5 ms·

I'm a Media Lab alum, sort of. There may be a master's degree with my name on it, but as I see it I basically flunked out. So I used to look back on it with bit

by bbanyc 7y ago

I'm a Media Lab alum, sort of. There may be a master's degree with my name on it, but as I see it I basically flunked out. So I used to look back on it with bittersweet feelings of what I wasn't good enough to achieve. Now, though, after seeing what was really going on there... 30+ years of rigged demos, high-profile failures like OLPC, and maybe one or two useful inventions among the years of pointless impractical stuff that "looks cool", all funded by the largess of child molesters. Forget about a "leadership transition", the lab is unsalvageable. Burn it to the ground and salt the earth. Now, what to do with the two-year gap on my resume...

corndoge 7y ago
Why a gap? If you did good work there and weren't aware of any wrongdoing what reason is there to strike it from your resume?
- bbanyc 7y ago
  I did lousy work there.
  - geofft 7y ago
    You did honest work there, which is more than can be said for many people with the Media Lab on their résumé. Don't measure the caliber of your work by the standards of scammers.
    - bbanyc 7y ago
      It was lousy by my standards. But I'd rather not discuss myself any further, this thread isn't about me.
hnaccy 7y ago
Where can I read on the rigged demos?
- bbanyc 7y ago
  https://www.businessinsider.com/mit-media-lab-personal-food-computers-dont-work-fake-staff-say-2019-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/mit-media-lab-personal-food-...
  - seltzered_ 7y ago
    Thanks for sharing this. ""It's essentially a grow box with some sensors for collecting data," Cerqueira, a dietitian who worked as a project manager at the Open Agriculture Initiative for two years [...] The boxes were not air-tight, so staff couldn't control variables like the levels of carbon dioxide and even basic environmental factors like temperature and humidity, Cerqueira and the other person said. " Looking at https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/projects/ https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/pro... it looks like the food computer project was just one among several, though it might've been the more prioritized 'audacious goal' among them considering it's prominence on the main open ag site: https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/ https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/ The last paper I saw (2018-10-20) ( https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-02683-7_79 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-02683-... ) on food computer version 2 is more about the building process of it, not so much on results yet. https://wiki.openag.media.mit.edu/faq https://wiki.openag.media.mit.edu/faq discusses the version differences. Finally, Caleb comments on the BI article here: https://forum.openag.media.mit.edu/t/can-we-get-a-comment/5186 https://forum.openag.media.mit.edu/t/can-we-get-a-comment/51... (sidebar: the food computer thing weirdly reminds me of reddit.com/r/spacebuckets )
    - makomk 7y ago
      The thing is, they didn't need to have a whistleblower to find out that the boxes couldn't control variables like the levels of carbon dioxide - they just had to read the latest paper published using them: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0213918 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Apparently that level of control is planned for their currently-in-development larger scale facility. Also, I don't think the quotes about controlling those things even apply to the Personal Food Computer specifically - after reading the linked articles they're either forward-looking claims about the whole research that predate the PFC, or specifically refer to to the larger-scale equipment. On top of that, the headline claim that the "personal food computer" "simply doesn't work" seems to be outright untrue. I had a look and the designs seem to be pretty widely replicated and tested - everything from an MIT-supplied version of the latest design in a New York museum operated by unaffiliated volunteers to a homebrew version of an old foam-based design built from scratch by a Baltimore school using material from Lowes. Some versions do seem to be a little temperamental on the electronics side, to the point members of the team have advised people not to built v2 on the forum, but they do work and grow things. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the photoshoots and static displays were faked, though; turnaround time for a real grow is at least a month.
jedimastert 7y ago
> There may be a master's degree with my name on it, but as I see it I basically flunked out. You know what they call someone that graduated medical school with a 2.0 GPA? Doctor When it comes to something like certification or education, no one cares about your standards. MIT set the bar, and you pasted it. It might be below your standards, but no one cares.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  When someone tells you about their accomplishment and then denigrates it just move on. Adults eventually learn to interpret these games just as when someone says they “went to college in Boston” you know they went to Harvard. The grandparent may have internalized the Ph.D. disdain for Master’s degrees or they may be saying “I have a Master’s from MIT.”
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    > when someone says they “went to college in Boston” you know they went to Harvard People say this because they have learned that when they answer “I went to Harvard” they get instantly treated differently by many people they have tried talking to, and it’s annoying.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
reilly3000 7y ago
Maybe you ought to give yourself credit for being smart enough to get in, and for having enough good in you to realize its not a place to invest your best energy. As for your gap, perhaps call it your "2 year research project on magical thinking in an engineering setting" ...?
Animats 7y ago
It's not clear that the Media Lab is still needed. It was once leading edge, back when graphics technology was exotic and expensive, and the field was small. But now everybody has that technology. NVidia, the game companies, Hollywood, and the VR industry pour billions into the field. The Media Lab is now a small player in a big field. Here's their current list of projects.[1] Some of the less useful ones: "Tasting Menu in Zero G" "Sculpting in zero gravity" "Discreet Teeth Gestures for Mobile Device Interaction" "Blockchained Agent-based Simulator for Cities" It looks like they're pivoting from media to - something. [1] https://www.media.mit.edu/search/?filter=project https://www.media.mit.edu/search/?filter=project
- elvinyung 7y ago
  > "Tasting Menu in Zero G" Meh. The Media Lab is (or was) doing some of the best work in the field in food and flavor science. Arielle Johnson [1] in particular is known for her work and expertise on flavor and fermentation, and she went on to lead R&D at Noma's science bunker [2] and now has her own lab in East Village [3]. She's probably has had an outsized impact on the food world in the last decade or so on stuff like fermentation, which is gradually making its way beyond just fine dining and is something that I'm particularly excited about. [1] https://www.ariellejohnson.com https://www.ariellejohnson.com [2] https://www.eater.com/2018/3/9/17100494/rip-noma-science-bunker-2014-2018 https://www.eater.com/2018/3/9/17100494/rip-noma-science-bun... [3] https://www.ediblemanhattan.com/magazine/summer-2019-issue-no-59/arielle-johnson-fermentation/ https://www.ediblemanhattan.com/magazine/summer-2019-issue-n...
  - prairiecat 7y ago
    Impressive, but I wouldn't call this one of "the best work in the field in food and flavor science". More like impressive performance art / tinkering, still great though.
- jkestner 7y ago
  That’s not their current list of projects, but a tiny subset you picked. I don’t disagree that many of the projects are silly or unworkable (and some listed there are just class projects of a couple weeks’ work), but it’s reflective of the Lab’s proximity to startup philosophy compared to harder science labs — crazier ideas, odds, and rewards. It’s also true that the Media Lab’s advantages aren’t the same as they were before multiple tech industry booms, but they retain a fairly unique position where disciplines interact with corporate resources, and without a direct corporate motive. That’s where my favorite of the Lab’s output came from — Lifelong Kindergarten, Computing Culture, Center for Civic Media, Center for Bits and Atoms, Biomechatronics, etc. Hopefully the next director has the vision to focus it in directions where neither big tech nor startups aren’t going. Disclaimer: Media Lab alum.
freyr 7y ago
I briefly joined an industry R&D team that was producing smoke-and-mirror demos. The ideas were good, but nothing really worked. One day I noticed all of the team’s demos had been done already by an MIT professor. I guess that’s where they’d got the inspiration. I figured the professor’s demos were at least real. Now I’m not so sure. As far as I know, none of the work has made it out of the professor’s lab. Maybe it will, but this whole incident has aroused suspicion.
dheera 7y ago
There were some high profile failures but some things were pretty impressive, including Hugh Herr's bionic limbs, LEGO Mindstorms, the ideas in Sixth Sense, Ike Chuang and Neil Gershenfeld's quantum computing work. Even OLPC was an extremely noble goal, and they did likely inspire others to create low-cost PCs including netbooks and Chromebooks. The Media Lab isn't intended to be a profitable business. Success of a Media Lab project isn't defined by its "products" getting a million users and a hockey stick curve. Success of a Media Lab project means that it is successful in demoing something that eventually does become our future.
- mhalle 7y ago
  Steve Benton's Spatial Imaging Group and its student diaspora had a huge influence on the holography and 3D display world. We developed full color reflection holography, the first holographic video system, and the first image predistortion algorithms for light fields. Our 1 meter sq hologram was at the time the world's largest computer generated 3D display. Unfortunately, Steve died pre-Google, and his contributions are not fully recognized. I was at the lab a long time ago (from its opening in 1985 until 1997). What made it unique at the time was breaking down the barriers between computation, technology, creative arts, and popular culture in a way that seems so natural now. On a campus where hundreds of other PhD students seemed to be working on amazing research on very detailed topics, we were building pieces of the future and demoing them daily to industry and lay people alike. That wasn't considered hard science at a place like MIT, but the ultimate impact on society was huge. One other area of huge but unsung impact was speech technology. Chris Schmandt's Speech Research Group group envisioned and developed audio assistants that paved the way for Siri and Alexa. His students and research have also helped shape an entire field. As for current controversies, well after my time. The big deal about funding back at the beginning of the Media Lab was taking corporate money vs government/defense money (90% corporate for the ML vs 90% government for the rest of MIT).
paganel 7y ago
From half a world away OLPC was a very nice concept. I have no idea about its implementation (probably it had its fair share of failures) but it also had both Intel and Microsoft actively working against it. Back then those two companies were a lot more powerful and resourceful compared to now (Intel has gone down a bit in the meantime), so that mattered.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > From half a world away OLPC was a very nice concept That's kind of the point, isn't it? Once you got up close and personal with the thing, you saw the issues... The netbook-class computers were much better designed, overall.
gadders 7y ago
Back in the days of the OLPC, the Fake Steve Jobs blog used to have some vicious takedowns of the MIT Media Lab, and how it's not really part of MIT or held to the same standards.
- ocschwar 7y ago
  In my day, the rest of MIT called it the Remedial Lab
prairiecat 7y ago
The Media Lab is the buzzfeed of research institutions, it's not like they do no solid work but mostly they're peddlers of clickbaity spectacles. Sure they've produced some cool projects here and there - but they've also shown research labs around the world that chasing empty hype is more lucrative than doing real research, which I think have had a quite insidious, damaging effect on academic institutions.
- moeamaya 7y ago
  Not sure if this was intentional but the cofounder of Buzzfeed came from the Media Lab.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
If you generalize a bit it all makes perfect sense. >30+ years of <pretending to actually be doing useful things>, high-profile failures, and maybe one or two useful <things> among the years of pointless impractical <wastes of time and money> "looks cool", all funded by <shady people of at best questionable morals>. The above generalized form describes basically every "esteemed" public and quasi-public-nonprofit institution (higher education falling in the latter category here) in the greater Boston area (I'm sure there's a short list of exceptions but I can't think of any right now). This is a culture problem, not a problem with a particular institution. Look at history. Cultural problems do not go away overnight and they certainly do not go away just by swapping out what's basically a department head. You have to slowly build the expectation that people will not do whatever the problem thing is. Unfortunately, the people of MA mostly just expect that the upper class (social class in this context) is a (ethically) dirty bunch and scandals like this are met with a shrug and a fatalistic "well what are you gonna do" by the general population. People in places of power doing highly unethical things (like accepting Epstein's money) is simply not a problem that society in MA cares much about or even feels it can solve (at present). FYI I'm only speaking for the greater Boston area because that's what I know. I have no idea how they do things in Chicago or Moscow (but I like to think I could take a good guess).
joewee 7y ago
“all funded by the largess of child molesters.” I thought it was mainly funded by corporations?
- bluntfang 7y ago
  don't be so obtuse.
bitL 7y ago
You can always put MIT onto your resume without mentioning Media Lab. Anyway, Media Lab was (is?) the coolest part of MIT; pity they messed up badly by taking funding from Jeffrey.

by bbanyc 7y ago

corndoge 7y ago

Why a gap? If you did good work there and weren't aware of any wrongdoing what reason is there to strike it from your resume?

bbanyc 7y ago
I did lousy work there.
- geofft 7y ago
  You did honest work there, which is more than can be said for many people with the Media Lab on their résumé. Don't measure the caliber of your work by the standards of scammers.
  - bbanyc 7y ago
    It was lousy by my standards. But I'd rather not discuss myself any further, this thread isn't about me.

hnaccy 7y ago

Where can I read on the rigged demos?

bbanyc 7y ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/mit-media-lab-personal-food-computers-dont-work-fake-staff-say-2019-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/mit-media-lab-personal-food-...
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. ""It's essentially a grow box with some sensors for collecting data," Cerqueira, a dietitian who worked as a project manager at the Open Agriculture Initiative for two years [...] The boxes were not air-tight, so staff couldn't control variables like the levels of carbon dioxide and even basic environmental factors like temperature and humidity, Cerqueira and the other person said. " Looking at https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/projects/ https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/pro... it looks like the food computer project was just one among several, though it might've been the more prioritized 'audacious goal' among them considering it's prominence on the main open ag site: https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/ https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/ The last paper I saw (2018-10-20) ( https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-02683-7_79 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-02683-... ) on food computer version 2 is more about the building process of it, not so much on results yet. https://wiki.openag.media.mit.edu/faq https://wiki.openag.media.mit.edu/faq discusses the version differences. Finally, Caleb comments on the BI article here: https://forum.openag.media.mit.edu/t/can-we-get-a-comment/5186 https://forum.openag.media.mit.edu/t/can-we-get-a-comment/51... (sidebar: the food computer thing weirdly reminds me of reddit.com/r/spacebuckets )
  - makomk 7y ago
    The thing is, they didn't need to have a whistleblower to find out that the boxes couldn't control variables like the levels of carbon dioxide - they just had to read the latest paper published using them: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0213918 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Apparently that level of control is planned for their currently-in-development larger scale facility. Also, I don't think the quotes about controlling those things even apply to the Personal Food Computer specifically - after reading the linked articles they're either forward-looking claims about the whole research that predate the PFC, or specifically refer to to the larger-scale equipment. On top of that, the headline claim that the "personal food computer" "simply doesn't work" seems to be outright untrue. I had a look and the designs seem to be pretty widely replicated and tested - everything from an MIT-supplied version of the latest design in a New York museum operated by unaffiliated volunteers to a homebrew version of an old foam-based design built from scratch by a Baltimore school using material from Lowes. Some versions do seem to be a little temperamental on the electronics side, to the point members of the team have advised people not to built v2 on the forum, but they do work and grow things. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the photoshoots and static displays were faked, though; turnaround time for a real grow is at least a month.

jedimastert 7y ago

> There may be a master's degree with my name on it, but as I see it I basically flunked out. You know what they call someone that graduated medical school with a 2.0 GPA? Doctor When it comes to something like certification or education, no one cares about your standards. MIT set the bar, and you pasted it. It might be below your standards, but no one cares.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
barry-cotter 7y ago
When someone tells you about their accomplishment and then denigrates it just move on. Adults eventually learn to interpret these games just as when someone says they “went to college in Boston” you know they went to Harvard. The grandparent may have internalized the Ph.D. disdain for Master’s degrees or they may be saying “I have a Master’s from MIT.”
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > when someone says they “went to college in Boston” you know they went to Harvard People say this because they have learned that when they answer “I went to Harvard” they get instantly treated differently by many people they have tried talking to, and it’s annoying.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

reilly3000 7y ago

Maybe you ought to give yourself credit for being smart enough to get in, and for having enough good in you to realize its not a place to invest your best energy. As for your gap, perhaps call it your "2 year research project on magical thinking in an engineering setting" ...?

Animats 7y ago

It's not clear that the Media Lab is still needed. It was once leading edge, back when graphics technology was exotic and expensive, and the field was small. But now everybody has that technology. NVidia, the game companies, Hollywood, and the VR industry pour billions into the field. The Media Lab is now a small player in a big field. Here's their current list of projects.[1] Some of the less useful ones: "Tasting Menu in Zero G" "Sculpting in zero gravity" "Discreet Teeth Gestures for Mobile Device Interaction" "Blockchained Agent-based Simulator for Cities" It looks like they're pivoting from media to - something. [1] https://www.media.mit.edu/search/?filter=project https://www.media.mit.edu/search/?filter=project

elvinyung 7y ago
> "Tasting Menu in Zero G" Meh. The Media Lab is (or was) doing some of the best work in the field in food and flavor science. Arielle Johnson [1] in particular is known for her work and expertise on flavor and fermentation, and she went on to lead R&D at Noma's science bunker [2] and now has her own lab in East Village [3]. She's probably has had an outsized impact on the food world in the last decade or so on stuff like fermentation, which is gradually making its way beyond just fine dining and is something that I'm particularly excited about. [1] https://www.ariellejohnson.com https://www.ariellejohnson.com [2] https://www.eater.com/2018/3/9/17100494/rip-noma-science-bunker-2014-2018 https://www.eater.com/2018/3/9/17100494/rip-noma-science-bun... [3] https://www.ediblemanhattan.com/magazine/summer-2019-issue-no-59/arielle-johnson-fermentation/ https://www.ediblemanhattan.com/magazine/summer-2019-issue-n...
- prairiecat 7y ago
  Impressive, but I wouldn't call this one of "the best work in the field in food and flavor science". More like impressive performance art / tinkering, still great though.
jkestner 7y ago
That’s not their current list of projects, but a tiny subset you picked. I don’t disagree that many of the projects are silly or unworkable (and some listed there are just class projects of a couple weeks’ work), but it’s reflective of the Lab’s proximity to startup philosophy compared to harder science labs — crazier ideas, odds, and rewards. It’s also true that the Media Lab’s advantages aren’t the same as they were before multiple tech industry booms, but they retain a fairly unique position where disciplines interact with corporate resources, and without a direct corporate motive. That’s where my favorite of the Lab’s output came from — Lifelong Kindergarten, Computing Culture, Center for Civic Media, Center for Bits and Atoms, Biomechatronics, etc. Hopefully the next director has the vision to focus it in directions where neither big tech nor startups aren’t going. Disclaimer: Media Lab alum.

freyr 7y ago

I briefly joined an industry R&D team that was producing smoke-and-mirror demos. The ideas were good, but nothing really worked. One day I noticed all of the team’s demos had been done already by an MIT professor. I guess that’s where they’d got the inspiration. I figured the professor’s demos were at least real. Now I’m not so sure. As far as I know, none of the work has made it out of the professor’s lab. Maybe it will, but this whole incident has aroused suspicion.

dheera 7y ago

There were some high profile failures but some things were pretty impressive, including Hugh Herr's bionic limbs, LEGO Mindstorms, the ideas in Sixth Sense, Ike Chuang and Neil Gershenfeld's quantum computing work. Even OLPC was an extremely noble goal, and they did likely inspire others to create low-cost PCs including netbooks and Chromebooks. The Media Lab isn't intended to be a profitable business. Success of a Media Lab project isn't defined by its "products" getting a million users and a hockey stick curve. Success of a Media Lab project means that it is successful in demoing something that eventually does become our future.

mhalle 7y ago
Steve Benton's Spatial Imaging Group and its student diaspora had a huge influence on the holography and 3D display world. We developed full color reflection holography, the first holographic video system, and the first image predistortion algorithms for light fields. Our 1 meter sq hologram was at the time the world's largest computer generated 3D display. Unfortunately, Steve died pre-Google, and his contributions are not fully recognized. I was at the lab a long time ago (from its opening in 1985 until 1997). What made it unique at the time was breaking down the barriers between computation, technology, creative arts, and popular culture in a way that seems so natural now. On a campus where hundreds of other PhD students seemed to be working on amazing research on very detailed topics, we were building pieces of the future and demoing them daily to industry and lay people alike. That wasn't considered hard science at a place like MIT, but the ultimate impact on society was huge. One other area of huge but unsung impact was speech technology. Chris Schmandt's Speech Research Group group envisioned and developed audio assistants that paved the way for Siri and Alexa. His students and research have also helped shape an entire field. As for current controversies, well after my time. The big deal about funding back at the beginning of the Media Lab was taking corporate money vs government/defense money (90% corporate for the ML vs 90% government for the rest of MIT).

paganel 7y ago

From half a world away OLPC was a very nice concept. I have no idea about its implementation (probably it had its fair share of failures) but it also had both Intel and Microsoft actively working against it. Back then those two companies were a lot more powerful and resourceful compared to now (Intel has gone down a bit in the meantime), so that mattered.

zozbot234 7y ago
> From half a world away OLPC was a very nice concept That's kind of the point, isn't it? Once you got up close and personal with the thing, you saw the issues... The netbook-class computers were much better designed, overall.

gadders 7y ago

Back in the days of the OLPC, the Fake Steve Jobs blog used to have some vicious takedowns of the MIT Media Lab, and how it's not really part of MIT or held to the same standards.

ocschwar 7y ago
In my day, the rest of MIT called it the Remedial Lab

prairiecat 7y ago

The Media Lab is the buzzfeed of research institutions, it's not like they do no solid work but mostly they're peddlers of clickbaity spectacles. Sure they've produced some cool projects here and there - but they've also shown research labs around the world that chasing empty hype is more lucrative than doing real research, which I think have had a quite insidious, damaging effect on academic institutions.

moeamaya 7y ago
Not sure if this was intentional but the cofounder of Buzzfeed came from the Media Lab.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

If you generalize a bit it all makes perfect sense. >30+ years of <pretending to actually be doing useful things>, high-profile failures, and maybe one or two useful <things> among the years of pointless impractical <wastes of time and money> "looks cool", all funded by <shady people of at best questionable morals>. The above generalized form describes basically every "esteemed" public and quasi-public-nonprofit institution (higher education falling in the latter category here) in the greater Boston area (I'm sure there's a short list of exceptions but I can't think of any right now). This is a culture problem, not a problem with a particular institution. Look at history. Cultural problems do not go away overnight and they certainly do not go away just by swapping out what's basically a department head. You have to slowly build the expectation that people will not do whatever the problem thing is. Unfortunately, the people of MA mostly just expect that the upper class (social class in this context) is a (ethically) dirty bunch and scandals like this are met with a shrug and a fatalistic "well what are you gonna do" by the general population. People in places of power doing highly unethical things (like accepting Epstein's money) is simply not a problem that society in MA cares much about or even feels it can solve (at present). FYI I'm only speaking for the greater Boston area because that's what I know. I have no idea how they do things in Chicago or Moscow (but I like to think I could take a good guess).

joewee 7y ago

“all funded by the largess of child molesters.” I thought it was mainly funded by corporations?

bluntfang 7y ago
don't be so obtuse.

bitL 7y ago

You can always put MIT onto your resume without mentioning Media Lab. Anyway, Media Lab was (is?) the coolest part of MIT; pity they messed up badly by taking funding from Jeffrey.