The first class meeting, the maiden voyage, of the live classroom of the Mises Academy was a thrilling, daring, revealing experience. It had a feeling that I only know as a “Jetson’s Moment” as Robert Murphy energetically lectured to 200 students gathered from all over the world in one digital spot, with Bob at his desk teaching like an Oxford don. On the right side of the window, the multitasking students listened, tittered with stream of consciousness commentary that couldn’t be heard, and greeted each other with wild enthusiasm. They held him for a very long time with questions and answers.
The contrast between the techno-hysteria that was palpable and the high-level calm of the lecture was post-modern in the strangest way, something you get only at the advent of a new era. It reminded me too of scenes from history that we see mocked up on the history channel: first flights, first phone calls, first electrical bulbs, etc.
That part of the program went beautifully. Meanwhile, the great software fear of all time became true: the main portal to the non-live classroom was tested to its maximum extent, as only a live, real-time demonstration can do. The server tightened up and connection strings began to give under the strain. It would be a fixable problem but, as developers know, you can’t fix anything in a crisis moment. Once the dust settled, the software was restored.
Now that we’ve been through the test, we know how to channel our energies. The bug is not the problem; the bug is the path to the fix. And so it is here. We’ve moved the classroom installation to its own server environment to prevent overloads and establish more reliability. Why hadn’t we done this before? In software development, everything is clear in retrospect and there is no way to perfectly predict problems, else there would never be problems at all. Through trial and error is how the world was built, and the digital world is no different.
All told, it was an amazing experience with huge promise. There were moments of magic combined with moments of tremendous anxiety. I seriously doubt that anyone on the production team end slept much last night, but this is an experienced crew and everyone worked ably and earnestly to find the workaround.
Nights like this happen only once. It lived up to its promise in every way, both in temporary tragedy and in triumph.
