paul ford

The Web and the Quest for the Perfect Document

Published on Oct 29, 2013

why is that there..

therefore what is present is used for profit, what is absence is where is usefulness

how does anyone get motivated enough to spend 10000 hrs on anything…

talent is this incredible ability to be annoyed.. this sensitivity… maturity is dealing with that

we keep of talent in terms of tools and skills and we all know it’s not that, it’s the person capable of seeing the gap, identifying the absence and taking steps across it

no recruiter is going to say – do you get constructively annoyed while working on.. but that’s a really good question

its not that skills don’t matter it’s just that the ability to perceive an absence and be constructively annoyed matters more

we didn’t have this easily edible way like it was designed.. we had text boxes and forms.. what might have happened if we took on the web – as a place to share.. 

2 trillion dollars of economic development that’s related to end browser editing not working.. we had to fall back to web forms because the vision wasn’t quite there yet

about to come out in mit – about search for perfect web document – ted nelson – we all had original visions.. aiming low – every quotation should be connected instantly to its source..no copies, only originals.. 

ted nelson – computer lib/3 machines – questioning conventional wisdom of vision 

about doug englebart – friend of ted – co inventor of mouse.. but that was a means to an end for him.

bret victor – frustrated by mouse-driven coverage of englebardts death – if you attempt to make sense of englebardts design by drawing correspondences to present day systems.. you’ll miss the point.. he hated our present day systems.. the best question you can ask..

what world was he trying to create

and by asking that question you put yourself in the position to create that world yourself.

stuart brand, the whole earth software catalog, the well, ted nelson

brand – on an unlovely flat artifact called a disc ..may be the concentrated intelligence of 1000’s of hours of designed

brand – software when it’s used at all intensely, comes to feel like an extension of your nervous system, its habits become your  habits, the reason the term personal got stuck to these personal computers is that they- become part of the person – buyer beware

ios7 – new verion is relaxed.. no longer making things look like real life rather than web.. ie: calendars look like calendars.. now look less like 3d world and lighter

abstraction upon abstraction.. and when you get all the way down.. a plate of scrambled eggs.. at some level, anything that doesn’t involve… machine functions… is a skeuomorph.. alphabet is tech.. people believe there’s an essence to the web…  there’s always something we should be doing instead…

i don’t believe tech has an essence.. i don’t believe there is a right way.. everything we do on computers is a skeuomorph built on top of binary arithmetic..

every new tech is trying to fill cultural absences.. but ends up creating new spaces and new absences

we impose our desires onto those absences because we’re human and that’s what we do

read photoshop file description… open source image viewer – comment in code..

tim berners lee creates the web – this absolutely huge vacuum we need to fill

would you rather own all of ny or all of the web – web is twice as big as nycity

we’re still trying to rationalize the web, figure out that space that was created and make sense of it.. recent effort ie: html5 – is make it into a huge operating system.. but that’s a different thing than it used to be

we’re in a different world.. you can’t stop things from moving.. people from changing.. 

the shared story that we’re all trying to tell – of what happened yesterday or what happened 20 yrs ago – is the largest absence of them all

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find/follow Paul:

(1974– ) Writer, editor, programmer. Writing a book about web pages for FSG. Contact ford@ftrain.com if you spot a typo.

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all my dumb questions

View at Medium.com

*What would a global left even look like? **Is one even possible? For a while it looked like the Arab Spring could be a new pattern for the global left, kind of. Not so much any more. Is it a bunch of Green Parties? Is it about social issues? ***Is there anything that can unify people on the left as much as anti-immigration arouses the right? Global warming? Human rights and social justice? EDM? ****Also the US is so insanely rich compared to everyone else—how does that play out?

*a nother way – no need to call it left or anything.. just a nother way for 7 bn to live..

**yes.. so possible.. but not by elections.. or manuals.. or courses. . or degrees.. or protests.. or wars..

***2 needs.. deep enough.. that we each already have inside.. but that we’ll only hear if we play this out as the day.. (aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…)… and/so again.. not just people ‘on the left’ or whatever..

****no matter.. money becomes irrelevant.. only used as temporary placebo.. to detox us.. back to us..

• *What qualifies something to be a “movement?” Impact? Membership? Oppositionality? Anticommercialism? I.e. **could “Design thinking” be a movement? Could TED be a movement? Could there be a moment when the Tumblr Solidarity Union ***links up with, IDK, TED and they shut down some part of the noösphere? Like, ****how strange can the bedfellows get

*it moves/regenerates.. ongoingly.. i’m not sure we’ve every seen one..  of course.. depends on how you define it.. i’m looking for a global movement.. because.. none of us are free if one of us is chained..

**i’m thinking those are tribes.. (or whatever you call them).. but not deep enough to be a movement

***huge.. the linking.. and why i’m believing.. we have to start simple (ginorm/small) enough to get 7 bn to lind/io dance.. ie: host-life-bits via self-talk as data

****so strange.. ginorm/small strange.. so ginorm/small that labels (except maybe the daily label of what you are currently curious about) become irrelevant.. and.. things like ie: idiosyncratic jargon become our privacy/security et al..

• Despite everyone panicking about identity politics as the bugbear that will destroy centrist-left progress I actually would guess the movement will get stronger of voice, not weaker, *unless some specifically terrible 9/11 thing happens, which is totally possible.

or *unless some specifically wonderful global do-over thing happens, which is totally possible..

• I like economists and technology leaders and fiction writers and journalists, so why are an increasing number of the people on Twitter who actually make sense sociologists? *What even is sociology? I know I had to learn SPSS freshman year in college but I don’t remember what else it actually is. **Something about cities. Have we entered an age of sociological relevance? This strikes me as ***bad for English departments, somehow.

*sociology: the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society…the study of social problems. (had to look it up for me)

**yes.. we’re entering a time where life can be a story about people grokking what matters.. for 7 bn + of us.. all of us.. has to be all (like www ness)..

***good for people who are now in english depts.. because has to be good for all of us.. but i imagine dept ness and course ness and pkg deals. for ed ness.. et al.. will become irrelevant.. we will choose to disengage from all that is not.. part of our eudaimoniative surplus..

• *Why has the atheist/freethinker movement been coöpted by absolute 100% total pieces of human shit?

*voluntary compliance as cancer… copying and copying and copying for years..  it’s coopted all of us..

• *Our entire defense industry is propped up by foreign buyers. It’s a sort of institutionalized corruption eternal lend-lease dystopia. IDK, feels like it’ll get even weirder and worse.

*why we need better defense/strategy/os… ie: gershenfeld sel

• Oh man *what about pharma? No seriously what about pharma?

*once we all wake up.. forbidden cures.. ness.. will sound so ridiculous.. aka: pharma another one of our chosen irrelevants

• I have bad feelings about *intellectual property and the patent system and the FCC. Are they warranted, or just more paranoia

*ridiculously irrelevant .. to sociolgy ness.. to humans grokking about what matters.. ness.. – intellectual property ..truman credit law..et al..

• Should we just rename *Earth as Uber for the Solar System?

*kind of.. our souls are seeking systemic change.. and we have to be about the zoom dance for our interconnected/one ness to work..

• How do we keep the vibe going *where everyone on the train is talking to each other about what’s going on?

*focus on self-talk as data ..simplify to 2 convos..

• How can white collar people who want to do something besides give money *find people who need their skills and help them? Do-gooders **need: Legal, web, digital, bookkeeping, accountancy, general advisory, HR, etc.

*perhaps.. mech simple enough.. to help us find people

**perhaps we just need web.. www ness..  perhaps listening to 7 bn hearts.. everyday.. as the day.. is enough..

• I wish there was a *global tech index that was about more than money but like, number of civil statutes destroyed, number of foreign offices, number of salespeople to number of programmers, etc, etc, etc. **What would that look like?

*how about one .. just about curiosity.. and connections..

**maybe like.. hosting-life-bits

• unless you already know the dialectic of your given ingroup,

again .. why our idiosyncratic jargon could be invaluable.. it could become our privacy/security et al..

• As desktop computers die a whole ideology of software dies with them. Mass entry of data via keyboards *means that a certain kind of accuracy and clarity is going to die. Easy programmability also goes. What happens next?

or.. we may be entering the realm of lanier beyond words law.. ness.. and so.. more accuracy/clarity.. than we’ve ever imagined…

• The Internet of Things is a global security nightmare and there are so many points of failure that the whole idea could turn out to be a huge bust. *What does a secure IoT look like?

*perhaps like ps in the open… heavy on gershenfeld sel and idiosyncratic jargon.. which means.. mega heavy (like 100% .. or it won’t work.. because it won’t be trust) on trust

• Security is so hard on an individual basis that you might as well just print out your emails and send them to the NSA and any post office in Russia while you’re at it. *What the hell actually works? Should we just delete all of our email and live free? We’re all hot on Signal but should we be quite that hot?

*i’m thinking some kind of hosting like blockchain (not like it’s being used/explained.. ie: not to measure transactions not to validate people.. just to host life bits that help us dance.. deep address ness et al).. gathering/focus-on self-talk as data .. via some kind of chip ish… w/in a day/ecosystem based-on/simplified-to 2 convos..

ie: a completely nother way to live

• If IPV6 starts to play out and folks can request lots of addresses, then *what happens to spam recognition

*spam/terrorism/war/bullying.. approaching the limit of zero.. via gershenfeld sel

• *Is Fake News the actual problem? It feels like a sort of formulation that technology people can convince themselves is a technical problem and then attempt to stamp out. But isn’t the real problem more like “hatred feels good”? The message of fake news seems to be “you, reader, are the only person who matters.” This is also the message of social media in general. Maybe Fake News is just symptomatic of the platforms. If so then what kind of platform choices can be made that still deliver the necessary narcissistic pleasure-jolt but don’t use hatred as a stimulus?

*no.. fake people (and that we have no idea what we’re capable of) is the actual problem.. and why we beg to go deep enough..

• *Can we bring back Google Reader ethos even if we can’t bring back Google Reader?

*we would go beyond all that.. when we start.. ie: documenting everything.. and letting that everything ness dance..

• Facebook and Apple have so much money they can do anything at all. They could be in any industry doing almost anything. Why do they keep doing what they are doing and not doing other things? *Is this really the limit of innovation right now?

no.. let’s throw a little money (just as temp placebo) toward this..  and just see..

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