Dr. Bush

While reading this article I had to keep reminding myself of the time and context under which it was written. I felt it necessary to picture a man with a personal scribe in an oil lamp lit room pondering future events. I know this is quite dramatic and even off the mark a bit, but the context of the piece is what made the reading interesting for me. If anything, this piece painted a picture of the world in which my grandparents participated. And as you know, that world, especially in terms of technology is vastly different.

As Andrew stated in his blog entry, Dr.Bush was pretty spot on with a lot of his predictions. It's amazing to me that there were people back in those days thinking about how we would compile and search the large amount of information that is presented to us. His predictions about specialization and compression of information are true. One can definitely draw distinct parallel's to the internet and his Memex (memory+index) concept and hypertext. The video link was also a prediction of how people would access information in the future, I found those visuals almost surreal.

I think the old cliche' "always remember where you come from" holds true in both personal and professional endeavors. These history lessons reminds us of our progress and what the technology sector was once like. These minds were a large part of making what our digital world is like today. They weren't concerned with individual perseverance- it seems their work and research was geared more towards bettering man and our society.

I also think the readings serve as a means of inspiration. Think big. The concepts we develop can of course seem non-executable or outlandish now, but just imagine the reaction some of these minds may have faced when they presented their ideas. The world is now familiar with technology and we embrace new and exciting ideas. Designers in the digital space have the ability to shape, mold, and predict the future of their medium.