, 1 min read
The Web warps space and time
Thomas has evidently been reading David Weinberger. He points out that
The Web folds space in a way that (most of) human knowledge is within our arm’s reach.
He then asks how Frank Herbert would have felt.
Myself, I always ask myself, whenever I read a pre-Web SciFi novel, whether the author could have foreseen the Web. In any case, it is true that the Web warps time and space. By that I mean that where, physically, the documents are is without concern for you. The Web also speeds up information retrieval tremendously. Suppose you were the only human being with access to the Web as we know it. You would be able to pull out knowledge faster than any other human being. You would appear like a super hero. You can tell instantly the prices of a given product in hundreds of stores. You can get a satellite view of any house in your area, in seconds. And so on.