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Ted, this is for you. I’ve flown in for this event from Hong Kong. If I become incoherent it’s because there’s a 15-h time difference. I’m flying to London tonight because I have to be back for the weekend, so I can’t stay for the dinner, but I wanted to be here for you. I only have 30 min and I’ve got a lot to say, in fact, I’ve got about 30 years of stuff to say. It is a great honor to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me. I really wanted to honor Ted, and support this wonderful event.

I’d like to talk about Ted the man, limits, connections, some pretty broad history, all leading up to why I believe Ted is limitless. I was born in Norway. Land of vikings, socially connected politics. Ancestral home of Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart. A land of fjords. For me the picture has changed to a view of the Thames. I now live in London, greatest city in the world, but I won’t go on and on about that.

This chapter situates Ted Nelson’s hypertext theory in the long history of print media. It argues that a peculiar strength of Nelson’s approach to electronic media arises from its sensitivity to the technical and conceptual nuances of print.

This chapter considers three phrases from Theodor Holm “Ted” Nelson’s The first is the famous line from the cover: “You Can and Must Understand Computers NOW.” Less famous, but equally crucial in our present moment are a second line, “presentation by computer is a branch of show biz and writing, not of psychology, engineering or pedagogy,” and a third, “All Simulation Is Political.” Taken together, these three statements call for a creative and critical literacy of computing broadly, and computational media in particular. Nelson’s call is not only of historical importance, but one that can guide our work and thinking today. This chapter outlines how even noble attempts to address public understanding of computers often fail to consider the important messages of these three statements, with results that could serve precisely the wrong interests. It also gives an example of work influenced by this set of Nelson’s ideas, from a project of the author and collaborators critiquing and expanding the Kodu introductory programming environment. It also argues that we must unite work that follows in Nelson’s footsteps by software critically (e.g., “software studies”) with work that aims to broaden the of software, if we hope to successfully answer Nelson's clarion call for a public that is computationally engaged, computationally expressive, and understands what is at stake.

One of the many concepts Ted Nelson has contributed to the notion of hypertext is the concept of “transclusion”. Though utilized by the current web in some ways (e.g., images, style sheets, scripts) fully capitalizing on the potential of transclusion to augment human intelligence will likely require shifting from today’s ‘access-intense’ paradigm of web usage, to ‘authoring-intense’ usage. The fundamental premise to be argued in this chapter is that more fully exploiting the power of transclusion offers future web users the potential for significantly-increased personal productivity for the creation of knowledge artifacts of economic value—and thereby opportunity for significantly-greater remuneration.

The goal of this bibliography is to put together a complete picture of Ted Nelson’s body of work as expressed in publication, including selections from ephemeral and non-print media.

Others have presented many perspectives on my life and work, and now I’ll tell how it’s been from the inside. I want you to know the whole story of the ideas I have tried to carry out.