Neat Stuff My University (UB) Has Done
I'm currently working on a blog post on how Next.js handles requests differently from using a simple HTTP server like Express.js with React.
I just finished the server component vs client component section and now I'm checked out, so I'm here to write something fun lol.
My awesome university (University at Buffalo), Go Bulls! has done a lot of cool stuff in computer science related things you don't usually know about unless you're from UB. I think many UB people don't know about them either.
Let's go from the start:
sudo
A lot of people don't know, the command sudo was created at UB. Think about it, every time you type sudo in the terminal... I always thought, damn why did they pick the name sudo, they could have gone with something better. But it is cool to know that something you use every day was created at the school you go to.
BitTorrent
BitTorrent, something that many people probably heard of in the early and mid internet days. It is still largely used today as well.
It was made by one of the students at University at Buffalo during the mid 1990s before he dropped out of school and made his own company. I only learned about this from a few professors that talked about it, I highly suspect some professors know the person in person too.
Baidu
This is probably more well known, Baidu the Chinese Google co-founder Robin Li was a UB alumni. He's pretty famous in the CS department and I think some of the professors I know went to UB at the same time he was there.
Really neat things to learn about, due to the size of Baidu in China and the services it covers it is basically Tencent level of tech giant. Basically the same feel when you learn that one of the most famous tech founders out there went to your school and your professor probably went to the same classes.
USPS Handwriting Recognition Software
This is something I learned a bit late, not until I started working at UB.
One of the first widely deployed handwriting recognition software systems, developed at UB and even widely used as the intro ML program.
The handwriting recognition software used to recognize your package address, reducing time for workers to put your address into the machine, something you use every day that you're too grateful for, was created at UB at the CEDAR lab.
What makes it even cooler is that Robin Li, the Baidu co-founder mentioned above, actually studied at CEDAR during his time at UB, so the same lab that built the handwriting recognition software also helped shape the person who built China's Google. I'm very lucky to work with some of the people that were in the lab that helped create the project. This is something that I myself am very fond of.
