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The original proposal of the WWW, HTMLized (w3.org)
94 points by zolotarev on Oct 25, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 20 comments


> The original document file (I think - I can't test it)

Interestingly, I can open this just fine in LibreOffice 5. The alignment is slightly off, but the graphics appear just fine.


It appears to be a "MacWrite II document" according to http://mark0.net/onlinetrid.aspx


Thanks for the link! I had tried running `file` on it, with no success ;)


It is definitely not MacWrite since it doesn't conform to the format:

http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/MacWrite

Looks like it is actually Word for Mac:

https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html


Holy crap you're right.

How'd you think to open it in libreoffice? I used file on it, and all it said was 'data'. Sure enough as soon as I changed it to .odt it opened up fine.


I just figured it was worth a try. I didn't have to change the suffix, just selecting LibreOffice in my browser's "Open With" dialog seems to have worked fine.


Quoting,

"Keywords are a common method of accessing data for which one does not have the exact coordinates. The usual problem with keywords, however, is that two people never chose the same keywords. The keywords then become useful only to people who already know the application well."

Interesting that some problems have been known for so long, with no solution in sight.

The whole article is super interesting in the context of everything the author did not yet know


One solution for this comes from the field of librarianship -- the use of standard ontologies for classifying information. The two most widely used are the Dewey Decimal system (proprietary) and the Library of Congress Catalog Classification System (nonproprietary). I've seen arguments that Dewey is more logically consistent, but the LCCCS's open nature lends it a strong advantage.

Even such ontologies aren't entirely stable -- they change over time, and as with other bits of knowledge, reflect cultural fads and fashions. But I've been recommending to several systems (Pocket, Ello, blogging platforms) that a classification / tagging system based on these might actually be a fairly reasonable start, if only in that there's a very large, mostly-well-considered basis to start from.


wouldnt word2vec solve keywords problem?


Because any excuse to post Mr Adams work is a good excuse, https://vimeo.com/72501076


[9m05s in: pause]

Oh. My. God.

How did I not know about this? I have read everything Mr. Adams has published (I believe). Played a couple of his games. Listened to his radio output. Watched _that_ movie. But I did not know about this.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm actually getting a bit emotional here. Bonus is that I'm super interested in the evolution of text from codex to semantic web (and beyond?) so both the purveyor of the content and the content itself interest me. That Ted Nelson, I tells ya.

Totally unrelated. One thing that the web could have had was _typed_ links. A number of people have made this observation but not many. The idea is built into the assumptions that gave birth to hypertext but the idea was never implemented. See here, for instance: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22907/abstrac...


Thank you for your thank you, so glad I could share this to someone like you, Ted, indeed, nuff said...


Interesting historic piece. the TV movie is called Hyperland (1990): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188677/

Similar videos with good visions can be found from AT&T (the big old one), Microsoft and Apple - all from ca 1990.

Apple Knowledge Navigator TV advertisement (1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0

AT&T 1993 "You will" TV advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Will

"Information at your Fingertips" Microsoft presentation at COMDEX 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY

"Microsoft Network" (MSN 1.0) TV advertisement (1995): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc&t=17m25s


In case it's not obvious to anyone else, the referenced "Mr Adams" is Douglas Adams (of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", etc., fame).


Excellent piece, worth its own post.

Frightening how much the Web 2016 resembles TV 1990.

What is it about ads, distraction, propaganda, and similar drek?


early days, alpha net is a better name than the internet :)


Intersting how broad it was, some bits of "semantic web" in place. And at the same time, as described here, it's mostly multi user hypercard.


> multi user hypercard

sign me the fuck up


They should lock this content behind some EME-compatible DRM, so we can see how things have changed over the years.


Posted here because it's the topic of the Season 3 finale of Halt and Catch Fire?




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