Jack Sondergaard: hello

Khamon Fate: hi jack

Jarnelius Barbosa: hi

Jack Sondergaard: have either of you heard much about Xanadu?

Khamon Fate: not a thing. the hypercard (text) reference caught my attention

Jarnelius Barbosa: not at all

Jack Sondergaard: OK

Khamon Fate: i'm telling my age

Jarnelius Barbosa: xanadu is a ne

Jarnelius Barbosa: a name of a restaurant in Kotka Finland

Jack Sondergaard: it is a project designed by Ted Nelson, who also invented the word "hypertext"

Jack Sondergaard: He came up with the basic ideas back in the early 1960's

Jarnelius Barbosa: LSD?

Jack Sondergaard: it involved the idea of keeping the content separate from the formatting and the links in hypertext

Jack Sondergaard: this made for some interesting possibilities

Jack Sondergaard: you could add links to documents you did not author

Jack Sondergaard: there could be sets of links to choose from

Jack Sondergaard: he also specified that once a document was placed in Xanadu, it was not to be deleted

Jack Sondergaard: if there was a new version, it would also be added

Khamon Fate: edited but never deleted?

Jack Sondergaard: so links would not break

Jack Sondergaard: yes

Jack Sondergaard: older versions would point to newer ones

Jack Sondergaard: and you would be able to compare them side by side, with the differences shown visually

Khamon Fate: up to how many iterations?

Jack Sondergaard: no limits

Khamon Fate: or just the link and it's forward?

Jack Sondergaard: forward?

Khamon Fate: i create a link, eventually forward it to a new link, eventually forward that to another link

Khamon Fate: will all three be compared?

Jack Sondergaard: some kind of a database would would track all the versions

Khamon Fate: how many can i reasonably see and compare at once

Khamon Fate: or will i see the chain as a list of links

Jack Sondergaard: there might be some limit to how many versions you look at at one time

Jack Sondergaard: usually, comparing 2 versions would be the most practical

Jack Sondergaard: links could be typed

Jack Sondergaard: so there would be links of correction, supporting facts, definitions, comments, etc.

Jack Sondergaard: you could filter what types of links to see at any time

Jack Sondergaard: and filter links by authors also

Jack Sondergaard: also before publishing in Xanadu, you would give permission in advance for your document to be quoted by anyone up to any length

Jack Sondergaard: all documents would be authenticated and probably encrypted

Khamon Fate: by linking?

Khamon Fate: or by copying the text?

Jack Sondergaard: quotation would be done by a special method called transclusion

Jack Sondergaard: all quotations would be linked back to the original document

Jack Sondergaard: so the context could be checked

Jack Sondergaard: and links would be 2-way

Jack Sondergaard: so the quoted document would point to all documents that quote it

Jack Sondergaard: links would be span to span, not point to document

Jack Sondergaard: so whole sentences, paragraphs, chapters, etc. could be linked to and from

Jack Sondergaard: at first it might be just text, but support for all media would be included

Jack Sondergaard: you could sell what you create, but readers would only pay for what they read

Khamon Fate: it's an interesting idea for a virtual environment

Jack Sondergaard: yes

Khamon Fate: i'll look at the website

Jack Sondergaard: OK

Khamon Fate: are you thinking of linking this to an inworld service via httprequest()?

Jack Sondergaard: from SL?

Khamon Fate: yes

Jack Sondergaard: it is still a work in progress being done by several groups

Jack Sondergaard: but it should be able to be linked to and from various virtual worlds like SL

Khamon Fate: k, i'll nose around. thanks for the info. i have to attend real life for a while

Khamon Fate: nice seeing you

Jack Sondergaard: OK, thanks for coming