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>“I’ve always pursued my interests without much regard for final value or value to the world,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve spent lots of time on totally useless t
by vinchuco 10y ago
>“I’ve always pursued my interests without much regard for final value or value to the world,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve spent lots of time on totally useless things.”
>“A lot of practical people around the labs thought it was an interesting theory but not very useful,”
- _-__--- 10y agoI think that it's good to pursue your interests, no matter how trivial (so long as they don't harm others, I suppose); however, it helps to work in a field paying you to do just that. Bell Labs was notorious for having a laissez-faire approach to managing its researchers. Now we have to resort to spending company time posting on news sites and browsing wikipedia.
- JoeDaDude 10y agoAmongst other "useless" pursuits, Shannon built several machines to play board games, justified as part of his interest in artificial intelligence. See a quick summary here: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/143233/claude-shannon-man-games-and-machines https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/143233/claude-shannon-man...
- cushychicken 10y agoMore than a few of these are on display at the MIT museum in Cambridge, MA. Very awesome. Shannon made more intricate things as toys for his children than many of the things I've made professionally.