[1] Subject: RE: 9.107 humanities computing
From: FLANNAGAN@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
Size: 28 lines
Disciplines and Re-erecting the Tower of Babel
I read yesterday that the World Wide Web might just be replacing
television, gradually, in homes with computers and television sets.
Last night Bill Gates was on with Larry King, talking about the
possibility of working out an interactive deal with Ted
Turner--something about how Windows 95 might help in the process. Bill
Gates certainly has constructed an easy link between Windows 95 and the
Internet. Cable is fighting telephone for the rights to that
connection. Netscape set a record on Wall Street for the stock most
active in one day's trading, I think.
All this is telling me that humanities computing people, especially
with the analysis of language and the Text Encoding Initiative, built
the Tower of Babel anew, in a secular way. We (not much of me is
included in that) helped construct and make sense out of SGML, which
has now been commercialized (correct my history if it is wrong) into
HTML and RTF (Rich Text Format, MicroSoft's baby).
The secular Tower of Babel might work this time, and we really might
have a Global Village without its being a New Wave phantasm.
Annoyed remarks? Flames? Moderating wisdom from Willard?
Roy Flannagan