Ted Nelson Quotes - Page 2

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• So, that notion of hypertext seemed to me immediately obvious because footnotes were already the ideas wriggling, struggling to get free, like a cat trying to get out of your arms.

  Ted Nelson

  Struggle, Cat, Ideas

  9 Copy quote

• Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything.

  Ted Nelson

  Mean, Computer, Desktop

  7 Copy quote

• Telling computer guys that they need to have permission to quote things is like having to tell little children about Death.

  Ted Nelson

  Children, Guy, Needs

  7 Copy quote

• I thought I was going to be a filmmaker but at the same time I was an intellectual and I felt that I could make a contribution to some field, as yet, not invented.

  Ted Nelson

  Intellectual, Fields, Filmmaker

  9 Copy quote

• The objective of hypertext research is to save the planet.

  Ted Nelson

  Research, Planets, Save The Planet

  4 Copy quote

• You can and must understand computers now.

  Ted Nelson

  Computer

  "Computer Lib: You Can and Must Understand Computers Now". Book by Ted Nelson, 1974.

  4 Copy quote

• The paperless office is possible, but not by imitating paper. Note that the horseless carriage did not work by imitating horses.

  Ted Nelson

  Horse, Office, Paper

  12 Copy quote

• Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do.

  Ted Nelson

  Computer

  "The curse of Xanadu" by Gary Wolf, www.wired.com. June 1, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• I see Professionalism as a spreading disease of the present-day world, a sort of poly-oligarchy by which various groups (subway conductors, social workers, bricklayers) can bring things to a halt if their particular demands are not met. (Meanwhile, the irrelevance of each profession increases, in proportion to its increasing rigidity.) Such lucky groups demand more in each go-round - but meantime, the number who are permanently unemployed grows and grows.

  Ted Nelson

  Numbers, Irrelevance, World

  "Computer Lib/Dream Machines". Book by Ted Nelson, 1974.

  11 Copy quote

• I have long been alarmed by people's sheeplike acceptance of the term 'computer technology' - it sounds so objective and inexorable - when most computer technology is really a bunch of ideas turned into conventions and packages.

  Ted Nelson

  Acceptance, Technology, Ideas

  "In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates" by John Markoff, www.nytimes.com. January 10, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• So, what you can do in Microsoft Word is what Bill Gates has decided. What you can do in Oracle Database is what Larry Ellison and his crew have decided.

  Ted Nelson

  Microsoft Word, Oracles, Bills

  20 Copy quote

• In my second year in graduate school, I took a computer course and that was like lightening striking.

  Ted Nelson

  Inspirational, Funny, Graduation

  7 Copy quote

• The Web is trivially simple - massively successful and its like Karaoke - anybody can do it.

  Ted Nelson

  Successful, Simple, Politics

  4 Copy quote

• What we now call the browser is whatever defines the web. What fits in the browser is the World Wide Web and a number of trivial standards to handle that so that the content comes.

  Ted Nelson

  Numbers, World, Corny

  8 Copy quote

• I am looking at it from the point of view of a harried user, which I am, and I believe that I am much more like the typical non-technical harried user than I am like the people who smoothly operate everything.

  Ted Nelson

  Believe, Views, People

  4 Copy quote

• How is MS-DOS like MSG? Both raise your blood pressure and give you a tightening sensation around your forehead.

  Ted Nelson

  Blood, Msg, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened.

  Ted Nelson

  Inspirational, Funny, Graduation

  7 Copy quote

• I was very intensely concerned with all kinds of new media.

  Ted Nelson

  Media, Kind, Concerned

  16 Copy quote

• The point is that these decisions they've made are partly for your convenience and partly for theirs and partly out of stereotypes that they carry with them from the conventions of the computer field.

  Ted Nelson

  Decision, Fields, Computer

  7 Copy quote

• But it seemed to me that as soon as you have computer storage you could put every point you wanted in - make the ones that are less relevant to your central topic, further away or allow the central topic to move as the reader proceeded.

  Ted Nelson

  Moving, Topics, Computer

  4 Copy quote

• So, I was always frustrated having to write and having to cut things. Why should you have to cut anything?

  Ted Nelson

  Writing, Cutting, Frustrated

  7 Copy quote

• Project Xanadu is essentially my trademark. It was originally, and has returned to my arms as that.

  Ted Nelson

  Arms, Projects, Trademarks

  7 Copy quote

• The ideas keep going, you have the material, you cut because there's a limit to the space allowed to you. And the space is limited because of some other constraints that have to do with money or printing or whatever.

  Ted Nelson

  Cutting, Ideas, Space

  7 Copy quote

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