So the world and the news this morning are all talking about the successful destruction of a US spy satellite. Apparently the satellite was channeling its inner three year old by refusing to stay where it was told (i.e. orbit) and threatening to take its ball and go home in a huff (i.e. bring its fuel tank full of a toxic witch’s brew back down to the earth.)

I would venture it safe to say that the insurance industry wasn’t looking forward to claims which read:

Act of God
Act of US espionage program gone awry

Technologically it was a very interesting event. The news outlets are calling it “hitting a bullet with a bullet” but that might be a tad on the over simplication side. It’s more like hitting a big, fast object full of explosive fuel with another big, fast object full of exposive explosives. Oh, and instead of aiming with a sight on the end of a barrel they used a super duper expensive Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser.

The most amazing part to me is that this event wasn’t even the most notable technological thing in the news yesterday. It came in a strong second to be sure, and that’s nothing at all to be ashamed of, but the bigger news was that there is an AJAX version of Mathematica coming. Hard core numerical computation that used to make the college lab computers beg to be put out of their misery now done by way of Javascript? That’s just crazy.

I know I know, I might be overstating things here just a tiny bit. But Mathematica (or more correctly its competitor Maple) really saved my bacon in college Calculus. I mean, I’ll be honest here, the chances of Hydrazine napalm falling from the heavens and landing on me are really, really remote. The chances of me tanking out of Calculus without having the lab projects to prop up my pitiful exam scores are so high that no casino in Vegas would dream of taking a bet on it.

On the plus side, with this new version of Mathematica students everywhere will be able to slog the misery that is Calculus so that someday they too can build anti-ballistic missiles that we can then use the next time a government spy satellite throws a temper tantrum. Who would have ever thought in a million years that we would be saved by Javascript?

Last night over at the Jeff Atwood’s blog he posted a really good article about Javascript. It reminded of a basketball game I played in probably 8 or 9 years ago now. (Brace for tangent in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..)

At my previous job, back in the high times of the dot-com boom, one of the best perks was the daily lunchtime basketball games. Before the start of one of those games, a senior architect asked me what I thought the next big thing was going to be. I’m thinking he was looking for an outside opinion of someone not too long out of college. Maybe someone with an eye on the cutting edge. Most likely he was just being polite.

Regardless, my initial answer was the inspired, “Hmm, I really don’t know.” He was curious if things like handheld devices were going to be where the action was. I remember thinking about how much I didn’t use the Palm IIIx I had bought and figured that that was probably not going to be it. To be honest I’m not sure what answer I eventually gave him, it was probably something hand-wavy about the web or the internet.

Just between us, let’s pretend I laid out the future design for Digg or YouTube.

Anyhow, I do remember at the time thinking that never in a million bazillion years would Javascript take off. I fully expected it to get seated at the same table with a bunch of other failed technologies. And not a good table, but a really crappy one. Like one that is right in front of the DJ at a wedding reception so when you leave all you can hear is the Electric Slide ringing in your ears.

Man, did I back the wrong horse on that one. That JavaScript (or ECMAScript as his mother calls him) is darn near everywhere.

Oh well, live and learn I guess. At least I was right about Digg and YouTube though.