
Memex - networked
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex
======
grinich
_As We May Think_ (the origin of Memex) is still one of my favorite papers.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-
ma...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-
think/303881/)

------
bradbeattie
An electronic brain. What would you do with one of those, if you had one? In
1940, you’d probably stick it in a machine of some kind. Not one of Dr.
Satan’s recycled Atlantean robots, but something practical. Say a machine that
could weld leaf-springs in a Milwaukee tractor factory.

This, really, is about what science fiction writers call “Steam Engine Time”.
The observable fact that steam, contained, exerts force, has been around since
the first lid rattled as the soup came to a boil. The ancient Greeks built toy
steam engines that whirled brass globes. But you won’t get a locomotive ‘til
it’s Steam Engine Time.

What you wouldn’t do, in 1940, with an electronic brain, would be to stick it
on your desk, connect it somehow to a typewriter, and, if you, had one, a
television of the sort demonstrated at the 1939 Worlds fair in New York. At
which point it would start to resemble… But it’s not Steam Engine Time yet, so
you can’t do that. Although you would, or anyway you’d think about it, if you
were a man named Vannevar Bush, but we’ll come back to him later. Vannevar
Bush almost single-handedly invented what we now think of as the military-
industrial complex. He did that for Franklin Roosevelt, but it isn’t what
he’ll be remembered for.

[http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_01_28_archive...](http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_01_28_archive.asp)

------
taliesinb
Some more historical echoes:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundaneum>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongle_Encyclopedia>

(Check out <http://www.wolframalpha.com/docs/timeline/>, it shows some
fascinating landmarks in the history of knowledge)

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mortenlarsen
A Memex is also featured several times in The Laundry Files by Charles Stross.
I can highly recommend reading this series.

    
    
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross#The_Laundry_Files

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qdot76367
Two neat modern memex implementations:

<http://quantifiedself.com/2009/09/the-social-memex/> \- Mark Carrenza's memex
implementation that he's been using for decades

<https://github.com/novoid/Memacs> \- memacs, a memex-like implementation
using python to turn social streams into searchable emacs org-mode files

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codemac
As per always, someone has implemented a memex system with emacs and org mode:

<https://github.com/novoid/Memacs>

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nonamegiven
See also the bookend piece The Computers of Tomorrow, Martin Greenberger,
Atlantic 1964. Both articles linked here:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/past/unbound/flashbks/computer/te...](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/unbound/flashbks/computer/tech.htm)

------
sabalaba
As mentioned in Serial Experiments Lain, an anime really worth checking out.

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refractal
This stuff is very interesting to bring into conversation with early work on
cybernetics

~~~
networked
I think it's even more relevant than that. This article pretty much directly
inspired Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson, who in turn went on to work on the
first hypertext systems (Engelbart on NLS [1] and Nelson on Project Xanadu
[2]). Although today's web doesn't quite live up to the standards set for
Project Xanadu (it involves microtransactions, link rot [3] prevention, the
ability to trace back what links to any given page, transparent creation of
compilation documents and other such things) those projects are part of
history that led to us being able to have this discussion right now using a
HTML-based medium.

Looking back at _As We May Think_ and the systems it directly inspired today
may be a way to help us make the internet better. It's not hard to imagine how
with a few tweaks Xanadu-like micropayments + trasclusion [4] could a least
partially replace banner advertising and help revitalize web journalism by
making it not dependant on ad revenue.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_%28computer_system%29>

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu>

[3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot>

[4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion>

------
IgorPartola
While this is interesting I thought a while ago we agreed on three rules:

1\. No posting Wikipedia articles directly. Write a post about it.

2\. No linking to individual essays by pg.
(<http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html>)

3\. No racing to post who is hiring posts. There is a helpful bot for that.

~~~
gojomo
When was 'a while ago'? Who is 'we'? And what do you mean by 'agreed'? (Are
you part of the site management which had a discussion/decision on these
matters?)

None of these are mentioned in the 'Guidelines' linked at the bottom. On the
other hand, the guidelines do mention: "Please don't submit comments
complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site."

~~~
IgorPartola
I really wish they would incorporate these in the guidelines. I am not a part
of the site's management. By "we" I mean the community.

Unfortunately, this was all discussed in an ad hoc fashion in comments to
random stories but I'll do my best to find it.

 _time passes_

First, <https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring> is the bot that
submits the "Who is hiring?" posts. It started a few years ago as you can see
by the registration date for this user. The problem was that these posts
generate a lot of upvotes, and people started trying to beat each other to the
punch to try to get more karma points. The problem came to a head when
multiple "Who is hiring?" posts made it to the front page, which has the
obvious negative consequences.

I just spent about 30 minutes searching for the other two discussions and
cannot find them (hnsearch, Google, and my own story upvotes proved
unhelpful). Best I can offer is this: about two years ago, IIRC, there was a
trend to link directly to Wikipedia. The front page was filled with random
posts on there, like the one about the illegal numbers. Wikipedia is great,
but often times it was not clear why a post was relevant to HN. The conclusion
of the discussion was that we shouldn't post Wikipedia articles directly and
the trend died down. @gojomo, I wager you have been here long enough to
remember this trend, and I'm sure you noticed that one day it stopped. That's
probably the best proof I can offer on this point.

Something similar happened with pg's essays. Every time he posted one, it
would show up on the front page. At that point someone posted a master
submission, linking to all of them, and in the discussion there was agreement
that since pg is so well known here and his essays are so closely watched that
it is taking away from other stories to post the content that almost everyone
will discover anyway. Additionally, this once again lead to karma farming by
multiple people trying to post the same essay as early as possible.
Interestingly enough, I just tried posting the link to all the essays and the
duplicate matching engine let it through, so I wonder what happened to that
post (and/or my memory of it). In either case, it looks like this trend is
also starting to slowly come back.

Once again, I really wish I could find these discussions and/or compel the
site admins to clarify some of these points in the guidelines. Alas, I do
deserve the downvotes in my original post for not including any references.

~~~
gojomo
Thanks for explaining. I think it's important to note that any perceived-
consensus in some random-thread doesn't mean much - it's not necessarily a
real consensus or conclusion, and in any case the actual site managers have
their own ideas about how things should work. (And, while they clearly welcome
some input, they also seem to frown upon most meta-discussion, complaint
threads, coordinated-voting-pacts, and lobbying-polls.)

Personally, the occasional posts of Wikipedia articles and PG essays (even
repeats when related to current topics) are valuable to me. I think it'd be a
misuse of the 'flag' to suppress these. Of course anyone is free to misuse
their click-power like that... I just don't want anyone to misleadingly claim
that's a consensus norm, with the vague assertion "we already decided this".
That seems like a rhetorical trick.

