I was moping about the fact that James Burke has not taken advantage of the internet at all, despite the perfection with which Connections would translate in a hyperlinked world, when I discovered his project, the Knowledge Web. One component is a feature called Mystery Tours, which is the interactive web version of what he does in the Connections episodes. Unfortunately, it’s not very fleshed out and it’s not even clear if Burke is still working on the project.
It’s an interesting interface though, powered by an organizational software called the The Brain, which reminds me of the Max/MSP interface (btw, Max 7 is slated to drop soon) in the way that it uses visual linking to connect objects. I downloaded it and began clicking through the tips, which yielded amusing results:
I haven’t had time to fill my Brain, so I took a peek at other people’s. Here is Jerry’s Brain, starting from his core beliefs: (click to enlarge, click previous link to explore his Brain)
There are also favorite words and associations:
And an elegant bit of metaphysics?
If users aren’t literal with it, I can see this being a nice way to present a web-age tone poem or some sort of crazy manifesto… must. think. on. it.