TheTedNelson: the videos Hacker News recommends
Not the channel's most viewed videos: the ones HN commenters kept linking with real commentary. The top pick, "Alan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson at "Intertwingled" Festival", hN returns to it again and again as a demonstration of how programmable and composable 1970s systems were compared with today's.
- 7 HN recommenders 10 months 2016–2025demoHN returns to it again and again as a demonstration of how programmable and composable 1970s systems were compared with today's.
- 3 HN recommenders 4 months 2018–2021explainerHN commenters point to it as the author's own short explanation of Xanadu's core ideas, usually in threads on hypertext, linking and decentralizing the web.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2022interviewHN shares it as an accessible window into Ted Nelson's vision of Xanadu and linking, which commenters say gains meaning with historical context.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2013–2024commentaryHN likes it for Nelson's habit of reframing computing history so that past decisions look arbitrary.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2019talkHN people point to it as Nelson's candid, first-person overview of his life, Xanadu's failure, and the lessons he drew, a historical record from the man himself.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2017–2024interviewHN cites it as a vivid record of how alien personal computing and hypertext sounded to a skeptical public, and as a favorite Nelson interview.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2017–2020comedy videoMentioned in Nelson and Engelbart threads as a curiosity with amusing cameos by computing pioneers.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2014–2023commentaryHN readers treat it as a contrarian counterpoint to the usual PARC mythology, though one commenter noted a few apparent mistakes in it.
Questions
Which TheTedNelson video does Hacker News recommend most?
Alan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson at "Intertwingled" Festival: recommended in 10 different months by 7 HN users between 2016 and 2025.
Is this every TheTedNelson video?
No. Only videos that at least three different HN users linked, in at least three different months, with at least a sentence of their own commentary. That filter is what makes the list useful.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.