When I type "the power of context" into Google, the front page is dominated by Malcom Gladwell and your essay is absent, sadly.

Fortunately, it looks like the PDF is now linked from the talk: https://www.dropbox.com/s/knngq11tzdi0tdh/Alan%20Kay%20-%20T...

I asked whether you typed "The power of the context" not what you read "The power of context". Try to do just what I suggested and see what you get.

Wow! This is really illustrates a theme of the talk. I was completely blind to the 2nd "the", even the first two times I read your follow-up comment.

I'm glad you mentioned it. There's lots of evidence (even from the emails I've been getting) that most people might be skimming even sentences and guessing, rather than actually reading the words. This could partly be from the way they test reading in schools, and partly from the oral nature of most writed (e.g Twitter) on the web.

Here is the one on Alan's site:

http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf

Thanks!

> Did you even try to type this into Google?

I didn't. I missed where you gave the title of your handout, though of course I did hear the description and much that followed.

What enlightened times we live in, such that a student can fail to give a teacher his undivided attention not just in the classroom but at a great distance.

Thanks very much for sharing all this.

And perhaps there was a back button on the video?

(This is not to ding you for this, but to acknowledge that you are helping to make an important point for our times.)

I've been amazed and depressed to find that CS majors in major universities have vaguely heard of Doug Engelbart but virtually none have taken the trouble to type "Engelbart" into Google and follow up on the first 5 hits. (Depressing, because we put in a lot of effort back when things were much more difficult to get most people in the world within a few typed characters and button clicks of most of the important ideas and knowledge in the world -- but ... ?????)

I was so enthusiastic about the video that I was watching it on the road, which brought some distractions. On a related topic, I am currently packing for a move and spent a few moments last night contemplating how many very good unread and barely read books I have. Time that would have once been spent sitting and reading is often spent reading, but in a very fragmentary way, often from an electronic device. Got to change that.