For this week’s blog post, I decided to respond to Ted Nelson “Literary Machines Part 1” which I found to be very interesting because he invented the word “hypertext” which is something I frequently used all the time. Nelson states “some people like all this incompatibility and complication, and say it is the new world we must learn to live in. Others, already hating computers, correctly dread these matters and hope vainly to stop the computer tide.” (Nelson, 14) When I read this quote it made me think about how people hate iPhones and you have others that hate Androids. Both devices do the same thing. Preferably, you have people that buy the newest iPhones or newest Androids. For some reason, we feel like it’s necessary to buy because we can feel like were being left out on the newest device. For example, I recently brought a new iPhone because of the newest features. Computers and technology shape our lives. The truth is we all rely on technology a great deal to get through the day. Whether it’s at work, at home, or at school we depend on computers and technology greatly. However, it may be not a good thing because life would be different without technology in our lives.

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Ted Nelson, Literary Machines Part 1

This week I decided to reflect on Brian Winston’s “The Coming of the Microcomputer”. While reading this I couldn’t help but think about how far we’ve come with technology and how much it has expanded through time. These “minicomputers” have taken over the globe. Before while people were continuously trying to make these computers smaller, faster, and better, they were just going off of how quickly the invention was made; but now we carry these quickly developed and tiny computers everywhere we go. On the very first page of this text, Winston quotes Augarten saying “For the first two decades of the existence of the high speed computer machines were so scarce and so expensive that man approached the computer the way an ancient Greek approached an oracle”. (p. 12) I found this quote so interesting because I feel like this is exactly how we act when a brand new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy is coming out. As if it were a god put on this earth. It’s such a precious and expensive object that we want it right away and we just have to have it. The only difference is that we jump on these brand new products while before they didn’t. However we treat these objects with such care that the smallest thing may happen to it and we go absolutely bonkers- mostly because if we drop it and it breaks we die a bit on these inside because we know just how expensive these phones are. Computers have been developing in itself for so long and now we have things like iPads, laptops, tablets, Smartphones that we can’t seem to live without now, etc. Technology by the day is growing more and more and we can’t seem to get enough of it. The world has become so digitalized that we even forget how to do things without it. Myself included.

For this week’s post,  I chose to respond to Ted Nelson’s Literary Machines. I left the reading with a load of spiraling thoughts, and focused to write about the progessiveness of Ted Nelson’s Project Xanadu. Project Xanadu was Nelson’s way of  eventually improving the World Wide Web and created the first hypertext project. It’s purpose of creation was similar to the purpose of creation of the Printing Press. To benefit mankind in many, many ways, to better science, to better education, etc. I enjoyed reading Nelson’s work because I I chose to look and how astonishing and formidable, the progression of putting text on to a computing technological level is. It’s facsinating when you read up on the work of a trailblazer. You see how much time and effort they put in, what their goals are, what they hope their creation will achieve for mankind and society. It inspires you, or me, to go out there and contribute to society in a productive way. To benefit mankind, to make us greater, and better, and live lives we are proud and happy living.