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Even Before Memex, a Plan For a Networked World
phlurg writes "The New York Times presents an amazing article on 'the Mundaneum,' a sort of proto-WWW conceived of by Paul Otlet in 1934. 'In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or "electric telescopes," as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a "réseau," which might be translated as "network" — or arguably, "web."'
A fascinating read." (You may be reminded of Vannevar Bush's "Memex," which shares some of the same ideas.)
It shows the difficult part of ideas isn't dreaming them up, it's actually realizing them.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Indeed, "reseau" (but with an accent, which didn't show up when I pasted it) is the word used in French for "network", in both computer and other senses.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The Memex was (or would have been) a personal workstation, not a networked device. True, it had hyperlinking, but only among documents on the same device. This Mundaneum seems to be entirely network-centric.
Réseau is the french word for network!
Otlet would probably be very satisfied that we'd come far enough to his life's vision that we can just hear about him, then click to read his vision (of hearing about him then clicking to read his vision).
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make install -not war
Well I remember watching a documentary over the mondaneum (I'm belgian). Pre WWII he enjoyed a relatively popularity in Belgium and amongst the intelligentsia around the world. Besides the mondaneum I remember that he tried to create somekind of a 'universal city' where human knowledge would have been concentrated and archived.
He did try to settle it somewhere near Antwerp (If I remember well) but nobody truly wanted it. I think he tried to settle it somewhere in Switzerland but it didn't work either (or maybe just part of his project, I really don't know anymore).
During the occupation, Nazi (and/or collaborators) were truly concerned about his pacifism, the mondaneum was located in the cinqantenaire (a famous building in brussels). I think (but it should be checked) that they did whatever they can to force him to leave. His real tragedy was when thugs came in and took all his archives, with no regards for their complex classification, loosing parts of it...Everything became unclassified and thus almost lost entirely too.
Then the remaining mundaneum archived have been moved to Mons. He did his best to revive his project and it never worked like before WWII.
Sad story.
I must have imagined usenet then I guess.
Even in the strict web-based sense of online communities with registration, member profiles, forums and so on, I was working building them in the late nineties so they have definitely been around for longer than 3-5 years.
You could argue that online social networking communities (i.e. systems that create networks of users based on their relationships) are a more recent development, but there are some older examples of them around - they just didn't get into the mainstream.
French is a fictional language, much like Klingon or Tolkien's Elvish languages. No one speaks it natively, so what words might mean is of little practical value.
That ranks right up there with Jules Verne, Victor Appleton (The house name author of five generations of Tom Swift Novels), and (sadly) George Orwell in the Accurate Vision of the Future category.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
...some surplus machines from Babbage & Co.?
Kidding aside, anyone who can look at an enormous, overwhelming task of such mind-boggling complexity and think "I can do that." is deserved of high praise, regardless of whether he succeeded or failed.
Twelve years later than, but more accurately predicting the internet and sites like Google.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Logic_Named_Joe
The story's narrator is a "logic" (that is, a personal computer) repairman nicknamed Ducky. In the story, a logic named Joe develops some degree of sentience and ambition. Joe proceeds to switch around a few relays in "the tank" (one of a distributed set of central information repositories analogous to servers on the World Wide Web) and connect all information ever assembled to every logic, and simultaneously disables all of the censor devices. Logics everywhere begin offering up unexpected assistance, from designing custom chemicals to alleviate inebriation to giving sex advice to small children or plotting the perfect murder. Information runs rampant as every logic worldwide crunches away at problems too vast in scope for human minds.
-- Boycott Shell
I'm surprised that we aren't using it today. With a name like Mundaneum, people are sure to come running in droves.
obviously you can see how his upbringing shaped his life's work and life's focus. to me, there are all kinds of crazy pluses and minuses to this idea of stifling your child's social upbringing in order to encourage his intellectual upbringing. of course, you need social skills in life to really succeed. at the same time, there is something genuinely valuable to be said about focusing a child's intellectual development in solitude. there's obvious trade offs here, but otlet seems to be a success, in a narrow focused way. one wonders at examples of lives that are failures of this kind of upbringing though
people always mention the successes of this kind of focused upbringing, like tiger woods or the williams sisters in tennis (parents focusing their kid's athletic talents). or parents who focus their children to be masters of the piano or cello. but for every yo-yo ma, one never hears about the hundreds who wind up as burn-outs, drug addicts or prostitutes
its an interesting subject, the focused childhood solitary education
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
NY Times registration is free (as in beer) and painless. I get an email from them mybe once a month. They don't hassle me otherwise.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
In some respect the invention of the telegraph changed the world forever because communications could be simultaneous around the earth. This would prevent gaffs like the Battle of New Orleans fought 29 years earlier, TWO WEEKS after the treaty ending that war had been signed because communications were so slow.
The capital burden of laying wires across continents and oceans helped create the modern corporations and banks. (In conjunction with railroads, steel, coal and petroleum development). There were wild economic booms and busts, not unlike the mainframes in the 1960s. PCs in the 1980s and dot.coms in the 1990s. The telegraph fueled modern media with a desire for today's news rather than weeks old letter and magazines.
The telegraph spawned other modern inventions. Randall Stoss's recent biography of Thomas Edison re-interprets the inventor in light of the dot.com boom. Several of Edison's inventions were aimed at cramming more messages on precious telegraph lines. The telephone arose out of the effort to send messages at different messages at separate frequencies. Voice is just using all frequencies. Several people beat Edison here, but he invented the first practical microphone. The phonograph was originally intended to record telegraph messages offline, then transmit them and record them at super-human speeds across precious telegraph lines. Recording and playing messages by themselves without the intervening telegraph became its own invention - the phonograph.