d reed also co-author of 
"END-TO-END ARGUMENTS IN SYSTEM DESIGN" 
which inspired http://isen.com/stupid.html which inexorably led to bighook!

which inspired http://isen.com/stupid.html which inexorably led to bighook!

"Then she generated the light, and the sight of her 
room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived 
her. There were buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for 
food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure 
of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to 
the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. 
There was the button that produced literature. and there were of course 
the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though 
it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.

Vashanti"s next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all 
the accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was 
filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food 
like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell 
her one"s own ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public 
nurseries at an early date? - say this day month.

To most of these questions she replied with irritation - a growing quality 
in that accelerated age. She said that the new food was horrible. That she 
could not visit the public nurseries through press of engagements. That she 
had no ideas of her own but had just been told one-that four stars and three 
in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it. Then she 
switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her lecture on 
Australian music."