be one to two months before the group
is ready for wide propagation.  At that point there should be a fairly
large set of citations and articles which address aspects of them.
That way newcomers can be referred to some background so there isn't
continual "reinvention" of the wheel.  More importantly there is
material to link to if individuals chose to spread these ideas.  That
is of course the goal.  On the net we typically speak to groups of a
dozen (or one through email,) perhaps a few hundred.  A percentage of
them find what we say is relevant.  They spread the idea to little
clusters they belong to.

It isn't like mass media, it is like neural connections within the
brain.  Millions of ideas compete for limited space, presentation and
strategy (so important) and persistence (hopefully many ideas here
will be relevant years from now) are the tools.  People become
disillusioned because they want the power of network news, but the
system is democratic, it isn't top down.  We as individuals are not
giving overwhelming power though we can "earn" significant readership,
similarly our ideas often   mutate beyond recognition.  Still it is an
incredible amount of power handed to each and every one of us.  But as
with all democratic and market systems it requires participation.

My perspective on Engelbart isn't as an advocate of his system.
Instead I regard it as a "common place" which provides a "systems view"
  of the whole darn "big picture."  There are ideas related to the
specifics of technology, human and social roles, goals and purpose, if
you dig in a little you can even sense a philosophical vision of the
well lived life.  There is a vocabulary that can be shared and
searched for so that there is some unity between people who are
talking about the same things, but have reinvented the concepts and
terms used to describe them.  For example all over the net people are
talking about "NICs" (network improvement communities) but because
they neglect to mention that their ideas bear resemblances to or
differences with Engelbart's it is difficult to find them in google.
Very often the neglect of using a few shared words here and there
hinders very good approaches from being known to a larger "community."

Engelbart is a (at least good enough) starting place for formalizing
the discipline by at least sharing some words.

As a medium term goal I hope that we will be able (when we chose to
grow) begin certain lobbying projects such as encouraging Atlantic to
make the seminal Bush paper "open," encouraging google to diversify
the uses of their email system, suggest extensions in browsers and
encourage people to design web pages to use certain standards (eg.
afreements on sets of keywords and more complex "dynamic linking"
structures, use of paragraph or other key sector markings etc.)

Methods of "seeding" such ideas will be discussed later.

thankyou.

-d bennett

p.s. all my ideas can be referanced, copied and modified as desired,
attribution is not necessary.  Incidently with a little labor the
bookmarks can be copied and moved elsewhere.  Probably one goal when
we have a better idea of the system is to encourage yahoo to make it
easy to copy layers of directories into simple text files as well as
allowing write and possibly read features of selected sectors to be
restricted.  Of course before this it's necessary to convince many
group users and owners that these are powerful organizational tools.
Sadly the average group member brings to these structures the
newspaper/television "paradigm" focused on the things which have
happened in the last few days and ignoring the rest and even the
larger picture.

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that Doug Engelbart may not have posted
on here (yet), but since last week he is a member of this forum and
gets the daily digest.

Welcome Doug, and I hope you enjoy the discussion and the excellent
posts mainly form davibennett who seems to seldom sleep.

All the best, Mark.