[ben1040]

I first read this 15 years ago in high school, when a teacher of mine saw the web first take hold and felt it important enough to photocopy this piece and spend several days in class discussing it.

However, we had really only discussed the concept of hypertext and how it fit with Bush's designs -- so much of the other concepts in the piece seem dependent upon technology which was still "far off" when I first read it in 1995. Digital photography was still a curiosity too expensive to be universally practical; I still spent lots of money getting film developed to have pictures that now sit unindexed in shoeboxes. E-ink wouldn't exist for several more years. Networked tablets were what Geordi LaForge carried around on Star Trek, not what you could buy for a few hundred bucks and use to read one of thousands of books while sitting at a bus stop. I would never expect that speech recognition would get "good enough" that I could have voice messages automatically transcribed and emailed to me.

It still blows my mind when Google Voice takes a voicemail and the transcript appears on an app on my smartphone. I still have that kid in a candy store feeling when reading a book on my iPad, or browsing all sorts of movies on Netflix's streaming service. This stuff is all amazing and I hope I never take it for granted.

[kragen]

It still blows my mind when Google Voice takes a voicemail and the transcript appears on an app on my smartphone.

Are you sure Google Voice transcribes all voicemail manually? There are call centers in third-world countries where people transcribe USA voicemails, you know.

[JeremyBanks]

It's automatic: http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

[CamperBob]

The fact that he doesn't know or care makes the magic all the more compelling.

[kirse]

This stuff is all amazing and I hope I never take it for granted.

Don't get me wrong, but usually people say they don't want to "take it for granted" about something that has a high level of intrinsic value.

For example: other people, our relationships, running water, principles for living, etc...

Streaming movies and reading on our $700 iPads generally falls into the category of "useless consumerist things we could do without"

[jacquesm]

The Ipad is a consumption device, unless you've found a professional niche to employ it you probably could do without it. But for me the magic is when I'm in some foreign country sitting in a hole in the wall cafetaria and my mom calls me and doesn't even realize I'm not even on the same continent.

There is plenty of magic in all this new stuff, you just have to think for a second what life was like in the 80's (2 MHz computers and bigger stereos) to appreciate the benefits of all this stuff.

[Create]

This is just PR, literally. In a magazine. Just as TimBL, and the other claimants of hypertext/network/technology pieces in the comments below.

The story is not unlike the one about going to the Moon. Verne wrote about it. Physicists judged it too, to be easy (just fill in F=ma so that you escape Earth with enough thrust -- only need to build a rocket large enough). Engineering/Engineers are the last thing being given credit to. Who actually fulfilled the dream.

But my personal favourite is the Belgian.

For ADD-ers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRN5m64I7Y

A nice story: http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet

in text: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul...