07-18-2010, 03:09 PM | #61 | |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex It was published in 1939 and later in a slightly expanded article "As We May Think", in the mass market magazine Atlantic Monthly in 1945: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think The memex and electronic searchable hypertext linked encyclopedias and books are really the invention of this man, Vannevar Bush: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush |
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07-19-2010, 09:40 AM | #62 |
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As a matter of interest, most experts say that the first description of something resembling the Internet in Science Fiction was in a 1946 story "A Logic Name Joe" by Murray Leinster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Logic_Named_Joe |
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07-19-2010, 09:47 AM | #63 |
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for every one interested ( rofl most of us ? )
check out this site, it lists SciFi "firsts": http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/ctnlistPubDate.asp Called: Timeline of Science Fiction Inventions its sorted by date etc |
07-19-2010, 10:39 AM | #64 |
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askyn --- neat site, but I think it could stand some peer review --- describing a miniaturized tailor's manequin clothing display as a PDA is a bit of a stretch.
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07-19-2010, 12:02 PM | #65 | |
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The Machine Stops True, the technical details of the Machine are never truly specified, but it's got streaming music, chat, people who IM you at annoying times, and the Internet echo chamber effect in all its glory. Whether or not Forster foresaw exactly how his Machine would work, he was disturbingly prescient about Internet culture. |
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07-19-2010, 02:20 PM | #66 | |
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In A Logic Named Joe there were a distributed set of central information repositories analogous to servers on the World Wide Web. Which is what DARPANET originally was. |
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07-19-2010, 02:59 PM | #67 |
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07-19-2010, 03:07 PM | #68 |
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In the beginning of the story, after Vashti talks to her son, she responds to a backlog of incoming messages from friends. This is an unusual condition, caused by her being in a private chat with her son, and the flood does not continue after she answers them all. That implies, at least to me, some form of storage system that's holding the messages until she responds. So we have some kind of server there on at least a primitive level. Forster didn't go into the nuts and bolts of his Machine (remember, this was written only a few years after the invention of the triode vacuum tube) but it seems clear to me that some of its functions would require something like a server, and in all probability it has many other features which do not appear in the story.
What Forster nailed so squarely, though, at least in my mind, was aspects of online culture: the echo chamber effect, the decline of interest in personal experience compared to vicarious experience, the shortened attention span (the 10-minute lecture, for instance) and the emphasis on a wide, shallow group of online friends rather than a narrow, deep group of offline friends. |
07-19-2010, 10:56 PM | #69 | |
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07-19-2010, 11:24 PM | #70 |
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ThinkGeek sells a nice starter slide rule, if you need to brush up your skills.
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07-20-2010, 11:45 AM | #71 | |
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A former co-worker once got out of a graduate finance exam because his pocket calculator died. He probably could have done the calculations manually, but not in the time alloted for the exam. ______ Dennis |
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07-20-2010, 11:53 AM | #72 | |
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http://www.webscription.net/p-253-a-...named-joe.aspx ______ Dennis |
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07-20-2010, 12:07 PM | #73 | ||
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SF fans have long had mixed feelings about "SciFi". Back when, the genre was looked down upon and you were fussy about who you told you read it. It was a derogatory term. It was not helped by the lurid covers of older SF magazines featuring scantily clad heroines menaced by slavering aliens. SciFi tended to connote everything people who didn't read it looked down on, and SF fans preferred to just call it SF. I tell people " I watch SciFi. I read SF." Quote:
______ Dennis |
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07-21-2010, 05:01 AM | #74 |
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I remember having one when I first went to school but it was replaced almost instantly by one of those new fangled calculators. I was quietly picturing the look of wonder on my kids faces as I showed them how to multiply and divide on a ruler when I was brought back with a bump as they tried to charge me $28 to ship it to the UK! Oh well.
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07-21-2010, 07:24 AM | #75 |
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Recently, there was an article in Scientific American, I believe which included a slide rule which one could cut out and assemble.
Or print your own here: http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/build.html William |
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