I'm looking for some books to read.  Last summer I was lucky enough to read (or re-read):

What the Dormouse Said (Markoff)

Dark Hero of the Information Age (Conway/Siegelman)

The Dream Machine (Waldrop)

I recommend all three of these very warmly.  Right now I've got a bunch of books about (or having to do with) Darwin waiting to be read.  But if, in addition, there were more like these three I'd be delighted.

Going back through the July 1945 Vannevar Bush "As We May Think" essay today, I was struck by how primitive most peoples' online experiences still are.  It's an obvious thought, but we still don't have the "associational trails" that Bush dreamed of.  You have probably heard of Bush's interest in a "memex," which he described as an "enlarged intimate supplement to [man's] memory."  But the trails may be new to you:

The process of tying two items together is the important thing.

When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard.  Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. . . . Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the corresponding code space.  Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly. . .

First [the user] runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected.  Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together.  Thus he goes, building a trail of many items.  Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. . . Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.

And his trails do not fade. . . Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.

Now, wikipedia is like a trail.  But because there is only one link type (this links to that), you can't see how someone else (much less thousands of someone elses) has weaved his/her way through a particular subject.  In a sense, we're still scrambling around in a pool of knowledge.  It's a deep and interesting pool, but each one of us has to find his/her way out -- very few trails out there. 

Virtual worlds can make these persistent, visual trails possible.  And if we all (everyone) had enough bandwidth....