Time lapse doodle: Mark Weiser’s 1991 “Computer for the 21st Century” [video]
As an ignorant student who was newly moving towards a fusion of HCI and AI at the time, I didn&#x27;t really know who Mark Weiser was, but he seemed very personable, down-to-earth, and kind, when recruiting me as a student for a new project at PARC.  I also got the sense that he was looking out for what&#x27;s best for me.<p>(Not recruiting me because I was special enough to draw his attention on my own merits.  I think probably he asked a professor if they knew any students who wanted to work on ubiquitous computing at PARC, I heard about it, and I said something to the effect of &quot;Xerox PARC and ubiquitous computing?  Holy crud, yes, OMG, yes, pleasepleaseplease pick me...&quot;)<p>The single biggest mistake of my life was that I chose a different opportunity over that.<p>What I&#x27;ve known of PARC seems not just about thoughtfulness and creativity, but also seemed in at least some cases to be motivated by very genuine and forward-thinking altruistic intentions.<p>I suspect that&#x27;s something to keep in mind when looking at pre-Web-boom PARC work.  It might be more explicit in some projects (e.g., in some of the Smalltalk-related work on education and empowerment for children), and implicit in other projects (e.g., implicitly wanting to elevate people&#x27;s individual and collaborative potential; wouldn&#x27;t even think of exploiting them).