Reading Reflection

As We May Think by Vannevar Bush (1945)

Taking in consideration that this essay was written in 1945, from the start it is interesting to see what Dr. Vannevar Bush was able to imagine and how that compare to the inventions of today's society. Bush was able to visualize a future with his concept of "the memex", built on his idea of building on the human mind, instead of just extending "man's physical powers" as the editor mentions.. He wanted to extend on the "human memory and the human ability to catalog, categorize, and recollect the totality of human information". So, to achieve this, he thought of the memex, a device that would store books, records and communications, which would be built to be easily and quickly accessible. It makes you think how forward-thinking Bush was. With the inventions of today - that must have seem as impossible and/or just dreams - we have been able to achieve that, and even continue to build on that. How far we have come.

Long Live the Web by Tim Berners Lee (2010)

From when he made the World Wide Web live with only one Web site and one browser, Tim Berners-Lee intended for it to be a place where "...any person could share information with anyone else, anywhere". There is a universality behind it in order for it to help humanity and bring people, ideas and knowledge together. Since then the Web has quickly grow, and so have what Lee considers threats to the internet, such as net neutrality and surveillance. Lee sends a message warning us of those threats. The only reason the Web has been able to grow to this magnitude is because, with an open-sourced Web, users have continuously built upon it and expanded on the capabilities of it - may it have been on their own or even through freely communicating with one another. Going back to the basic principles of the Web is what can help with the its flourishment.