Douglas Engelbart

Douglas Engelbart the inventor of the computer mouse has passed away. RIP. Here is an interesting excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on him: Engelbart’s career was inspired in 1951 when he was engaged to be married and realized he had no career goals beyond getting a good education and a decent job. Over several months he reasoned that [..]

[H]arnessing the collective human intellect of all the people contributing to effective solutions was the key;

[I]f you could dramatically improve how we do that, you’d be boosting every effort on the planet to solve important problems — the sooner the better; and

[C]omputers could be the vehicle for dramatically improving this capability. Computers are doing these things now, and much more. No wonder history is now moving at a breakneck pace.