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Innovation on the Edge?
MCassatt asks: "It's a truism in many fields that breakthroughs come from the edge: the scandalous Impressionists become pretty pictures for posters and umbrellas; the world of science fiction becomes the world of science.
The wonderful, the fantastic, and the mad of today are tomorrow's mainstream. Are there examples of this in computer science? Not extreme programming, but extreme programs?"
Gnutella
Bit Torrent
Freenet
Reiserfs
Linux Kernel
Open SSH
Encrypted Filesystems
GnuPG
At least in my opinion p2p and crypto are the edges in coding right now. Both can be hugely successful if you succeed in writing them properly. They can also be a huge failure if done improperly. Personally, I'm amazed that there aren't more p2p worms/remote exploits out there. Every now and then there are a few breaks in crypto from a weird angle, but in general they have been very successful as well.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Much of theoretical computer science is all about some crazy professor looking at a problem that he thinks is cool, without worrying about its utility. Then in a few years, somebody finds a practical application.
Some guy thinks one day, "Life is just the replication of information. Computers can do that". We all love to hate them, but you could argue that conceptually, computer virii are as "alive" as organic virii. If that isn't an etreme idea, what is?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Let's review, shall we?
VisiCalc ...and its successors spawned a trillion dollar industry, made Steve Jobs a billionaire, and almost singlehandedly eliminated the profession of "bookkeeper".
WordPerfect ...ditto for the profession of personal secretary. Only executives use them now.
Mosaic ...let's see. Trillion dollar industry, hundreds of business models, hundreds of thousands of businesses, millions of lives and careers changed... seems pretty extreme to me.
I could go on, but you get the idea...
Recent History:
How about an operating system written as a substitute for massive commercial systems, written initially by one guy, then by a bunch of people collaborating, without direct compensation, via email? (Linux)
How about a system to allow anyone with a computer and a pipe to publish structured hypertext and images for all the world to see? (Mosaic)
How about a system for independent individuals to type to each other in real time? (talk, IM)
How about a system for people without a static IP to share files? (P2P)
How about a system for people to contribute spare CPU cycles to a collective social work? (Distributed.net, SETI@Home, Folding@Home)
The Future:
What's on the edge now that will be huge tomorrow? If I knew that I'd be in angel capital. (speaking of equity, how about online stock trading systems?)
What's on the edge and either hasn't found a niche or isn't sufficiently advanced yet (and may never be)? 3DUIs, Freenet, Complex Adaptive Systems, Face Recognition; and those are less than a cube in the iceberg.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
When ever you use the "copy" program you are accomplishing the oldest and dearest dream mankind has ever had - you are both having your cake and eating it too.
The ability to infinitely replicate something, each copy being absolutely identical to the first, but also infinitely distributable to however many desire it, is earth shaking.
This is the major thing human kind must learn to deal with into the future. More then any other single event or "discovery" the lowly copy program (and it's brother "paste") will have greater effect on the way we view our world then any other thing.