IP: Re: a serious misunderstanding

[Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 09:44:35 -0400
From: jpolly@nysernet.org (Jean Armour Polly)


Dave, there is such a thing as Information attention deficit. Vannevar Bush
lamented this fact over 50 years ago in his landmark piece As We May Think
(which is up on the net in html, as reported in IP a year ago).
Anyway, Bush said that in a world of myriad reports, studies, journals,
newspapers, etc, how could "men of science" synthesize all this information
into knowledge and wisdom? He posited the idea of the Memex, the precursor
to hypertext.
How far haven't we come? Take a look at the talk I've been giving this year
"As We May Link." It's up in PDF at the very bottom of my home page at
www.well.com/user/polly
What we need is better finding tools, intelligent agents, filters and more
intuitive design. Oh, and authoritative resources. :-)


At 8:27 PM 10/2/95, David Farber wrote:
>I am surprised at Simon if this is an accurate quote. We
>live in a world with excess infomation -- TV, newspapers,
>radio, people, organizations etc. We have learned (at least
>the successful people) to manage and extract value out of
>this sea. It will be the same for the Internet. We are
>learning to extract value. Maybe it will be a handicap to
>some and they will go the way of the scribes and the buggy
>whip makers
>
>Dave


Net-mom.com
Jean Armour Polly       4146 Barker Hill Rd
polly@well.com          Jamesville NY 13078 USA
                        +1 315-469 8670 (EST -5GMT)
                        FAX +1 315/469-0176
http://www.well.com/user/polly/
"Now I find myself on the mountainside
Where the rivers change direction,
across the Great Divide" -- Kate Wolf