Don’t abstract your elders

Todd posted an account of his experience at Flashforward 2002 in NYC. During the Macromedia keynote, Kevin Lynch queried the audience about Douglas Engelbart; less than 2% of the 400 person audience knew who he was. Lynch went on to tell the audience about the man who had invented the mouse and had therefore made all their amazing Flash animations and applications possible. After playing a selection of Engelbart’s demonstration of the mouse, Lynch launched a Flash application displaying a live webcam of the man himself from California, mirroring a similar application from the 1968 demo. A good reminder to those inventing the future that the past may have already leisurely been where we’re in such a rush to go.