incessant ramblings

Better late than never.

While the Bush's writings were hard to follow, there is still the fact that the memex shows a striking resemblance to today's internet, with a lot of added bells and whistles.

As stated, human memory relies on the association of information. The internet has come to mimic this quite well, especially more recently with the introduction of things such as Wikipedia, social bookmarking sites, and the tags on blogs. Like the memory of a human, it has nearly limitless space, it changes by the minute, and it is not absolute. Everyone's associations are different, just like the information on the web has different associations depending on who has created or viewed it.

While the memex allows association as well, it becomes more complicated than I think would be convenient. It would have relied on codes to call up information...codes which would have been stored in a book (one of the very things the machine was supposed to store I might add!). With the internet, we have things like Google where we can search for a subject and find thousands of relevant websites with information on the topic. No need to look up a string of numbers...just know what you want to know! Or you may just have a site bookmarked. Click it and you're there!

One thing the idea did well was the ability to bring up multiple documents at once. It allows for so many more uses of the machine. It would be awfully hard to compare documents when you keep having to switch back and forth.

As for the storage of books, there is a nice feeling about having a library/collection of physical books. Or maybe it's just me. I love to sit around and read a book, rather than staring in to a back-lit screen which can eventually give me large headaches. Luckily for us, I don't think the death of the book is coming too soon, if ever. If it does, I may just die a little inside.

While the memex had many functions that one would find quite useful when searching or scrolling through information, it's levers and keys do not compare to the simple point/click/type functions of the computer. The memex seems to be for people who know what they want. The internet is for those who maybe don't know right away, but will soon find out.

Though from the sound of it, the memex could be a nightmare for the obsessive compulsive user! Too many ways to organize, and oh so little time. Then again, computers and the internet are like this anyway. Being a little OCD myself, the internet makes my head hurt.


Wow this looks way longer when it's been published.