If you'r brave enough, go on and try it. Just prepared to be dismissed, and don't take it personally. Because it happens a lot.

Oh, and depending on time of day, about one in ten of your encouters will be naked. And mastrubating.

I propably shouldn't make too far reaching conclusions about the service (i'v only tryed i twice, after all), but i think this will be huge. Look at this graph (sorry for the link, embedding the graph in this post didn't work for some reason).

There has been zero media coverage of the service, but still in couple months it has managed to go from nothing to popularity of Spotify (or twice of that, depending how you judge the graphs), and by looking at the shape of that curve, i bet in the next few months it will be going past twitter.

Well.. Unless someone makes simlar, but better service before that. Because the thing about chat roulette is that it's dead simple. Anyone with decent web coding skills could have created that service years ago. And as a wannabe web developer looking for big ideas it blows my mind that no one did.

The exact attraction of ChatRoulette is hard to pinpoint - in a way, you just have to try it, so that you can feel it yourself. But clearly its got much to do with our self image, and getting feedback on what people really think about us. Because for most people, there's just no reason to lye in ChatRoulette, and you can get brutally honest comments on what they think of you. That is, once they first find a reason to stop to chat with you. But if you can take it the right way, it can also be a great tool for improving your own social skills.

Another layer is the diversity of human culture. You will see very different people in different places and different personalities, and that alone is exiting and refresing. You get the kind of "in touch with humanity" feeling.

And then there's sex. Like the frase goes, "internet is for porn" and live one on one masturbation session can be ten times as exiting as just looking at recorded porn video. Especially, when you don't have to pay for it, and you know that the other person is also doing it because they enjoy it. Of course there's the natural gap, between the ammount of mastrubating men vs. masturbating women, but considering the size of the market, it will still be huge. And there's always the possibility of having ten masturbating men with one woman. Some might find that disturbing, but i'm sure there are plenty of women who'd get a big kick out of it too. With sex, there's also the question of anonymity, but if your not comfortable in wearing a mask i'm sure there will soon be a sevices, that will automatically detect the faces from the image and blur them to make them unrecognisible.

Anyways, wether you'r looking for sex, friends, place to improve you social skills or just to wonder the diversity of humankind, you should test out the anarchy that is ChatRoulette. And expect for more fine tuned clones around the corner.

• Scientist, like all people, are corruptiple
• Scientists can, and often do lie, when it advances their own cause
• Science, like all social institutions, is guided by the hand that feeds it

In short, what this means is that scientists, those brave warriors of truth, will do science on issues that the current surrounding political and economical environments wants them to do science on. This is not to say that there aren't uncompromised, honest seekers of truth left out there. But those people, just like honest politicians, will very soon find them on the fringes, unfunded and unpopular.

Now, with this prelude, what i'd like to draw your attention on is cold fusion. Cold fusion has a bad name, since it's one of those hated fringe fields, which has been drawn through mud in every prestigious scientific journal and institution. Sometimes for a reason, but more often because of bad or directly fraudulant science.

But it lives on, mostly unfunded. People just don't call it cold fusion anymore, since it gives their research bad reputation. So here we have a field that could possibly save humanity, by giving practically free and limitless energy to all. And what do we do? We laugh at them and put our money to these huge projects that mainly humor us about the stupidity of humanity.

• Cold Fusion: Fire From Water
• It runs on water
• Should Google Go Nuclear?

Arthur C. Clarke: "There's been sort of groundswell of new information, and during the course of last five years or so I'v slowly become convinced from my original scepticism to 99% certainty, that it is for real. The evidence now is really overwhelming."

Aiemmin kirjoitettua:

• Opinaattori avattu! (11.2.2009)
• Tarkempi selostus palvelun ideasta: Mielipidepalvelu (11.11.2008)

Näyttäisi kuitenkin siltä, että kolmiulotteista webbiä ei tarvitse odottaa enää kovinkaan kauaa. Selainten grafiikan prosessointi kyky kasvaa vauhdilla, ja joskin nykyisten grafiikkakorttien täydelliseen hyödyntämiseen kestänee aikansa, päästään kolmiulotteisesta grafiikasta nauttimaan varmasti jo paljon aiemminkin.

Mitä tämä sitten käytännössä tarkoittaa? Aluksi vain 3d grafiikkaa osana perinteisiä kaksiulotteisia sivuja, mutta lienee vain ajan kysymys kunnes osa webistä muuttuu täysin kolmiulotteiseksi. Ajattele perinteistä webbisivua, jossa on pieni erikoiselta näyttävä graafinen objekti. Kun siirrät hiiresi tuon objektin päälle kursorisi katoaa ja hiiren liikkeet alkaavat ohjaamaan katseesi suuntaa kyseisessä objektissa. Kun painat "w":tä tai ylös osoittavaa nuolta alat liikkumaan tuon objektin sisälle, kunnes lopulta olet kokonaan sen sisällä. Tervetuloa kolmiulotteiseen webbiin.

Siinä missä second life koostuu yhdestä maailmasta, jossa kaikkia ohjaa samat maailmanlait, tulee 3d web koostumaan lukuisista maailmoista, joita yhdistää vain perinteisestä webistä tutu linkit, tai "portaalit", joiden avulla siirrytään maailmasta toiseen. Maailmasta riippuen sinulla voi olla kolmiulotteisella avatarilla jonka muutkin kävijät näkevät tai voit liikkua perinteisen webin tapaan anonyymisti muiden huomaamatta. Liskäksi tekniikka jolla maailma toteutetaan on täysin palvelinkohtainen. Tämä mahdollistaa vapaan kilpailun eri tekniikoiden välillä, joka johtaa huomattavasti nopeampaan kehitykseen, kuin Second Lifen kaltaiset monopolisoidut järjestelmät.

Mitä kaikkea tästä seuraa, on vaikea ennustaa, mutta luulen että juuri sulava liikkuminen 2d ja 3d webin välillä on oleellista. Jossain määrin raja näiden kahden välillä tulee varmasti hämärtymään, mutta perinteisessä webissä on etunsa mm. kirjoitetun tekstin lähteenä, joten ei se varmastikkaan kokonaan koskaan kuole pois. Mutta siinä missä 2d webistä voi jouhevasti siirtyä 3d maailmaan yllä olevan esimerkin tapaan, toimii sama myös päinvastoin. Kolmiulotteiset maailman koostuvat luonnollisesti useista eri objekteista, ja yksi noista objekteista voi olla perinteinen webbiselain. Liiku vain lähelle tuota esinettä ja hups, oletkin taas selaamassa 2d webbiä.