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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'.

Ted Nelson

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Ted Nelson
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: June 17
Philosopher
Sociologist
Teacher
Paris
France
Theodor Holm Nelson
Good
Software
Clarity
Friendly
Morning
Clear
Friendliness
Simple
Conceptual
Doe
Globe
Problem
Globes

More quotes by Ted Nelson

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The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do.
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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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So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened.
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Power corrupts, and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely.
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The objective of hypertext research is to save the planet.
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Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry
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Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
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The purpose of computers is human freedom.
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So, I was always frustrated having to write and having to cut things. Why should you have to cut anything?
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They were saying computers deal with numbers. This was absolutely nonsense. Computers deal with arbitrary information of any kind.
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Making things easy is hard.
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Let me introduce the word 'hypertext' to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper.
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The technicalities matter a lot, but the unifying vision matters more.
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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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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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Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do.
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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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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.
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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.
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