WorldBrain Memex Tool

[Diego Mesa]

Just came across this tool on Hacker News today, and found the tools capabilities and users comments interesting

Article:

https://getmemex.com/

HN Comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23227186

Some of you might also be interested

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Diego

If I had time I'd love to try to contextualise this. And point how TW could do similar.

I don't have the time.

A point I'd like make is that the search for a "memex machine" predates the net and was, in many ways, a shaping influence upon its development.

It would be interesting to look back at the precursors and see how well their conceptions were achieved or not.

In a month or two I might have time to do that.

I do think its very useful to try get to an overview of Information Retrieval as its emerged --- as well as the "Tuttle" / "Buttle" problem (dealt with well in Gilliam's film BRAZIL).

I'm not being totally tongue-in-cheek.

I thank you for that post as its "on-the-point". Very relevant to TW. Got me re-thinking about "How's".

Best wishes, TT

[Mark Kerrigan]

It's interesting they chose to include memex in their title. It reminds me a lot of the same lofty goal Ted Nelson had with Project Xanadu. The sense is if you choose a name referencing an unimplemented project, it sort of becomes a bad omen. That's what I think of here. I have no doubt this project will succeed, but how long will it last?

File that under "what's in a name"

For me personally I actually did create a TW5 where I was in the habit of downloading all of my Pinboard bookmarks as markdown files, but this required too much hand massaging to work through trying to extract article content and images. But since I pay for the packrat feature of Pinboard, if the original link goes down I can always view an archived version or or from the Internet Archive. 

I use this TW5 as sort of an index for various short videos and podcasts I've downloaded and keep in a B2 bucket. Although I would say my workflows surrounding this are not as optimized as they could be. Would like to see if anyone else has created any other similar TW for keeping an offline index for bookmarks and media content

- Mark

[TonyM]

MArk,

I have an other similar TW for keeping an offline index for bookmarks and (media content. not so much)

It is as follows

• TiddlyDesktop single file wiki
• Has a view template that displays on untitled tiddlers, the result of dragging and dropping a link, or pasting something in the window.
• This view on untitled tiddlers comes up if the text feild contains a link

Opening a link tiddler I can add more details

Then I can view all my bookmarks on a tiddler, that includes a search mechanism

 

I am sure I could make use of a node version with skinny tiddlers, or canonical uris for images but I prefer tiddlydesktop due to its ability to accept links to files folders and execute applications and batches on my windows desktop.

Regards

Tony

[TiddlyTweeter]

Mark Kerrigan wrote:

It's interesting they chose to include memex in their title. It reminds me a lot of the same lofty goal Ted Nelson had with Project Xanadu. The sense is if you choose a name referencing an unimplemented project, it sort of becomes a bad omen. That's what I think of here. I have no doubt this project will succeed, but how long will it last?

Right. It's slightly pompous too as "Memex". It's not as if its features are new discoveries. But it has merit in seeking an explicit integration of them I think. 

Could be seen as a kind of "roadmap" to emulate/implement in TW too.

 File that under "what's in a name"

Briefly, "MEMEX" concept (basically an extension brain with good memory) was introduced by Vannevar Bush in the 1940's. Vannevar may well have had more influence on the development of the net than Ted Nelson, starting later, did. Only a decent history of the net will decide that. Vannevar was a seriously important decision maker in the USA systems thinking, and involved in big projects like the Manhattan Project. He was also a major promoter of analogue computing.

Side notes

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao All ..

TonyM, thanks for posting this, below ... A few screenshots are better than a thousand words. Definitely shows the potential and its value.

Something I'd like to strongly emphasise your post shows, but doesn't headline, is that by using a TW that can interact with the OS on desktops you can build most everything for a "Memex" tool of the type linked to in Diego's OP.

FWIW, some time ago, at the Firefox Apocalypse (loss of easy arbitrary file saving in browsers), Steve Schneider wondered if we could through TW replicate the Firefox Extension "Scrapbook" (sophisticated, in browser, Web page save, local archive search, bookmark & edit) without the later limits that have made it far less useful.

In TW: Bob, and maybe TiddlyDesktop, might provide ways to do this via launch of basic OS utilities. Polly (a Powershell batch scripting solution Mark S. & I worked on--though not really known or used much yet as far as we know) that is an entirely browser independent saving tool for TW on desktop platforms, could, probably, be extended that way too.

What is my point? Simply that once you can have basic launch of tools at OS level by a TW you can build stuff that TW can then use.

From that point of view something close to the "Memex" of the OP should be possible.

Thoughts

TT

[TonyM]

TT

Yes I was there at the beginning of you making the utility. You two took it in a different direction to me.

Building wikis that demand tiddly desktop is a good start to computer side install and setup for any OS solution. The value is tiddly wiki can be used to guide, automate and document. I have investigated this and see lots of possibilities and a few limitations;

the ability to import automatically a file if it exists or changes then process it further.

Drag and drop from is to canonical link

Ability to hold and export small executables

Export a binary tiddler as its original self e.g. from a tiddler library of png files.

Regards
Tony