lmsanger(a)sbcglobal.net wrote:
I remember very clearly the evening when I got the
idea for
Wikipedia. It was January 2 and Ben Kovitz and I were eating at
a Mexican restaurant just around the corner from the old Bomis
office. (I could point out the place, if it still exists, but I
forget the name.)
We should hang a gilded plaque there and make it a place of
pilgrimage, obviously. (Especially since San Diego in January is
a nice escape from northern climates.) That doesn't mean it need
to be the only such place. Such dates and places are the best we
have, because we can seldom explain exactly how, when or why
certain thoughts came into our heads.
As I described in my 2002 paper (aronsson.se/wikipaper.html) I
think I first learned of wikis when the Seattle Wireless wiki was
slashdotted on March 22, 2001. However, a programming colleague
of mine (Pär Fornland) has later reminded me that he tried to make
me grasp the concept of
c2.com already in 1999/2000. It is quite
possible that this early input was resting in my subconscious and
provided a necessary fertile soil for the impressions I received
in the spring of 2001. (I don't keep detailed records of all
impressions and ideas, but maybe I should. I have this idea of an
always-on digital video camera on my eyeglasses, so I can go back
and search and replay any earlier part of my life.)
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se