(2005-11-03) Nelson Transliterature

Ted Nelson has a new manifesto called Trans Literature with a new software spec called Trans Lit. At this point I'm too bored with him to try and figure out whether any of this is different from his earlier stuff.

• maybe he should at least get someone to make a flash demo, like was done for Jef Raskin's Zooming interface.

• SlashDot thread

  • IFTF post
  • another IFTF post

• interview with Dan Drake, co-founder of AutoDesk, mentions their Xanadu investment. (Also includes a snark at Carol Bartz, who has been AutoDesk CEO since 1992.)

  • which triggered a Blue Oxen thread as to whether Xanadu could be actually implemented now that we have faster hardware, and whether it would actually solve any problems that anyone cares about. Trouble is, they were heavy techies who wanted to get things right, and did not have the "you must ship something" imperative that the old hacking types did. They designed, and designed and designed and had a great trouble getting any-some crummy thing to ship.