the mother of all demos

Fifty years ago on this day, computer engineer and inventor addressed a gathering of fellow enthusiasts at conference in San Francisco and presented a comprehensive introduction of nearly everything that we would come to expect personal and business computing to deliver over the following decades and up to the present—except perhaps not imagining to speed or to scale.
The ninety minute hardware and software demonstration, inspired by the work of Vannevar Bush (here and here), was a rather extemporaneous display on mouse-usage, multiple tabs and windows, hypertext links, graphic interface, tele-conferencing, word-processing and version-control (collaborative editing). The vaunted title is itself a snowclone of the a translation of a warning issued by Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1991 that presaged that the US would face the “mother of all battles” should it choose to counter the country’s annexation of Kuwait, the turn-of-phrase itself sourced to the 636 AD battle of al-Qadisiyyah when the Arabs defeated the Persians and brought Islam to their newly annexed territories. The working title of the presentation was the more prosaic A Research Centre for Augmenting the Human Intellect and Mother of All Demos was appended far after the fact.

dualphoto

Via Colossal, we are introduced to compositional gifted photographer RK, who has a particular eye for framing and capturing the juxtaposing and the disorientating.  A dualphoto is actually the technique of taking a picture with two cameras facing in opposite directions to capture a comprehensive image but the term seemed to fit.  A portal-plane variation is a geographical remote one with synchronised picture-taking.  We were especially taken with the scenes from Japan that contrast traditional trappings with the encroaching modern world—which looks to be kept sufficiently in abeyance to ensure that the timeless is not forgotten. View more of the artist’s portfolio at the links up top.

font specimen

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we rather enjoyed indulging this in depth analysis of the visual references, typographical and architectural, that are to be teased out, scene-by-scene, in the Pixar animated film WALL·E.
By the way that’s an interpunct in the middle of the robot’s name and not a dot nor dash since in space, no one can hear you kern—and our protagonist, navigating through his world manages to pull off embracing both the ruin of over-consumption and the giddy hope that is something akin to the NASA style book that branded the latter decades of the Space Race.  In both sweeping vistas and details too splendid to overlook even though they only appear for a fraction of a beat, there is quite an impressive amount of attention to design, gags and marketing baked into each background to appreciate.  Much more to explore at the link up top.

upcycling

NPR’s latest thematic TED Talks digest covers a variety of topics on the circular economy, as modelled by the natural world where nothing goes to waste and systems are regenerative, as opposed to growth-oriented linear industries.
One key principle is of course resource recovery—which is exemplified by one entrepreneurial venture known as Plastic Bank. Based in underserved communities, the programme that incentives clean up operations in an earnest and transformative way that pays people for bringing in and sorting and separating packaging with a bankable virtual currency that can be redeemed for food, tuition and other essentials. This salvaged raw material is resold at a premium to manufacturers and plastic is not only kept out of the oceans and food-chain, the planet also benefits by needing less new material, tightening the loop, and the people who take part in it are given more financial independence. There’s a whole medley of good ideas discussed in the podcast.