Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

For me, computing is probably one of the most explosive and innovative things around.  For an engineering science, I think it's by far the most accessible and I've seen more rules broken and in turn creating new eras of improved computing.  However, I've been pretty disappointed with other sciences.  I've tended to feel that they're more academic and inaccessible.  Whether it's the rote memorization, or the complexity, there seems to be no simple way of bringing sciences outside of computing to the masses.  Think of what CGI and HTML has done for the web.  And now look at Ruby on Rails as well as AJAX.  Why doesn't science have something similar?

Rather than trying to answer why, I prefer proposing a similar solution: rapid prototyping for space exploration and medical science.  I was looking at Idealabs' Desktop Factory company, thinking that there's something there that has potential.  Also, Lego's Lego Factory software which allows people to model something in 3d, send it off to Lego and have your model be ready.  But this is the thing: we need something that is easy to help us manufactur goods instantly.  Kinda like scripting for physical objects.  You build part of the machine or gadget  and with your prototype generating machine, you get your object in real space.  Take for example a phone.  My phone has two major flaws: one button occasionally turns Yahoo browsing on by accident and another button constantly tries to exit when I'm writing an email.  Perhaps my gadget machine and prototyping software could allow me to redesign my phone so I can place those buttons elsewhere.

Now take those ideas and apply them to space exploration.  Maybe you can prototype your own rover.  Obviously, it means that you won't have a complete environment to simulate having a rover travelling through hostile Martian environment, but imagine the commercial implications for that. 

I think we already have a form of medical science scripting; some people might call it Methlabs and such.  But if somehow tools were provided for people to allow people to diagnose themselves and treat themselves, maybe we wouldn't have to wait for a cure for AIDS and the like.  I feel that medicine reminds of the days before all the kiddies got involved in the internet and that only the highest calibre professionals could makea  difference in computing.  But all you really had were the Microsofts of the world controlling the output.  So maybe we're holding ourselves back by allowing only a few elite to participate in these fields.

Imagine if there were some notions of Design Patterns for medicine.  So some hack can still learn how to be a genetic architect without all the years in a lab.

Either way, I know we're missing something.  There's something blocking the faster progress for these areas.  I think part of it is the teaching methods and forcing kids to go through this long, arduous and somewhat pointless route rather than allow people to use shortcuts in a meaningful manner.  I'm not saying cheating is the best strategy, but if you get positive results and it helps society, then why not use them?