Douglas Adams - Hyperland
Why Hacker News recommends it
Treated as a remarkable early look at ideas like hypertext, agents and the web before they existed.
What it is
Hyperland is a 1990 BBC documentary written by and starring Douglas Adams, who tours an imagined future of hypertext and software agents. It features Ted Nelson among others.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2016 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec DonHopkins · 2020-03 · on “Hyperland (1990) [video]”
I just discovered this amazing documentary about hypertext from 1990, written by Douglas Adams, with Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor Who!) as a Software Agent, and featuring many other amazing people, like Ted Nelson! Douglas Adams Hyperland [this video] >Douglas Adams: Are you sure you mean Agent? >Software Agent: I mean that I'm a Software Agent. I am merely a simulacrum. An artificial and completely customizable personality. And I only exist as what we call an "Application" in your computer. I have the honor to provide instant access to every piece of information stored digitally anywhere in the world. Any picture, or film, any sound, any book, any statistic, any fact. Any connection between anyt
Cites sp332 · 2016-03 · on “Microsoft Bot Framework”
This reminds me strongly of "agents" that were going to do your bidding, as prophesied in the early 90's. Here's video of Douglas Adams and Tim Baker giving a tour of the future. [this video]
Cites enkiv2 · 2018-04 · on “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”
Ted Nelson's Computers for Cynics probably doesn't contain technical information that's new to any of you, but Ted has a knack for reframing things in ways that make the arbitrariness of certain historical decisions clear: [LINK] On the subject of hypertext, The Web That Wasn't gives a nice history of the idea (for anybody who thinks it starts with TBL -- surprisingly many people!): [LINK] Another reframing-oriented talk is Clay Shirky's "It's not information overload, it's filter failure", which ultimately leads to Shirky suggesting the kinds of user-oriented filtering features that Mastodon has implemented: [LINK] At the intersection of neurology and information science, Peter Watts always