Action items
1) Let’s convene all interested parties this Wednesday from 2-4pm (date and time negotiable, though I can’t do evenings this week) to think together about Being in the World in the World. We can sit on the couch and watch/discuss parts of the film, while mocking up the tools to bootstrap us into higher realms of conversation/insight. Let me know if you want to be part of that conversation, but are unable to join this Wednesday.
2) Let’s watch Engelbart’s lesser-known 1969 demo together one evening. Perhaps next Wednesday (the 17th) at 7:30pm, and perhaps with some facilities for contextual interruptions?
Digression
One of the strangest Engelbart-related documents I’ve stumbled on so far, by way of Bootstrapping (I will leave my copy on the library table):
This is a document written by one Donald “Smokey” Wallace in 1973, and he continues:
Shockingly, this is not his resignation letter:
…but it does seem to represent a sentiment at ARC (Augmentation Research Center) around that time, as the group was dissolving.
There seem to have been a very ambitious & totalizing inter-personal communication/experimentation program at ARC in the 70s called PODAC (Personal and Organizational Development ACtivity). Engelbart initiated it with the following directive:
RMO
Distribution: BMV, DC, CG, GC, MLK, MN, PT, TQS