\usemodule[present-dark] \usemodule[abr-01] \startdocument \StartIdea [ title={Hans Hagen}, remark={PRAGMA ADE, Hasselt NL}, url={www.pragma-ade.com}] {\bfd \setstrut \strut TUG 2001} {\bfa \setstrut \strut A \TEX\ Odyssey} \blank[2*big] \startitemize [packed] \startitem what way are we heading \stopitem \startitem will there be documents \stopitem \startitem is typography still needed \stopitem \startitem are we still talking \TEX \stopitem \stopitemize \StopIdea \StartIdea Until now, the main source of information is books. In the next couple of slides, I will present some quotes from books I read the last couple of years, written by: Arthur \remark {Clarke} {physics}, Greg \remark {Bear} {psychology}, Graham \remark {Hancock} {journalism}, Peter \remark {Wilbur} {ergonomics} and Michael Burke, Jared \remark {Diamond} {history}, Edward \remark {Tufte} {design}, Peter Ward and Donald \remark {Brownlee} {biology}, Steve \remark{Reich} {music} and Beryl Korot, Richard \remark {Kadrey} {fantasy}, Brian \remark {Butterworth} {math} and of course Donald \remark {Knuth} {informatics}. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={ed. David G. Stork}, remark={Hal's Legacy, 1997}] [Arthur Clarke:] Although I've never considered 2001 as a strict predict\-ion|<|but as more of a vision, a way things could work|>|I have long kept track, informally, of how our vision compares with computer science reality. Some things we got right---even righter than we ever had reason to suspect. Others, well, who could have \remark {known} {so, to what extent can we predict the future of documents}. [Summary:] much of the science predicted in 1968 is okay, but with regards to \remark {computers} {in this respect, \TeX\ is surprisingly up|-|to|-|date} a couple of points are missed: they have become smaller, \remark {AI} {and automated text processing is still difficult} is far from operational, natural speech, reasoning and lipreading are not really available, fault tolerance is there, we have lcd's, graphical user interfaces and windows, don't communicate in terminal messages, have mice and other means of input. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Arthur Clarke}, remark={2001, A space Odyssey, p. 66, 1968}] After a short walk through a tunnel packed with pipes and \remark {cables} {we are already going wireless}, and echoing hollowly with rhythmic thumbing and throbbings, they arrived in executive territory, and Floyd found himself back in the familiar environment of \remark {typewriters} {the good old times of \quote {think before you key}}, \remark {office} {indeed, most of today's users run \quote {office}} computers, \remark {girl} {everyone is now a typist} assistants, \remark {wall} {when will we go virtual} charts and ringing telephones. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Arthur Clarke}, remark={2001, A space Odyssey, p. 67, 1968}] There was plenty to occupy his time, even if he did nothing but sit and read. When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes he would \remark {plug} {documents will be in the air} his foolscap|-|sized newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the \remark {codes} {who is using codes today} of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display's unit's short|-|term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly \remark {searched} {we are very good in quick browsing} the headlines and noted the items that interested him. Each had its own \remark {two|-|digit} {aren't we running out of 256.256.256.256 already} reference; when he punched that, the postage|-|stamp|-|sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen, and he could read it with comfort. When had finished he would flash back to the complete remark {page} {will we keep on using composed mixed content pages} and select a new subject for detailed examination. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Arthur Clarke}, remark={2001, A space Odyssey, p. 109, 1968}] Bowman had been a student for more than a half his life; he would continue to be one until he retired. Thanks to the Twentieth Century \remark {revolution} {that has been a pretty quiet revolution then} in training and information|-|handling techniques, he already possessed the \remark {equivalent} {we will stop talking in those qualifications} of two or three college educations|=|and, what was more, he could \remark {remember} {with or without implant} \remark {ninety} {is this still needed with information everywhere} per cent of what he had learned. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Arthur Clarke}, remark={2001, A space Odyssey, p. 132, 1968}] The information flashed on the display screen; simultaneously, a sheet of paper slit out of the slot immediately \remark {beneath} {but aren't screens becoming like paper} it. Despite all the electronic read|-|outs, there were times when good, old|-|fashioned printed material was the most \remark {convenient} {good, because paper is a great invention} form of record. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Greg Bear}, remark={Eon, p. 30, 1985}] The office was neatly organized but still looked cluttered. A small desk manufactured from OTV tank baffles was flanked by chromium bins filled with \remark {rolls} {not much paper will be used in space, I guess} of paper. A narrow shelf of \remark {real} {that sounds pretty sad for around 2000} books hung next to \remark {racks} {will there be such a physical need} of memory blocks sealed behind tough, alarm-equipped plastic panels. \remark {Maps} {we will probably always need an overview} and \remark {diagrams} {and for that we need large projections} were taped to the wall. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Greg Bear}, remark={Eon, p. 132, 1985}] Still, she agreed with a nod and settled into the seat, manipulating the controls with one hand. A simple \remark {circular} {will we move away from rectangular presentations} graphic display \remark {hovered} {that's indeed what we want} before her, as crisp and \remark {clear} {good} as something \remark {solid} {even better}. Takahashi had misinformed her on one point, and her fumbling triggered a tutorial. It corrected her errors and informed her|<|in only slightly \remark {accented} {-)} American \remark {English} {what a pitty for dislectic people}|>|how to operate the equipment properly. Then it provided her with call \remark {numbers} {we really love numbers, don't we} and codes for other types of information. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Greg Bear}, remark={Eon, pp. 132/135, 1985}] The \remark {illusion} {physical presence will become less important} was perfect|<|even providing her with a memory of what her apartment looked like. She could turn her head and look completely behind her if she wished|>|indeed, she could walk around, even through she knew she was sitting down. \unknown\ The information had come in \remark {printed} {don't throw away eons of experience} displays, selected \remark {visuals} {will we keep on changing interfaces} and even more selected \remark {sounds} {we should have started recording already}. Where documentation of the multimedia sort was lacking, print took over, but with subtle and clear vocal accompaniment. Compared to this, simple reading was \remark {torture} {hm, \unknown} and current video methods as \remark {archaic} {eh, \unknown} as cave \remark {paintings} {let's be humble then}. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Greg Bear}, remark={Eon, p. 258, 1985}] \quotation {The P.M.\ has no suspicion of this when you alone were sent?} Toller \remark {picted} {finally ideographic scripts will win the game}. The symbols that flashed between the two men came from pictor torques around their necks, \remark {devices} {we really need an physical update} that had developed over the centuries in the Thistledown and in the Axis City. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Graham Hancock}, remark={Fingerprints of the gods, Graham Hancock, p. 120, 1995}] More systematically, all over Central America, vast repositories of knowledge \remark {accumulated} {as today in libraries, on servers and in our houses} since ancient times were painstakingly gathered, heaped up and burned by zealous friars. In July 1562, for example, in the main square of Mani (just south of modern Merida in Yucatan Province) Fr Diego de Landa \remark {burned} {and all can get lost forever} thousands of Maya codices, story paintings and hieroglyphs inscribed on rolled|-|up deer \remark {skins} {how about bits curled up on CDROM's}. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Graham Hancock}, remark={Fingerprints of the gods, Graham Hancock, p. 520/526, 1995}] We know that out late twentieth|-|century, post|-|industrial civilization is about to be destroyed by an \remark {inescapable} {not that imaginary, it has happened before} cosmic or geological cataclysm. We know|<|because our science is pretty good|>|that the destruction is going to be \remark {{\em near|-|total}} {one 10-30 km meteor or even one lunatic president will do}. \blank \unknown \blank I'm sure that we'd want to say more than just \quote {Kilroy was here}. \blank \unknown \blank And, yes, \remark {they} {pyramid builders 12,000 years ago} found an ingenious way to tell \remark {us} {who more and more think short|-|term} that they were \remark {here} {what will we leave behind}. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Jared Diamond}, remark={Guns, Germs and Steel, A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 years, p. 260, 1997}] Human technology developed from the first stone tools, in use by two and a half million years ago, to the 1996 laser \remark {printer} {the ones that produced sticky fading print|-|outs} that replaced my already outdated 1992 \remark {laser} {and now we want color on the desktop} printer and that was used to print this book's manuscript. The rate of development was undetectably slow at the beginning, when hundreds of thousands of years passed with no discernible change in out stone tools and with no surviving evidence for artifacts and of other materials. Today, technology advances so \remark {rapidly} {so let's be careful in claiming advance} that it is reported in the daily \remark {newspaper} {less and less people read them}. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Jared Diamond}, remark={Guns, Germs and Steel, A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 years, p. 418, 1997}] The decision could have gone to another keyboard at any of numerous stages between the 1860s and the 1880's; nothing about the American environment favored the \hbox {QWERTY} keyboard over its rivals. \unknown\ For example, if the \hbox {QWERTY} keyboard of the United States had not been adopted elsewhere in the world as well|<|say, if Japan or Europe had adopted the more \remark {efficient} {so why don't we take that one} Dvorak keyboard|>|that trivial decision in the 19\high{th} century might have had big consequences for the competative position of the 20\high{th}|-|century \remark {American} {isn't \TeX\ also best tuned for english} technology. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Peter Wilbur \& Michael Burke}, remark={Information Graphics, Innovative Solutions in Contemporary Design, p. 87, 1998}] It was generally \remark {agreed} {so let's judge with care} at that time that products which tried to fulfil two or more \remark {functions} {how many functions are there in a book} were compromises and therefore inferior to a single|-|function product. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Peter Wilbur \& Michael Burke}, remark={Information Graphics, Innovative Solutions in Contemporary Design, p. 17, 1998}] All of this implies that design students of the future will need to have a much wider range of skills than most graphic and multimedia students possess today. The coming \remark {together} {which is better: overloaded CNN news screens or the more traditional ones} of typography, graphics, the moving image, sound and music requires training in both \remark {aesthetic} {let's hope for the best} judgment and technical skills, as well as the ability to implement and commission \remark {multimedia} {the current hype will become a decent craft} productions. Such a program hardly exists today, and it may be that \remark {designers} {or will machines do the work} of the future will find themselves on courses equal in duration and related in structure to those followed by architects. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Greg Bear}, remark={Darwin's radio, p. 271, 1999}] \quotation {As far as it goes}, Kaye said. \quotation {I believe our genome is much more \remark {clever} {let's hope that we can cope with the future} than we are. It's taken us tens of thousands of years to get to to the point where we have a hope of understanding how life works. \unknown\ The Earth species have learned how to anticipate climate change and respond to it in advance, get a head start, and I believe, in our case, our genome is now responding to social \remark {change} {like writing, reading, processing, collecting information} and the \remark {stress} {ability to keep track of things} it causes.} \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Greg Bear}, remark={Darwin's radio, p. 404, 1999}] She looked at the cover and laughed out loud. It was a copy of WIRED, and on the brilliant orange cover was printed the black silhouette of a curled fetus with a green question mark across the middle. The log line read \quotation {\em Human 3.0: Not a Virus, but an \remark {Upgrade} {or: complex talking & communicating in color, smell and taste}?} \StopIdea \StartIdea [title={Edward R. Tufte}] We thrive in information|-|thick worlds because of our marvelous and everyday \remark {capacity} {that is us, now, or maybe until recently} to select, edit, single out, structure, highlight, group, pair, merge, harmonize, synthesize, focus, organize, condense, reduce, boil down, choose, categorize, catalog, classify, list, abstract, scan, look into, idealize, isolate, discriminate, distinguish, screen, pigeonhole, pick over, sort, integrate, blend, inspect, filter, lump, skip, smooth, chunk, average, approximate, cluster, aggregate, outline, summarize, itemize, review, dip into, flip through, browse, glance into, leaf through, skim, refine, enumerate, glean, synopsize, \remark {winnow} {do we really} the wheat from the chaff and separate the sheep from the goats. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Donald E. Knuth}, remark={Selected Papers in Computer Science, p. 95, 1996}] I believe that the real reason underlying the fact that Computer Science has become a thriving discipline at essential all of the world's universities, although it was totally \remark {unknown} {much more is yet unknown, but we don't know what} twenty years ago, is {\em not} that computers exist in quantity; the real reason is that the algorithmic thinkers among scientists of the world never before had a home. We are brought \remark {together} {there will be more new disciplines} in Computer Science departments {\em because we find people who think like we do}. At least, that seems a viable hypothesis, which hasn't been contradicted by my observations during the last half dozen or so years since the possibility occurred to me. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Brian Butterworth}, remark={The Mathematical Brain, p. 162, 1999}] Nevertheless, it is now abundantly clear that infants are born with a \remark {capacity} {what more is lurking there} to recognize distinct numerosities up to about~4, and to respond to changes in numerosity. They also possess arithmical expectations: .... \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Brian Butterworth}, remark={The Mathematical Brain, p. 275, 1999}] Imagine, if you can, asking Archimed, the greatest mathematician of antiquity, to solve the equation: \startformula 2a^2 + 3ab - 4b^2 = 0 \stopformula \remark {He} {would your parents recognize \type {} as such} would have less chance than an average educated fourteen|-|year|-|old, simply because he would not know what the strange \remark {symbols} {or recognize hyperlinks} $0$, $2$, $3$, and $4$ mean because thet weren't invented till seven centuries after his murder; nor $+$ and $-$, German inventions of the fifteenth century; not to mention \remark {$=$} {or be able to interpret a regular expression}, which was invented by the Englishman Robert Recorde in the sixteenth century. He would also have had a problem with the \remark {idea} {or be able to picture the internet} that equations can have negative roots. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Richard Kadrey}, remark={From Myst to Riven, the Creations and Inspirations, p. 16, 1997}] Some of basics of the D'ni bookmaking are known, but the most important \remark {details} {can we still make Gutenberg bibles} have been \remark {lost} {how do we preserve what we have} over time. \unknown\ From the few existing \remark {records} {how much is really new} lost it appears that the D'ni have been using their Linking books for millenia, and that they \remark {linked} {then they manage their links better than we do} to the earth around 10,000 terrestial years ago. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Richard Kadrey}, remark={From Myst to Riven, the Creations and Inspirations, p. 81,1997}] Glancing at the surface of thing, {\em Myst} and {\em Riven} might seem more of a technical achievement in computer \remark {artistry} {for this a real new way of thinking is needed} and the fine points of modeling frames for objects and designing surface textures and shader programs to reflect hyper|-|reality. It is very easy to focus exclusively on the cool factor of what you see and to overlook what is the underlying key to the success of these games: they are \remark {story} {authorship will change} driven. What really sucks the player in is that there is a deeply felt {\em purpose} to playing the \remark {game} {and the less we need to work, the more we will game}. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Steve Reich \& Beryl Korot}, remark={The Cave, 1995}] The true underpinnings were our interest in making a \remark {new} {the time is ready for revolutionary new ways of presenting information} kind of musical theater based on videotaped documentary sources. The idea was that you would be able to see and hear people as they spoke on the videotape and simultaneously you would see and hear on|-|stage musicians \remark {doubling} {also accompanied by char|-|by|-|char typesetting} them|=|actually playing their speech melodies as they spoke. \StopIdea \StartIdea [ title={Peter D. Ward \& Donald Brownlee}, remark={Rare Earth, Why Complex Life us Uncommon in the Universe, p. xxiv, 2000}] If it is found to be correct, however, the Rare Earth Hypothesis will reverse that decentering trend. What if the Earth, with its cargo of advanced animals, is virtually unique in this quadrant of the galaxy|=|the most diverse planet, say, in the nearest 10,000 light|-|years? What if it is utterly unique: the only planet with animals in this galaxy or even in the visible Universe, a bastion of animals amid a sea of microbe|-|infested worlds? If that is the case, how much greater the loss the Universe sustains for each species of animals or planet driven to extinction trough the \remark {careless} {like more and more paper} stewardship of Homo Sapiens? \crlf Welcome \remark {aboard} {but let's move on with care}. \StopIdea \stopdocument