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The purpose of computers is human freedom.

Ted Nelson

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Ted Nelson
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: June 17
Philosopher
Sociologist
Teacher
Paris
France
Theodor Holm Nelson
Computer
Purpose
Freedom
Human
Humans
Computers

More quotes by Ted Nelson

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The problem is not software 'friendliness'. It is conceptual clarity. A globe does not say, 'good morning'. It is simple and clear, not 'friendly'.
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Everything is deeply intertwingled.
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A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.
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I have long been alarmed by people's sheeplike acceptance of the term 'computer technology' - it sounds so objective and inexorable - when most computer technology is really a bunch of ideas turned into conventions and packages.
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I thought I was going to be a filmmaker but at the same time I was an intellectual and I felt that I could make a contribution to some field, as yet, not invented.
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Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged - people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can't. Everything is deeply intertwingled.
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Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
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So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened.
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If computers are the wave of the future, displays are the surfboards.
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We live in media, as fish live in water.
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The objective of hypertext research is to save the planet.
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The four walls of paper are like a prison because every idea wants to spring out in all directions - everything is connected with everything else, sometimes more than others.
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Project Xanadu is essentially my trademark. It was originally, and has returned to my arms as that.
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The point is that these decisions they've made are partly for your convenience and partly for theirs and partly out of stereotypes that they carry with them from the conventions of the computer field.
Ted Nelson
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So, the point was to be able to have a medium that would record all the connections and all the structures and all the thoughts that paper could not. Since the computer could hold any structure in any form, this was the way to go.
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Everybody has only a 24-hour day. Most people, if they increase consumption of one medium (like magazines or books) will cut down on another (like TV). This drastically reduces the sort of growth some people have been expecting.
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I am looking at it from the point of view of a harried user, which I am, and I believe that I am much more like the typical non-technical harried user than I am like the people who smoothly operate everything.
Ted Nelson
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So, I was always frustrated having to write and having to cut things. Why should you have to cut anything?
Ted Nelson
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So, that notion of hypertext seemed to me immediately obvious because footnotes were already the ideas wriggling, struggling to get free, like a cat trying to get out of your arms.
Ted Nelson
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Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything.
Ted Nelson