Nelson’s Dream Machines (1968-70), Bolter’s “Seeing and Writing” and “Writing as Technology,” Lanham’s “The Electronic Word” (1989), Bush’s “As We May Think” (1945), Edison’s “To-Do-List,” MITH’s “Vintage computer collection,” and Griffin’s “Turing Test Breakthrough” (2014).
Science, Invention, Mind, and “The Record” of the Human Race
“As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush, is an article published in The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945. In it, Bush identifies a need for the invention of machines that can take over wrote, repetitive thinking, like “mechanical” calculations, so that “man” can be free to think creatively about information. He calls for machines that will record and store information for instant access and retrieval, for transmission/sharing, etc. And he imagines what these “futuristic” machines might look like. Essentially he presages computers (Bush’s “memex” machine), databases, voice dictation devices, even the oculus. It’s a fascinating article, bound of course in the language of its time–“the men of science” and “the girl” of the stenograph, i.e., or the “which grew like Topsy” allusion.
Reading Response: “The Roaring Twenties” interactive website
My initial experience:
Beautiful opening page. The sound is awesome, seductive.
But the text–light on dark–that begins with the Intro–turns me off so much!
Is this a database? An archive with an interface orienting one as she chooses to explore the information in prescribed or pre-designed or pre-curated ways?
Reading Response: “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”
Branch, John. “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek.” The New York Times. 2012. Web. 29 August 2015.
First, let me say that it’s interesting to read this absolutely gorgeous webtext and then read some of the other texts out there about this incident. King5 News report, Outside Magazine’s report, written by one of the skiers, Megan Michelson, and from Powder, the magazine for which one of the skiers worked.