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Re: [ontolog-forum] Dynamic Knowledge Repository

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John Bottoms <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:02:58 -0400
Message-id: <51D6EE32.7030809@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
WE ARE ALL STOVEPIPES    (01)

The Evolution of the Memex Meme    (02)

"...the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be 
caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is 
the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items 
together is the important thing...And his trails do not fade. Several 
years later, his talk with a friend turns to the queer ways in which a 
people resist innovations even of vital interest. In fact, he has a 
trail on it. A touch brings up the codebook. Tapping a few keys projects 
the head of the trail...So, he sets a reproducer in action, photographs 
the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his 
own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail. ...A special 
button transfers him immediatley to the first page of the index. Any 
given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far 
greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf.
-- "As we may think", by Vannevar Bush, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945    (03)

"...there is another [besides reliability] reason for an individual's 
making copies. This is to keep rack of former states of the work, in 
case mistakes or wrong decisions need to be undone, to reconsider old 
choices, or otherwise look at former states. This need, backtrack, is 
serious and important.... Thus the docuverse and its server nodes are 
mapped to a tree structure. The hierarchy is roughly as follows. ( 
Server Node, User Account, Document, Version, Contents) Thus the address 
population of tumbler-space is also an abstraction, since things may be 
addressed even though nothing is there to represent them in storage. 
Consider what we may call "ghost elements:"
--"Literary Machines", Ted Nelson, 1986    (04)

"Lifetime Goal - As much as possible, to boost mankind’s collective 
capability for coping with complex, urgent for coping with complex, 
urgent problems"
--Facilitating the Evolution of our Collective IQ", Doug Englebart, 2005    (05)

Intellectual Views of the Internet
The view of a computer based collective intellect has been a common 
thread in literature.
I wonder if Doug Englebart's view of a collective IQ included the 
current warehousing of knowledge, behaviors and catalogs of assets of 
consumers?
The view of a unified IQ is not currently part of the Internet or the 
Semantic Web. Instead the use of knowledge is reserved to a location 
behind the data stores of the knowledge. This has the feature of 
allowing each user a different set of views and goals, local and remote, 
used for thinking. The flip side of that coin is that each user with 
different local metrics and views will arrive at different conclusions 
about what should or should not be done.    (06)

-John Bottoms
FirstStar Systems
Concord, MA USA    (07)


On 7/5/2013 10:13 AM, John F Sowa wrote:
> There was a thread on the Ontology Summit list about Doug Engelbart.
> The last two notes on that thread (by Peter Yim and me) raised some
> interesting issues about his life's work.  (Copies below)
>
> His last major project proposed a Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR)
> as the basis for augmenting human intelligence.  Peter's note points
> to the slides and audio of a talk, which Doug E. presented to the NSF
> in 2005.  My note has some historical background.  Following is a
> brief definition of DKR with further links:
>
>      http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/dkrs.html
>
> The Wikipedia article on DKR doesn't show any funding for the ideas:
>
>      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Knowledge_Repository
>
> The DAML project, which led to the current tools for the Semantic Web
> also ended in 2005.  As tools, they have been useful for many purposes.
> But they represent a bottom-up approach that doesn't have the vision
> of Tim B-L's book on the Semantic Web or the vision of Doug E's DKR.
>
> Questions about vision:  How useful is it?  Tools are necessary for
> implementing software, but by themselves, they don't suggest any
> directions or goals for further development.  How useful are goals?
> Without funding, goals just sit on a web site.  But there are huge
> numbers of tools that just sit on a web site (see Sourceforge).
>
> But a good collection of tools that embody an infectious "meme" can
> be copied and spread.  Note history:  Doug E. and his colleagues
> presented the mouse and related tools in a famous demo in 1968.  It
> took a lot of hard work at Xerox PARC to make it a product ten years
> later.  Then Steve Jobs copied it as the Mac in 1984, but it required
> Bill Gates & Co. to copy it as Windows 3.1 to make it the universal
> GUI for computers.  That development took more than 20 years.
>
> Are there lessons we can learn from these developments?
>
> What are they?
>
> John
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] [ontology-summit] Doug Engelbart passed
> away last night
> Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2013 11:30:50 -0700
> From: Peter Yim <peter.yim@xxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: [ontolog-forum]  <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: [ontolog-forum] <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> I went through my archives and managed to dig up this 2005 talk by
> Doug Engelbart at NSF for Susan Turnbull's Expedition Workshop. This
> is probably the most recent talk of his that I have on archive. In
> Doug's own words, he provided us a glimpse into his vision.
>
>    It's available online now* ...
>
> == Special Invited Talk by Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart ==
>
> * Date: 1 Sep 2005
> * Venue: NSF
> * Host: Susan Turnbull (GSA) - NITRD Expedition Workshop
> * Opening Intro by: Simon Szykman (then, NCO/NITRD Director)
>
> * Invited Speaker: Doug Engelbart
>
> * Topic: Facilitating the Evolution of our Collective IQ - What our
> Organizations and Governments Could Do
>
> * Slides:
> 
>http://bootstrap.cim3.net/file/pub/presentation/Expedition_Workshop/2005-09-01_Building_High_Performance_Organizations/Doug_Engelbart_2005_09_01.pdf
>
> * Audio recording: [ 2:02:00 ; mp3 ; 13.96 MB ]
>    -
> 
>http://bootstrap.cim3.net/file/pub/presentation/Expedition_Workshop/2005-09-01_Building_High_Performance_Organizations/DougEngelbart-NSF-Talk_20050901.mp3
>
> ( ... *this material has actually not been available online, following
> the closure of that workshop series around mid-2010, until now.)
>
> =ppy
>
> ---------- original message ----------
> From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 6:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Doug Engelbart passed away last night
> To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> On 7/3/2013 6:22 PM, Jack Ring wrote:
>> Doug's favorite input device was a set of keys on two levels
>> (like piano or court reporter).
>    From http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
>> On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17
>> researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center
>> at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented
>> a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS,
>> they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was
>> a session of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the
>> Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about
>> 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the
>> computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations
>> demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing
>> and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration
>> involving two persons at different sites communicating over a
>> network with audio and video interface.
> Most of that group later migrated to Xerox PARC, where they developed
> the WIMPy interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointing device).
> Xerox sold some very expensive workstations based on that technology.
> But they occupied a tiny niche until Steve Jobs visited PARC and
> adapted the ideas.
>
> Following is a shorter excerpt from the 1968 demo combined with a short
> talk by Doug E. in 2004.  It also shows the piano-like keys on the left
> of the usual keyboard:
>
>       http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23174052
>
> For more detail about the visit to PARC by Steve Jobs and his crew,
> see http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/apple-lisa-history.html
>
>    From that article:
>> Convinced that the technology at PARC could help Apple usher in the 1980s,
>> Jobs offered Xerox a killer deal: Apple, which was privately owned at the 
>time,
>> would allow Xerox to invest $1 million in Apple, which was sure to soar in
>> value when the company went public in 1981 - in exchange for two guided tours
>> of PARC's technology. Xerox happily accepted and gave Jobs and a team of Lisa
>> project engineers a tour.
> That's a good example of the famous "Reality Distortion Field" generated
> by Steve Jobs:  "If you allow me to steal your company's secrets, I'll
> allow you to invest a million dollars in my company."
>
> John
>
>       (08)


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