Paleofuture

I never grew up knowing the Whole Earth Catalog, but in the early '80s I was a precocious elementary school student who practically lived in any library I could get access to. My school library happened to have a copy of a particularly magical book that was loosely patterned after the WEC, the "Kids' Whole Future Catalog". https://paleofuture.com/blog/2007/4/27/the-kids-whole-future-catalog-1982.html

I obsessively checked it out of the library, pouring over page after page of exciting future and near future advancements, and in my little mind seeing a clear path from the Space Shuttle to the city of the future printed on the cover. It was one of those breathless books that showed humanity figuring out how to engineer every natural process, picture upon picture of far off space stations intermingled with then current hydroponics gardens and concepts well beyond that.

I found myself competing with at least one other child and the book never hit the shelf but for a few minutes as it was almost on permanent loan in somebody's backpack. My mother looked for a few weeks trying to find where to buy it for me, but never found a bookstore with it. It was like an object sent from another dimension, mean to teach children and guide them to an inevitable future Utopia.

It worked. I've worked in technology and R&D my entire career. I've yearned to bring about that future.

A few years ago, thinking back to this formative codex, I went about trying to find it and happened to buy a copy…

I assume you mean recent and active projects; there's nothing recent I can remember that attempts to do the kind of thing I tried to describe in the second paragraph of my comment. (Which is why I intend to start working on my own modest, desperate attempt at it in the following months.)

However, there are various projects, some of them historical, that have attempted to tackle it in limited contexts, or implemented parts of it, or have envisioned it in holistic systems that are now outdated. Almost all of the somewhat interesting ones I've come across can unfortunately be classified as one of the following: 1) Productized, narrowly focused yet-another-app 2) Academic or overly specialized in-house or personal project with no real effort at widespread usability 3) Unmaintained and outdated 4) Essentially vaporware

With that said, here are a few links of interest, with the forefathers noted first:

* Xanadu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu

* NLS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_%28computer_system%29

* Relations: http://relations-rcp.sourceforge.net/

* Zettelkasten: http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/index.php

* semantic-notes: https://github.com/jsomers/semantic-notes

* Synapsen: http://www.verzetteln.de/synapsen/shots_e.html

* flashbake: https://github.com/commandline/flashbake

* ConnectedText: http://www.connectedtext.com/

* The Literary Machine: http://sommestad.com/lm.htm

* Leo: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html

* Smart…

https://paleofuture.com/blog/2009/3/23/computer-criminals-of-the-future-1981.html

"The 1981 book School, Work and Play (World of Tomorrow) features this beautiful two-page spread. Apparently, thanks to computers, there's no crime in the future outside of the computerized variety. The "computer criminal" pictured really doesn't appear to be running very fast. Maybe they're playing a game of freeze-tag. Or maybe that policeman's gun has special settings the author didn't tell us about. I like to believe the former, but that's just me."

The book is full of really cool images like that one of "The Future" as seen from '81

This keeps showing up on HN for some reason!

Some previous discussions and articles for those interested:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895

http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-visions-of-the-year-2000-1899.html

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show-the-year-2000-1910.html

http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html