Computational Thinking

Joel Gethin Lewis

Lecture 5: Linking

What I'm going to talk about now:

  1. Review where we are in the lectures.
  2. The History of the Internet, The History of the Graphical User Interface, The History of Hypertext.
  3. Encryption.
  4. Trees and Graphs.
  5. Google, Facebook and CS183.
  6. Decentralisation: P2P, Blockchain and IPFS and Filecoin, Merkle Trees and DAT and Beaker.
  7. Bonus: Mark Lombardi, Listening Post and Celestial Mechanics.

1. The History of the Internet, The History of the Graphical User Interface, The History of Hypertext.

2. Encryption.

3. Trees and Graphs.

4. Google, Facebook and CS183.

  • You can think of Google as a way of brute forcing a two way world wide web - the way it was meant to be in the first place if Ted Nelson had had his way.
  • I have respect for Google as the orginal PageRank algorithm was a technical breakthrough in web search. Facebook on the other hand was just in the right place at the right time, with good marketing.
  • Peter Thiel was one of the original investors in Facebook, you can read about his startup methods in the course that he taught at Stanford, CS183. More notes from the revised course here. Basically have a public and private plan and go for monopoly.
  • Interestingly another early investor was CIA, via its investment arm, In-Q-Tel. People will survey themselves these days! Another key Thiel company is Palantir Technologies.
  • Thiel is the subject of the documentary Nobody Speak, about freedom of the press and billionaires censoring of it.

5. Decentralisation: P2P, Blockchain and IPFS and Filecoin, Merkle Trees and DAT and Beaker.

6. Bonus: Mark Lombardi, Listening Post and Celestial Mechanics.

Thanks!