a red-tailed hawk wheels in lazy eights and infinities, riding the updrafts and thermals. a more perfect day in the Bay Area can't be imagined. this is as good as it gets. and yet it's really a typical day, clear all the way to the Farallons, as i look out over the bay, walking down from Jane's house this morning. going away for a while, Maui in my case, makes one really appreciate this place; those of us who live here take it too much for granted.

over the last week, i've been watching the possible decline of Salon.com. sure, it'll still be here for a while, but unless they radically alter the new design so that it's as approachable as the previous one, it's just going to get lost in the faceless crowd of web portals out there, even if its content remains of high quality. sentiments have been running more than 9-1 against the new site design; and the negative sentiments have been at an unusually high fever pitch. a typical piece of invective: Salon's new redesign is "fucking heinous." hmm. well.

if you're interested, check out the discussion at Salon's TableTalk or Jim Romenesko's MediaGossip page.. if you're a regular Salon reader, weigh in -- it might make a difference.

so... why is the future 'now'? well, it's been almost a decade since the WorldWide Web was born. it has been a decade of incredibly rapid evolution in information systems and technology, with developments coming so fast and furious, and at a truly dizzying pace. but as the web approaches its adolescence, things have shaken down and what matters begins to clarify, and crystallize. in short, text rules. more specifically, hypertext rules. hyperlinking is what makes the Web what it is, and what makes it work.

as hypertext tools go, this one--this Manila-enabled page you're reading now--seems so ordinary, so mundane, so... simple. but it's the simplest tools that are really the most effective, the most revolutionary. think about the pencil. paper. the book. implements that, when used in their most basic ways, communicate thought, ideas, the landscape of the imagination. and the result is nothing less than a fundamental altering of anyone's reality.

this tool is the digital equivalent of pencil, paper, book. it's a confluence of the ideas and inventions that have exploded onto the Internet these past ten years. how is this so? that's why you're here right now, and that's why this page is being born.

stay tuned. listen. then speak the text of your own life. right here.

Talkback...

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