Annotations¶
(2023-02-06, 10:56:47 a.m.)
“Now, says Dr. Bush, instrum ents are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages.”
Now this is the truth. We have Computers that give man access to almost every point of human knowledge to date, in the palm of their hand, as well as the tools to work with it. Much like i am able to read and annotate this article.
“conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear.”
Could this issue be answered by new age technology?
“Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.”
I think bridges between disciplines are becoming less and less superficial with the increase in technology. yes we need to specify on certain areas, but each of these specific areas are incredibly multidisciplinary.
“attainments become lost in the mass of the incon sequential.”
I wonder how many findings that could actually change our world have gone unnoticed because of the masses of scholarly writing and the lack of readers.
“The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.”
“Even if utterly new recording pro cedures do not appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension.”
“The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a wal nut.”
GoPro!
“Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not only to make and store a record but also be able to consult it, and this aspect of the m atter comes later.
Even the modern great library is not generally con sulted; it is nibbled at by a few.” The internet.
“control card or film”
like computer punch cards.
“One of them will take instructions and data from a whole roomful of girls armed with simple key board punches, and will deliver sheets of computed results every few minutes.”
is this written before or after this actually was the case?
“appearing certainly first in the hands of the scientist and in small numbers.” Wrong, lots of these machines appear first on the internet and are wildly popular.
Think chatGPT.
“photocells and microfilm”
turned out to be computers. not sure what is meant by photocells or microfilm.
“It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, then only to a subclass of this given by the second digit, and so on;”
similar to trees.
“A central records device has been developed in which much of this work is done conveniently.”
these ideas are showing me how important computers are. all of these ideas have come to be, but not as their own physical machines, but as programs on a computer.
“photocell, and the new total entered by an electron beam.”
what?
“but it should be possi ble to beat the mind decisively in regard to the per manence and clarity of the items resurrected from storage.”
neural networks?
“So he sets a reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.”
“holly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.”
Wikipedia style articles
“The chemist, struggling with the synthesis of an organic compound, has all the chemical literature before him in his lab oratory, with trails following the analogies of com pounds, and side trails to their physical and chemical behavior.”
Notes should be public. Imagine how useful it would be to have everyones research and notes on a specific subject at your fingertips. Like notion, but everyones notes are accessible.
“There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of estab lishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record.”
not even a profession! people do this voluntarily on wikipedia.