Profound Milestones In Technology Evolution

​Most of my life has been spent working with or in information technology of some form.  During that time I’ve had some experiences that have sort of “stopped me in my tracks” – from the standpoint they caused me to realize what I was experiencing at that moment seemed highly significant from a technology evolution and impact-on-daily-life perspective.  Some examples of experiences that caused me to go “Whoa!”:

• ​The first time I downloaded a large file over broadband and it took seconds instead of minutes or hours.
• The first time I bought a CD and my backside, literally, never even left the couch.
• The first time I used Uber.
• Loading DD-WRT (free and open source software) onto multiple Netgear routers to set up and provide seamless WiFi coverage anywhere I went in my house.  This free software delivers router capabilities that would cost hundreds of dollars if purchased from a vendor.
• Running Linux on a $35 piece of hardware – the Raspberry Pi.

This past week I had another one of these experiences.

Our son (@MarkHaselmaier) is studying overseas this term.  Of course he didn’t know all the details of what he might need until he arrived at school.  Well, it turns out the student housing where he is living does not have WiFi – which he did not anticipate.  Every room has a LAN port in the wall.  While certainly this provides internet connectivity – it’s not particularly convenient.  Most of his friends have purchased a WiFi router for use in their rooms – as you’d expect.
I asked Mark how he resolved this “issue”.  His response:  “I was able to turn my Raspberry Pi into a router.”

WHOA!

The “Whoa!” hit me in a couple of different ways:

• This solution is a result of multiple open source efforts coming together:  Linux, Raspian, hostapd, and isc-dhcp-server.
• All of this is able to be run on a $35 piece of general purpose hardware.
• There are so many people out there who are not only willing to get these technologies to work, they’re also willing to thoroughly document what needs to be done to install, configure and troubleshoot them.
• Google – which we all use every day – is able to find this information and deliver it to us.

​The result is that relative technology mortals can take pretty obscure and complex technologies, bolt them together, and fabricate solutions that deliver real value in our daily lives.  This isn’t about saving a few bucks on the purchase of a router.  It’s about how technology has, is and will continue to dramatically change the landscape in which we live.
Jim