Power corrupts, and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely. Ted Nelson More Quotes by Ted Nelson More Quotes From Ted Nelson Making things easy is hard. Ted Nelson hard easy Telling computer guys that they need to have permission to quote things is like having to tell little children about Death. Ted Nelson guy children needs The world is not yet finished, but everyone is behaving as if everything was known. This is not true. In fact, the computer world as we know it is based upon one tradition that has been waddling along for the last fifty years, growing in size and ungainliness, and is essentially defining the way we do everything. My view is that today’s computer world is based on techie misunderstandings of human thought and human life. And the imposition of inappropriate structures throughout the computer is the imposition of inappropriate structures on the things we want to do in the human world. Ted Nelson defining views years Everything is deeply intertwingled. Ted Nelson 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 cat struggle ideas You can and must understand computers now. Ted Nelson computer Regularity chauvinists are people who insist that you have got to do the same thing every time, every day, which drives some of us nuts. Attention Deficit Disorder - we need a more positive term for that. Hummingbird mind, I should think. Ted Nelson nuts people thinking 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 views believe people A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds. Ted Nelson beginners emergencies simple In my second year in graduate school, I took a computer course and that was like lightening striking. Ted Nelson graduation inspirational funny What we now call the browser is whatever defines the web. What fits in the browser is the World Wide Web and a number of trivial standards to handle that so that the content comes. Ted Nelson corny numbers world So, what you can do in Microsoft Word is what Bill Gates has decided. What you can do in Oracle Database is what Larry Ellison and his crew have decided. Ted Nelson microsoft-word oracles bills Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything. Ted Nelson desktop computer mean The Web is trivially simple - massively successful and its like Karaoke - anybody can do it. Ted Nelson politics successful simple The paperless office is possible, but not by imitating paper. Note that the horseless carriage did not work by imitating horses. Ted Nelson horse office paper But it seemed to me that as soon as you have computer storage you could put every point you wanted in - make the ones that are less relevant to your central topic, further away or allow the central topic to move as the reader proceeded. Ted Nelson topics computer moving How is MS-DOS like MSG? Both raise your blood pressure and give you a tightening sensation around your forehead. Ted Nelson msg giving blood Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do. Ted Nelson computer I was very intensely concerned with all kinds of new media. Ted Nelson concerned media kind Project Xanadu is essentially my trademark. It was originally, and has returned to my arms as that. Ted Nelson trademarks arms projects