Future of scientific collaboration

I've seen the future of scientific collaboration.

More than seeing, I've felt it. From the moment I started working on the project some two weeks ago, I knew that it had a lot of potential. I've felt the change just about happening, things in my mind yet barely starting to unfold (yeah, pun intended) and already showing immense potential for experimentation over the landscape laid out by the new framework.

In the following days I've spent the time chiseling the mechanics and figuring out the first draft of the UI and UX. It was about pulling together various things that I've read about, have seen or used, mulling over them, trying to tie it all together and make something useful for academia. A very high amount of special care about the right kind of incentivies was taken. Understanding how the platform might be used, how it might be understood and experienced, how to make it useful already but also present a bridge between the things that are current and the things that could be (ideals), and where to draw the line exactly and where to start from (do we immediately incentivize certain different-than-current behaviors, or might it be too early for that and a transition period is first required).

I've been so excited for the last few days that I've been waking up before the alarm, and going to sleep only when every cell of my body was crushed with tiredness. Hours during the day are fleeting, only split with short breaks. An entire day flies by that I'm not really even aware of it until it's already past midnight. It's a kind of purely physical tiredness, and none of the psychological. It's a very exciting period, and the only similar period was when I started working on my first startup - Nodebook, in January 2018. And interestingly enough, it wasn't just the "joy of starting a startup" that got me through 19-hour workdays, it was again because it was for academia. I've been aware of the kind and amount of motivation that provides me for a long time, and it's a beautiful thing. If anything, spending 3 years iterating over various ideas and vastly different products, writing more code in that time than a lot of people write in their lifetimes, if anything, I've been drained of the kind of excitement that comes purely from the fact that it's a startup and that is what the cool kids do. What is left to make a 19-hour workdays possible in that case is an internal motivation so strong, that it's worth fighting for.

There isn't anything that I'd rather be doing. Even a qualia research is on par with it; and for that one, one can still benefit hugely from the community such as the one that we're about to create. :)