Theodor Holm Nelson is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term "hypertext" in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also is credited with first use of the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people. His motto is: Sociology is the study of the social lives of humans, groups and societies. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Information and communication technology spending in 2005 Information Technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is: the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware. ... In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), branch or perform on request. ... Hypermedia is a term used as a logical extension of the term hypertext, in which audio, video, plain text, and non-linear hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information. ... In computer science, some hypertext systems, including Ted Nelsons Xanadu Project, have the capability for documents to include sections of other documents by reference, called transclusion. ... Virtuality is a term that was once used by Ted Nelson to refer to the conceptual structure of an electronic literary system in which ideas could be freely exchanged and linked to one another. ... Intertwingularity is a term coined by Ted Nelson to express the complexity of interrelations in human knowledge. ... Dildonics are electronic sex toys that can be controlled by a computer. ...

A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.

Ted Nelson promotes four maxims: "most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong". (see Chapter II, 3rd paragraph, 3rd and 4th sentences, of: Wolf, G. "The Curse of Xanadu" ^[1]).

Career

Nelson founded Project Xanadu in 1960 with the goal of creating a computer network with a simple user interface. The effort is documented in his 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines and the 1981 Literary Machines. Much of his adult life has been devoted to working on Xanadu and advocating it. Project Xanadu was founded by Ted Nelson in 1960 as the original hypertext project. ...

The Xanadu project itself failed to flourish, for a variety of reasons which are disputed. Journalist Gary Wolf published an unflattering history, The Curse of Xanadu[1], on Nelson and his project in the June, 1995 issue of Wired magazine. Nelson expressed his disgust on his website[2], referring to Wolf as a "Gory Jackal", and threatened to sue him. Wired is a full-color monthly magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. ...

Nelson claims some aspects of his vision are in the process of being fulfilled by Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web. However, Nelson says he dislikes the World Wide Web, XML and all embedded markup, and regards Berners-Lee's work as a gross over-simplification of his own work: Sir Tim Berners-Lee Sir Tim (Timothy John) Berners-Lee, KBE (TimBL or TBL) (b. ... WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... A specialized markup language using SGML is used to write the electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary. ...

HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. – Ted Nelson (Ted Nelson one-liners )

Nelson is working on a new information structure, ZigZag, which is described on the Xanadu project website, which also hosts two versions of the Xanadu code. ZigZag is Ted Nelsons trademark on a data model he has designed for computer interaction, both for users and between programs. ...

He is currently a philosopher and visiting professor at Oxford University working in the fields of information, computers, and human-machine interfaces. The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The ASCII codes for the word Wikipedia represented in binary, the numeral system most commonly used for encoding computer information. ...

Education and awards

Nelson earned a Bachelor's degree in philosophy from Swarthmore College in 1959, a Master's degree in sociology from Harvard University in 1963 and a Doctorate in Media and Governance from Keio University in 2002. A bachelors degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three, four, or in some cases and countries, five or six years. ... Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,450 students. ... “M.S.” redirects here. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Keio University ) is the top private university in Japan, which has a history as Japans very first private institution of higher learning, which dates back to the formation of a school for Dutch studies in 1858 in Edo (now Tokyo) by founder Yukichi Fukuzawa. ...

In 1998, at the Seventh WWW Conference in Brisbane, Australia, Ted Nelson was awarded the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award. He told the audience that it was the first award that he had ever received for his work. This article is about the Australian city. ... The Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award (formerly the SoftQuad Award for Excellence) is a prize awarded annually by the Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation. ...

In 2001 he was knighted by France as "Officier des Arts et Lettres". In 2004 he was appointed as a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and associated with the Oxford Internet Institute, where he is currently conducting his research. College name Wadham College Named after Nicholas Wadham Established 1610 Sister College Christs College Warden Sir Neil Chalmers JCR President Ben Jasper Undergraduates 460 MCR President David Patrikarakos Graduates 180 Homepage Boatclub Wadham College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located at the southern... The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is a multi-disciplinary institute based at the University of Oxford in England, and housed in Balliol College, Oxford. ...

He is the son of the late Emmy Award-winning director Ralph Nelson and the Academy Award-winning actress Celeste Holm, from whom he is estranged. He was reportedly born on June 17, 1937 although most reference sources, including IMDb and IBDb, list his parents' marriage as having lasted from 1938 until 1939^[2]. An Emmy Award. ... A television director is usually responsible for directing the actors and other taped aspects of a television production. ... Ralph Nelson (August 12, 1916 - December 21, 1987) was an American movie and television director, producer, writer, and actor. ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... Celeste Holm (b. ... is the 168th day of the year (169th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) [1] is an online database of information about actors, movies, television shows, television stars and video games. ... Internet Broadway Database The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

His parents' marriage was brief and he was mostly raised by his grandparents in Greenwich Village with relatively little contact with his parents ^[3]. He is partly of Norwegian descent. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

References

1. ^ Wolf, G. "The Curse of Xanadu.", Wired, 3.06, June 1995.Wired.com
2. ^ http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=45451
3. ^ Biography

Bibliography

• Life, Love, College, etc. (1959)
• Computer Lib: You can and must understand computers now/Dream Machines: New freedoms through computer screens—a minority report (1974), Microsoft Press, rev. edition 1987: ISBN 0-914845-49-7
• The Home Computer Revolution (1977)
• Literary Machines: *Literary Machines: The report on, and of, Project Xanadu concerning word processing, electronic publishing, hypertext, thinkertoys, tomorrow's intellectual... including knowledge, education and freedom (1981), Mindful Press, Sausalito, California.
  • Publication dates as listed in the 93.1 (1993) edition: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993
• The Future of Information (1997)

• A Cosmology for a Different Computer Universe: Data Model, Mechanisms, Virtual Machine and Visualization Infrastructure. Journal of Digital Information, Volume 5 Issue 1. Article No. 298, July 16, 2004

Literary Machines is a book by Ted Nelson, published in 1982, describing his Project Xanadu. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Ted Nelson

• Ted Nelson's homepage
• another Ted Nelson's homepage
• detailed Ted Nelson bibliography
• Xanadu project webpage
• Transliterature - A Humanist Design
• The Magical Place of Literary Memory: Xanadu in Screening the Past, July 2005 by Belinda Barnet
• Ted Nelson and Xanadu, in The Electronic Labyrinth, 1993
• The Curse of Xanadu, June 1995 Wired article by Gary Wolf
• reactions to The Curse of Xanadu, September 1995 Wired magazine, from Vint Cerf and Ted Nelson,
• Orality and Hypertext: An Interview with Ted Nelson
• Way Out Of The Box , by Theodor Nelson, October 8, 1999
• Software and Media for a New Democracya talk given by Ted Nelson at the File festival Symposium/November/2005
• Wired article, recalling interview with Nelson, August 2005
• The Politics Of Internet Software 'Geeks Bearing Gifts', a talk given by Ted at the Oxford Internet Institute, November 30, 2005
• Transclusion: Fixing Electronic Literature, a talk given by Ted at Google, January 29, 2007
• Biography