Computers for Cynics (Ted Nelson video essays on computers)

[Melooon]

Hello, I'm just making this thread to share and discuss Ted Nelson's little web series from a few years ago called Computers for Cynics. Ted Nelson was one of the early computer pioneer gang in the early 1970s and he helped invent the idea of hypertext (leading to HTML) 

This series of web essays is from 2012 and he talks about the history of computers, and the web, and questions many of the fundamental assumptions about technology and how computers are designed - it's well worth a watch for anyone into tech, or the web!

I've always been a big fan of Ted Nelson, but I will say his video production skills have never been great, so he can come across as a bit of a grouch talking to his webcam However it's well worth getting past that, because his take on the web is genuinely fascinating and well informed.

Here is episode one, and the rest can be found here!

Did you watch any? Did it change anything about how you think about tech and the web? Lemmy know! 

[memento]

ted nelson has always been a fascinating figure to me. computer lib/dream machines has been on my to-read list for years now, and i just might have to start reading it soon. i've spent a lot of time reading about him and his projects but i didn't realize he had a youtube channel with so many videos on it! i think it's important for us on the indie web (or anyone curious about computers!) to know about him. he's very opinionated but regardless of if you agree with him on something or not, he still encourages you to think about what computers could do outside of big tech's constraints. thanks for sharing melon, i'm excited to watch more of this series :-)