> In order to provide live two-way video between the lab and the conference hall, two microwave links were used. English also commanded a video switcher that controlled what was displayed on the big screen. The camera operator in Menlo Park was Stewart Brand, who at the time was a non-computer person, best known as the editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. Stewart Brand advised Engelbart and the team about how to present the demo. Engelbart got to know Stewart Brand when they experimented with LSD at the same lab.

Last sentence is epic.

No fucking way. Wow.

I believe that when people are in high contact with things that look to the uninformed like serendipity, it's a sign of something in them as a sensory organ, and something they are tapped into in the information environment... though perhaps we don't have good enough language to label it yet.

Whatever a "sense of smell" is for information (and surprise, and comedy, and aliveness...), this confirmed to me that Stewart Brand totally has it.