
Sir Tim Berners-Lee Stars in Olympic Opening Ceremony  - avolcano
http://www.zdnet.com/uk/sir-tim-berners-lee-stars-in-olympics-opening-ceremony-7000001744/
======
Posibyte
This absolutely had my inner geek exploding in giddiness. It was one thing for
the London Olympics to recognize him as a key part of the modern era, but to
also place the (same model?) NeXT Cube next to him just topped it off. This
made it memorable for me.

~~~
djhworld
It made me very, very happy to see Tim there.

A lot of the media in the UK is very populist and anti-intellectual,
celebrating questionable people (pop stars et al.) for their less than
desirable achievements.

So it was good to see Tim being given such a platform celebrating his input
into the world.

~~~
atomicdog
That's why Danny Boyle did such a good job. If the British media had been in
charge of the ceremony in could have very easily been a cringeworthy ordeal
featuring a cast of z-list celebrities dancing about. The inclusion of Tim
Berners-Lee and the NHS section were excellent ideas.

~~~
gadders
I thought the NHS section was stupid. You might as well as had bin men.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
NHS is our largest employer (5th in the world apparently,
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17429786> \- c.5.8% of the working
population when coupled with data here
[http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-
statistics/f...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-
statistics/february-2012/statistical-bulletin.html)) and, despite it's
failings, is an area the UK have led in (nationalised health care), and an
important element of nearly everyone in the UKs life at one time or another.

Refuse collection is worthy and widespread but not really something the UK
leads in I feel nor would it likely provide the visuals the designer was
aiming for ...

~~~
gadders
I know the NHS is a huge sacred cow and is fetishised here in the UK, but I'm
not sure the rest of the world would care how we pay our doctors and nurses.

------
cstross
No credit to NBC, however, who apparently replaced a tribute to the victims of
the 7/7 terrorist massacre with a talking head off American Idol, had _no
idea_ who Sir Tim was, and censored the first lesbian kiss ever seen on Saudi
TV:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc-
opening-ceremony)

~~~
jmj42
yeah, I thought NBC's coverage was horrible. Do they really believe that the
majority of the world actually needs _all_ of the imagery explained? I mean,
who doesn't know who that lady on the umbrella, flying out of the sky is (for
example)?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> I mean, who doesn't know who that lady on the umbrella, flying out of the
> sky is (for example)?

I actually wonder how many people under 20 know this.

------
cantbecool
When I saw a NeXTCube by his side, I knew this was going to be a memorable
ceremony.

~~~
ditoa
I was really happy to see the attention to detail having the NeXTCube :)

~~~
sgt
Me too, honestly I'm more interested in watching the NeXTCube than watching
the rest of the Olympics.

~~~
SpikeDad
The Cube certainly had more personality than the US NBC announcers.

------
lclarkmichalek
The industrial portion ceremony started with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, while
the modern portion of the ceremony finished with Tim Berners-Lee. I definitely
think that Danny Boyle was drawing a parallel between the two people, and it
will be interesting to see if history does the same.

~~~
Someone
I do not see much of a parallel between the two. Brunel is known for zillions
of physical objects, built over decades; TBL is known for only one thing,
created in less than two years (probably not as his main project, I guess)

Also, Brunel must have been quite an organizer to get done what he got done;
TBL created the web almost alone.

~~~
7952
The parallel is their fame. Brunel didn't build the industrial world on his
own any-more than TBL built the interweb on his own. Its just good to have
heroes.

~~~
Someone
Surely, fame is insufficient reason to start drawing parallels? If not, what
about Brunel vs Phelps or Paris Hilton?

------
gaius
IT angle: the Olympic budget was £2.4bn, this ballooned to £13bn, but
surprisingly, it was delivered on time (unlike the project Accenture did for
the NHS, £12bn and nothing delivered).

~~~
pestaa
Does anyone know why it would cost more than 5 times more than the original
budget? And how did they manage to reallocate that much resources?

This being the 3rd Olympic event in London, I'm surprised the estimate was
that much off.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Most big projects of this nature come in over budget. The reason is the
incentives of the politicians coming up with budget estimates.

If they come up with a realistic (high) estimate, the project doesn't get
done. That's a political loss - their cronies don't get paid, and they don't
get to put their name on a big project. If they come up with an
unrealistically low estimate, their cronies get paid and they rarely get voted
out of office.

------
sgt
I didn't see the opening ceremony - and not the NeXTCube scene either. Is
there a video on YouTube or somewhere else?

~~~
cfn
You can watch the highlightd on the BBC if you have access:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19022259>

~~~
sgt
Thanks for the link but it doesn't appear it's available to my country.

------
raldi
Is there any way for me to watch the "This is for everyone" moment on the
Internet, or is it not for me?

------
cdent
His message was a nice warning for us all to work harder to keep the web a
thing for people, all people, not corporations.

------
wangweij
I guess that keyboard and the monitor are somehow wired to an iPhone.

------
Create
fitting the scence: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19021660>

Long PR story short: RPC was prevalent, that is how you control(led) your
stuff remotely. Like Tim. Today, if you'd ask for a NeXT-like toy, you'd be
denied were you an average Eastern. But western equivalent asked for it and
got one, and put the gopher link address ptr in the reserved field of the text
font properties (where things like bold and italics properties are stored) and
voilà. You can also hire a cheap student to actually write the web client to
be cross platform (its true virtue/value). Thanks to Nicola Pellow, of whom
almost nobody knows about. Not to mention Groff, doing his compulsory civil
service. Would the "web" have just run on NeXT, it would be long extinct, let
alone take off.

On linking and hypertext: all post-war era stuff is spin. The real stuff comes
from Belgium:

For ADD-ers: <http://youtu.be/qwRN5m64I7Y>

The story: <http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet>

[http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul...](http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul_otlet)

"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years
in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified
to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper

<http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343?ln=en>

The answer is a nice PR story on the web --
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spin_%28publi...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spin_%28public_relations%29#Techniques)

On values at CERN, as a warning for non-western members:

"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices
in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value
of Y)" [where Y>X]

source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

ISBN: 9290831693 <http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264>

~~~
wisty
Why you are getting downvoted:

Everyone here knows (or should know) that the internet started in the 60s
(kinda, 1986 definitely), and WWW was a short project in 1989-1990 by TimBL,
which just happened to catch on like wildfire (due to bandwidth increases, and
cheap PCs more than anything else).

Tim Berners-Lee invented the first cut of HTTP (GET / POST etc), and got the
ball rolling on HTML (which was basically a clone of the 1960s SGML).

Paul Otlet seems to have been something of a visionary (just like Ted Nelson,
Project Xanadu's head).

TimBL was just in the right place, at the right time.

But it's silly to say that his only contribution was a few months writing WWW.
He also wrote ENQUIRE 10 years before, which was kind of like Apple's
HyperCard (1987 - between ENQUIRE and WWW).

There were lots of other Hypertext systems
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext#Implementations>). But that doesn't
mean TimBL was a fraud, simply that the media loves to simplify this kind of
thing.

~~~
Create
I am being downvoted, because my assertions (admittedly in unpolished form)
aren't backed by popular views (some of which are polished products,
_Manufacturing Consent_ ) and because I stick to my guns and do my best to
warn others about some things that are (not) supposed to happen especially at
CERN.

 _simply that the media loves to simplify this kind of thing._

The media (and the beeb, almost openly since Dr. Kelly) does what it has been
"ordered" to do, ie. "maximising opportunity and minimising threat":

<http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343>

ps: Enquire was a Gutenberg project alike of a book (read digital form), which
is admitted by TimBL. But you are right: information systems existed for a
long time, and presumably will for a long time.

~~~
qxcv
> I am being downvoted, because my assertions (admittedly in unpolished form)

You're being downvoted because you keep reposting (word-for-word) the same
nonsensical rant on HN[0] and various other places around the web. Perhaps you
could tidy it up between now and the next time you repost it so that we can
understand your argument.

[0]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3842382>

------
derleth
So, is the British media claiming TimBL (and, by extension, the UK) invented
the Internet?

~~~
jonhendry
Um, no, he invented the web.

~~~
derleth
> Um, no, he invented the web.

I know that. It seems fewer and fewer others do.

Also, condescension works incredibly badly when you clearly did not read what
you were responding to.

~~~
nikcub
the television caption here said "Inventor of the World Wide Web"

another cool things, the NeXT Cube was live on the web at the time and he
tweeted from it.

Edit: someone just replied to me on twitter and mentioned that it was actually
_the_ Cube that he used at CERN, taken out of a museum for the ceremony.

This is the tweet that was sent out during the ceremony while he was on stage:

<https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/228960085672599552>

although it says 'via Twitter for iPhone' :)

~~~
jonhendry
Actually, I don't think it was really running.

At least, judging by the photos I've seen ([http://cdn-
static.zdnet.com/i/story/70/00/001744/berners-lee...](http://cdn-
static.zdnet.com/i/story/70/00/001744/berners-lee-olympic-2.png)) the monitor
was shining bright yellow, when in reality they are greyscale monitors with a
bluish cast. I think the monitor was a shell, fitted with a lamp to illuminate
TBL from that side.

Perhaps the keyboard was wired up to a modern laptop or tablet, or some custom
system tied in with the LED system at the stadium. Most likely, it was
automated for precision and correctness, and he was just miming the typing.

Which is fine, IMHO, it's good stagecraft. Voldemort and the parachuting Queen
weren't real either. The rest of the light show would have been preprogrammed,
so it would make sense to do the same with the message written on the LED
system.

But it was definitely a Cube, NeXT keyboard, NeXT mouse, and either a modified
NeXT monochrome monitor or a close facsimile. There's a lot to be said for
that, given how much easier it would have been to use, say, an iPad than a
full Cube system - and an iPad would be _vastly_ more recognizable to the
audience, as well.

~~~
RobAley
No, the Queen parachuting was definitely real.

Its because she eats McDonalds and drinks Coca-cola that she has the physical
prowess to pull off such a stunt.

I know, I'm British and have been paying attention to the carefully crafted
messages from our Olympic Overseers for the past year. Open your eyes and you
too can learn the truth...

