You might not know the name Ted Nelson, but the man's influence is all over the internet and the field of computer science. He coined the term hypertext in the 1960s, and in 1974 published the seminal double work Computer Lib/Dream Machines which inspired and motivated many of the biggest names in the business. His many years of work on Project Xanadu inspired Tim Berners-Lee in the creation of the World Wide Web -- a system which Nelson hates.
Nelson is energetic, charismatic, and eccentric almost to the point of legend. He is, depending on your point of view, either a visionary who has a several-decade long history of producing ideas well and truly ahead of their time, or a man operating on a level quite divorced from practical considerations. But however you look at it, Nelson is probably one of the twenty most influential computer scientists alive today.
I mention this because yesterday, while all the occupants of our research office were engaged in a loud, unruly, and blatantly compromising non-work-related discussion, Ted Nelson chose that moment to stick his head through our open door and say hi.
Ooops.
Did you say hi back?
(And why did this TEXTAREA just jump to the right when I started typing in it eh?)