This document discusses the evolution of writing formats from oral traditions through scrolls, codices, printed books, and digital documents. It argues that linear, sequential presentation of information in printed books emerged due to the constraints of printing technology but is not a natural or limiting format. The document proposes a new document structure called "Polyfoils" that allows for cyclical, branching, and complex nonlinear presentations of information to better fit electronic media and knowledge work. Polyfoils aim to advance full, non-linear thinking over "skinny, child-length" texts while avoiding monopolization through concrete definition.

1. 19th c. textbooks to
20th c. pulp-fiction,
magazines to blogs,
readers face linear sequences of
words, sections, ideas. We can be
excused for assuming this is natural.
It’s actually our species adapting to
printing technology.
1750 Diderot’s encyclopedia,
1500 Gutenburg's redactions to
600 AD illuminated manuscripts
200 BC wax tablets
100 AD codices to
From 2900 BC scrolls to
1600 Shakespeare’s stanzas to
1800 Dickens’s staves,
For
click-
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links
go to
the
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page

2. Prior to all that, Homer’s Odyssey,
like other oral traditions, cycled
motifs and repeated actions. The
same event is retold in different light,
as the teller’s mind radiates. Printed
words precipitate spacetime wave-
lengths onto 2D surfaces, where
linear sequence becomes the
organizing principal. Printing presses
disgorge strictly paginated
documents. By the 20th century,
linear, 2D processes seemed limiting.
Scientists and artists demonstrated
reality, knowledge, communcation
have fractal, multidimensional,
relativistic attributes. Photographs,
then films and video, first punctured.

3. then eroded print’s hegemony. As
new generations appreciated these
changes, they found conventional
print technology restrictive. Fewer
and fewer stick around to watch
writers unveil novel work-arounds,
like Proust and James Joyce did.
Since 1900, the public rings hands
over every new generation’s reading
habits. It was only century before,
however, that Samuel Johnson was
admired for reading without moving
his lips. People adapted silent
reading in the 1800s because high-
throughput printing enabled mass
consumption. If reading capacities
peaked among late 19th
century

4. educated folk, it was a peculiar
literacy: end to end, wordy. The world
is more complex and less directional.
One alternative to linearity is easily
ignored: broadsheet newspapers.
Stories are (were) written in cyclical
chunks, each fleshing out the same
essentials in different detail. This lets
printers cut articles between chunks
during layout. Also, users survey
multiple stories on the front page,
and select one, then another, to
follow inside. Inside they may read
further, then jump to a different story
on that page. Each user constructs
their own version of the paper by
reading selectively.

5. Digital documents provided writers a
technological breakthrough. Early
killer-apps, MacWrite and MS Word,
let them cut and paste, so writers
could move parts around with a
mouse click. 30 years on, word
processors look much the same,
laden with bells and whistles. The
internet took texts back to the scroll
era, but hyperlinks open a new
narrow dimension.
Until now. Let there be Polyfoils.
Polyfoil documents fit electronic
media, the internet, knowledge
workers, and international audiences.
Cyclical, branching, helical, gear-like,
compound, and complex, Polyfoil

6. formats put linear sequences in their
place. Linearity retains an essential
function, but not a limiting one. Media
compete. The 20th century’s rivalry
between text and image media,
which ended in visual media’s favor,
has become a contest between long-
form and short-form platforms, digital
and physical documents, multi-media
and straight texts. Computer displays
change the document landscape,
and only the fit survive.
Polyfoil documents advance the
partisan interests of those who value
full-bodied texts, not skinny, child-
length ones. Multimedia documents

7. the competition. Polyfoil documents
promote writer development, and
permit readers to construct text
versions they prefer, without
dumbing-down or adding distraction.
Hyperlinks take readers out of a
document, to content by and for
different people. Polyfoil documents
promote new document fashions that
fit genuine knowledge.
Polyfoils are not baby-steps. The
Patent Office finds giant leaps an
athema. They may encourage
monopolies over new platforms. This
invention does the heavy lifting
necessary to specify its advance in
concrete terms that discourage

8. monopolization. Entirely original,
Polyfoil documents will trigger other
peoples’ imaginations, and some
may find new document sequences
and production systems that this
invention has not contemplated,
illustrated, or specified.
On the other hand, without patent
protection, I will lack the means to
promote an important, compelling,
and probably commercial idea.
Patentability enables important
innovations to spread, instead of
remaining dormant. Polyfoils are an
important innovation to spread, and
patent protection allows it.

9. 1750 Diderot’s encyclopedia
1500 Gutenburg's redactions
600 AD illuminated manuscripts
200 BC wax tablets
100 AD codices
2900 BC scrolls
1600 Shakespeare’s stanzas
1800 Dickens’s staves