- Share Appendix. That's what I say. Share. Share. Share.
- What Caecum? Herpes? Tuberculosis? Athlete's Foot? What are you talking about?
- Not diseases. Why does your mind always go to diseases?
- I guess it's something to do with being around people who remind me of diseases.
- I remind you of a disease?
- Several.
- Charming.
- So what are you talking about?
- Did you know that you can work colaboratively with other people on creating documents?
- Really? Wow! So, this is something new, is it? Finally, after thousands of years of using the written word, we've worked out how to write in a way that means someone else can contribute to the creation of a document? That's impressive. What next? The wheel?
- No stupid. I'm talking about using document writers in such a way as to enable several people to write, edit and make suggestions to the same document without having to mail it or email to each individual involved and wait for it to come back. You can simply change it, leave an annotation and documents can be colaboratively worked on over the internet no matter where in the world you are.
- Unless you're somewhere without internet access. Like the slums in South America, for example.
- Everyone eventually will have access.
- So this means we will all be able to write the same old shit humans have been writing to each other for thousands of years only now more efficiently?
- Yes. No wait. Anyway, we have to put a link here to a document we've created on Google Docs.
- Ooo. Let me create one.
- All right.
- Beauty. Time passes. A link appears: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddk4vpkn_0ftxbg7f9

-So, Caecum, you're interrupting me again.
-Stop carrying on Appendix. You're not doing anything.
-Well, nothing that's apparent to you. What is it? What do you want?
-We have to create a mashup and put it on our blog.
-Why?
-Just to show we can do it.
-So, follow instructions, click a few buttons, type a few letters and we've succeeded, is that it?
-Simple, hey?
-I believe even you could do it.
-Don't you want to know what a mashup is?
-Using my incredible powers of deduction, I'm going to say that whether or not I want to know, you're going to tell me. Am I right?
-Well, I won't tell you if you don't want to know.
-Really?
-Not really. No. A mashup is a combination of two different applications into one so that instead of carrying out two separate processes in two different places to achieve one outcome, you can just do the one process in the one place and have the same outcome.
-Sort of like reading a glossy magazine: you can kill trees while wasting your life?
-No. Not like that. Consider Mozilla's new Ubiquity mashup. Ubiquity allows you to, at least if you're in the US, to research and choose a restaurant, get the relevant map showing the location of the restaurant and send an email inviting a friend to dinner at the restaurant all by typing a simple list of commands in your browser. No clicking through lists and opening programmes. Ubiquity does it all for you.
-That's impressive.
-I knew you'd be impressed.
-What if I don't eat out?
-Or have any friends?
-Yes, or have any friends.
-Well, the restaurant, map and email story was just an example. Ubiquity has just been released. There's only a certain number applications that have been coded for its use at the moment. And it's probably still fairly buggy. But imagine where this might take us. Consider being able to simply get your computer to find a restaurant, grab the map and send the email just by asking it to verbally. That's where we're headed. Ubiquity truly represents the next step in computing.
-Actually, in all seriousness, this does seem like a good way to go.
-Yes it does. And this is only the beginning. The sky's the limit.
-Pretty soon we won't even have to talk to our computer. We'll be wandering around issuing commands to our omnipresent computers just by thinking our thoughts at them.
-Well, there's no need to get carried away.
-I'm not getting carried away. It's just a natural series of steps from where we are now to there.
-Maybe I'd better warn them.
-Who's them and why do you want to warn them?
-Well, the Ubiquity people. And I want to warn them because I don't want a computer knowing what I think.
-I wouldn't worry. I don't even think a computer, no matter how powerful, could work out what you're thinking.
-That's harsh.
-But true.
-Anyway, we still have to whack in this mashup, so here goes.

Places that are still talking about Appendix's 2001 visit.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/map.php
-Your trip was hardly ubiquitous.
-Well, those little places highlighted on the map that look small and blue are, in reality, you know, country sized. So, if you're actually travelling around the actual world, it's not really possible to have a ubiquitous trip. Actual travelling around the actual world involves more than turning countries blue on a mashup.
-Thank you Mr. Pedantic.
-I mean, you could do that with a blue crayon. No actual trip required.
-I get it.
-So I don't have to keep going on?
-No.
-Good.