Hi Ron,
Well, "the field" itself really doesn't have a good overview of the strongest
ideas it has had since 1950. So I certainly don't get upset when anyone randomly
isn't aware of something that happened 40 years ago.
But researchers and engineers need to be a lot more careful about checking out
prior art. The lack of this has led to the odd phenomena since the 1980s of
"reinventing the flat tire". Some of these that were really done badly (like the
web browser, various bad scripting languages and UIs) have held things back for
decades (and still are).
I predict that you will be amazed by Dave Reed's thesis. We implemented it a few
years ago and it is now both an open source foundation (Croquet) and a startup
(Teleplace).
Cheers,
Alan
________________________________
From: Ron Teitelbaum <horont at earthlink.net>
To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>; Chunka Mui <chunka at cornerloft.com>
Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes
<olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; squeakland.org mailing list
<squeakland at squeakland.org>; america-latina at squeakland.org; Carlos Rabassa
<carnen at mac.com>; Maho 2010 <maho at realness.org>; olpc bolivia
<olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; IAEP SugarLabs <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; OLPC
Puno <olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Mon, February 7, 2011 8:32:40 AM
Subject: RE: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
Thank you for humoring me. I stand corrected. I haven’t read David’s thesis.
Just downloaded it. Thanks for the suggestion.
Ron
From:Alan Kay [mailto:alan.nemo at yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 11:21 AM
To: Ron Teitelbaum; Chunka Mui
Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes; squeakland.org
mailing list; america-latina at squeakland.org; Carlos Rabassa; Maho 2010; olpc
bolivia; IAEP SugarLabs; OLPC Puno
Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
Hi Ron,
I've already played this game ad nauseum with many groups on the web. So I urge
everyone to rise above the temptation to name your favorite idea that seems
"new".
But do you really think there were no peer to peer and cloud computing systems
already deployed before 1980? (Hint: I used both quite a lot back then, and for
a short time actually was in charge of an ARPA task group to define an AI "cloud
resource" for the already running ARPAnet -- the one that got built was a
multiple processor system (C.mmp) designed by Gordon Bell)
For much larger issues and inventions than DHT, let me refer you to the 1978 PhD
thesis of David Reed (popularly known as "the '/' in TCP/IP") at MIT.1978. If
you haven't heard of David or read this thesis, then this helps make my main
point.
Since it would be really improbable for me to be aware of all developments after
1980 (and even some before), I don't claim there have been none.
I simply asked for 3 (or even one) since 1980 comparable to personal computing,
GUIs, the Internet, Engelbart's notion of "online system", etc. Previous essays
into this yielded many suggestions, but I was able to identify prior art for all
such.
For example, Tim Berners-Lee was suitably embarrassed when he found out about
Engelbart - first for the web not doing as well in the design, goals and
execution, and secondly, because as a physicist he would have been drummed out
of Physics if he had not tried to "stand on the shoulders of giants" (as Newton
said), and he had assumed falsely (and I think partly because our field is so
careless about its historical great steps up) that computing had no Netwons, and
the Internet had somehow just appeared without thought out purposes, and he
failed to look for them.
Best wishes,
Alan
________________________________
From:Ron Teitelbaum <horont at earthlink.net>
To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>; Chunka Mui <chunka at cornerloft.com>
Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes
<olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; squeakland.org mailing list
<squeakland at squeakland.org>; america-latina at squeakland.org; Carlos Rabassa
<carnen at mac.com>; Maho 2010 <maho at realness.org>; olpc bolivia
<olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; IAEP SugarLabs <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; OLPC
Puno <olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, February 6, 2011 7:28:18 AM
Subject: RE: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
Hi Alan,
One thing that comes to mind right away is DHT research. I could be wrong but
it seems to me that the 90’ saw the birth of DHT, P2P and Cloud Computing.
Ron Teitelbaum
From:squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org
[mailto:squeakland-bounces at squeakland.org] On Behalf Of Alan Kay
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 2:12 PM
To: Chunka Mui
Cc: voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes; squeakland.org
mailing list; america-latina at squeakland.org; Carlos Rabassa; Maho 2010; olpc
bolivia; IAEP SugarLabs; OLPC Puno
Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
Hi Chunka,
I've been challenged on this point more than once, and have challenged back to
come up with one invention that was done after 1980 that matches up to the top
10 done before 1980.
This has not happened. I've been able to show the prior art for all suggestions.
Essentially everything in the last 30 years has been commercializations and
other forms of "innovation" based on what was funded by ARPA, ONR, and by
extension, Xerox in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
The important point here is that there are many new inventions needed, and they
can be identified, but no one has been willing to fund them. It's not that the
early birds got the worms, but that most of the needed worms out there are being
missed.
Cheers,
Alan
________________________________
From:Chunka Mui <chunka at cornerloft.com>
To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
Cc: Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com>; "america-latina at squeakland.org"
<america-latina at squeakland.org>; squeakland.org mailing list
<squeakland at squeakland.org>; Maho 2010 <maho at realness.org>; IAEP SugarLabs
<iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios
docentes <olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; olpc bolivia
<olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; OLPC Puno <olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Sat, February 5, 2011 10:53:44 AM
Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
On Jan 30, 2011, at 9:21 AM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
GE is being congratulated for recognizing that the iPhone and iPad are pretty
good ideas and technological realizations. But isn't this like the
congratulations Bill Gates got for finally recognizing the Internet (about 25
years after it had started working)?
>
>Seems as though Apple had a lot more on the ball than Bill Gates or GE here
>(they used to do computing in the 60s, but couldn't see what it was).
>
>And most of the ideas at Apple (and for personal computing and the Internet)
>came from research funding that no company or government has been willing to do
>since 1982.
Alan -- Could you say more about this point? Surely there's been tons of CS and
IT funding since '82, both govt funding to universities and massive research
budgets at msft, hp,
Regards,
Chunka
Cheers,
Alan
________________________________
From:Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com>
To: america-latina at squeakland.org; squeakland.org mailing list
<squeakland at squeakland.org>; Maho 2010 <maho at realness.org>; IAEP SugarLabs
<iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios
docentes <olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; olpc bolivia
<olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; OLPC Puno <olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, January 30, 2011 4:11:49 AM
Subject: [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
We try to learn from those who have succeed for a long time:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1XWm2q8nQ-l5KUJ_PWkQruLDx-nZ7nsKDfg4idDlsU50
Carlos Rabassa
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