Memex Rewind

In 1945, the person in charge of research and development, who oversaw most of the science that won WWII with the help of Logistics, wrote an article about the most pressing task facing mankind, the need to organize and access the ever growing flood of information created by all of this activity.

His vision was expressed in an article titled "As We May Think", which was eventually republished by Time Magazine. Many people credit it for the vision that eventually became the world wide web. I also held this view for a long time.

I no longer hold that view.

The web as we use it is about as useful as a picture of a box of tools, instead of the tools themselves. There was a vague notion expressed that you could gather up a huge canvas of inter-related thoughts and ideas, and freely associate them, and share the whole of that work effortlessly. We don't have it. I'm trying to use my time and effort to change that by making something that gets a bit more of that toolset into my hands, and hopefully into everyone's eventually.

Wish me luck.