Bush and Berners  

CISC 2350 HW#3
Vannevar Bush: As We May Think
Tim Berners Lee: Long Live the Web

As We May Think

Bush reflects on how far science has come from years ago. He gives examples of Leibnitz and Babbage, who could not make their inventions come to reality.

“The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability and something is bound to come of it.”

Although we have progressed so much, there are still problems that arise when trying to solve new problems.

“Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use … Progress is inhibited by the exceedingly crude way in which mathematicians express their relationships.”

It would seem like there is one main problem: that there is a lag that needs to be dealt with. However, this problem runs deeper than that. The problem lays with the fact that our brains do not work like how these systems work. We use association, but these systems are alphabetized and everything has its own rightful place.

Thus, Bush came up with the idea of a memex! A memex was essentially a computer as Bush describes it as machine that would would have levers and a keyboard. It is incredibly that Bush was able to come up with the idea of a computer years before it was created as he imagined. However, I wonder why someone would think we should need a computer to keep our thoughts organized? It's true a computer/laptop really helps us nowadays, but what about those without one? Regardless, Bush did a great job with this essay in explaining his thoughts.

Long Live the Web

I think this reading was very interesting because it was talking about how the world wide web has changed since it was launched 30 years ago. It brings up the importance of protecting the internet. If you think about it, how can we survive without the web? Right now, we are in a pandemic and without the web, we would be stuck with only being able to talk to those we live with and people, whose phone numbers we actually have memorized. Berners is right, people need to understand that we must stop the web from withering. The web is such an essential part of everyday life now, and we have to stop companies from becoming monopolies and slowly taking over the web. Another important thing to keep in mind is net neutrality. Companies wanted to charge people for access to services and not the internet that houses everything. This is completely unfair and classist. Finally, I love how this article ended.

“The goal of the Web is to serve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot ourselves imagine.”