Here is Nathan Schneider’s essay In Defense of The Memory Theater. It is at once, both dystopian and entirely optimistic about the future of computing, the Net and books as any essay that I’ve read recently. His uncle, a former biologist at NIH plays a central role, inventing a text-based knowledge system that itself becomes alive as a “memory theater”.

Coincidentally, Dame Frances A. Yates‘, essay on The Art of Memory–referenced in Schneider’s piece–is next on my own reading list.