8 ms·

MIT professor's hack to recruit students

246 points by iamwil 15y ago

orijing 15y ago
In theory, why can't some student who wants to work in that professor's lab just request the books that the professor checked out (or are likely to check out)? Seems like hacking the hack.
- saulrh 15y ago
  You probably can't figure out which books he has on his shelf, especially if he realizes this approach and consciously conceals them and suppresses the information.
- djcapelis 15y ago
  Seems like it would've been easier to just swing by his office and tell him you wanted to work in his lab. That'd probably get you farther than the book thing anyway.
zaidf 15y ago
I checked out some esoteric books and every now and then would look through the previous due dates and wonder how much in common I may have with some of these locals I'll never know about. It's easy to meet likeminded folks on the web and yet with locals who've checked out physical books, there is that identity disconnect--in some cases for good reasons(I don't want everyone to know about every book I've been checking out).
- jackowayed 15y ago
  Have you considered leaving something in books you check out? "Hi! I live nearby and also am interested in X! You should email me at ..." Not sure how well your library checks things that you return (I know someone at Stanford who got an email from the library because she forgot to remove a couple sticky notes from a book), but it might be worth a try.
  - Anti-Ratfish 15y ago
    My wife found a piece of bacon in a library book recently, so I'm inclined to think that in general they don't check books often. Just stick a note in there.
    - impendia 15y ago
      A friend of mine put a $20 bill in his university library's copy of his thesis. AFAIK it's still there.
      - mdonahoe 15y ago
        I am writing my masters thesis now. I know only my 3 readers and my dad will ever read it. A strange tradition
      - klbarry 15y ago
        I suppose the majority of thesis' are completed for the creator's benefit, not the world's.
  - parenthesis 15y ago
    I've found a few interesting things inside library and second-hand books. Probably the most interesting was inside a library copy of the 2003 edition of the Clocksin and Mellish book Programming in Prolog. Inside the book was a print-out (dot-matrix, by the look of it) of an email sent in 1988 from one of the authors of the book to the other, regarding how to revise it for a future edition. Edit: Also on the piece of paper, handwritten, is the name `Geoff Goodhill'.
- gruseom 15y ago
  What were some of the esoteric books? (It may be an unfair question. I doubt I remember enough to answer it myself.)
jamesgagan 15y ago
well - to play devil's advocate, it's clever but if a student hoarded books, he'd have the book thrown at him/her and academic standards should apply to all equally.
- true_religion 15y ago
  Well students are expected to come to the university, study in obscurity, then leave after paying monies. The context is different for professors, especially tenured ones. Why do you think this is an "academic standard"? And even if it is one, why should they apply equally (e.g. its an academic standard that students cannot use one paper for multiple classes, however professors can use one paper for multiple conferences/journals/etc.)
  - Brashman 15y ago
    Actually, usually one paper can't be submitted to multiple places.
    - kragen 15y ago
      It varies a lot by discipline. Law reviews universally accept papers that have been submitted elsewhere; CS conferences universally don't (unless they were rejected already, of course). Lots of places, in many disciplines, will publish material in technical reports or dissertations that's already been published elsewhere.
  - impendia 15y ago
    To answer your last question, because the purposes are different. Professors assign homework (including papers) to force students to learn something new. But professors speak at conferences because other professors want to hear about their work.
ajkessler 15y ago
I bet many people's first reaction to this story is something along the lines of "Look what we're losing if print dies!" or "This is why print will never die!" But, think about Kindle's bookmarks. You can see highlights and notes from everyone who has ever read the book. That's insane! That's Lettvin's hack, scaled to the max. The problem is obviously filtering all that data, but look how much larger the pool gets: now the professor doesn't just have the pool from MIT to choose from, he might have the whole world to choose from. What an awesome time we live in.
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  It's Lettvin's hack scaled to the point of meaninglessness. The whole point was to get them physically in his office and talking to him, and I'm pretty sure he was only interested in students to begin with. If he wanted to talk to everyone who had ever read the book, he may as well just put an ad somewhere.
  - ajkessler 15y ago
    Maybe I wasn't very clear: the post made it sound like the point of the "hack" was to identify and recruit talent (i.e. if you were interested in the book you were probably talented). Dealing with physical books, on campus, obviously limits the pool of potential talent. Something like Kindle's notes (or its next, more refined, version) could not only identify who might be talented (i.e. who had read the book), but the notes/bookmarks/highlights could also provide insight into just how talented someone was, whether that person was on MIT's campus or was some kid living in a village in India.
    - andrewflnr 15y ago
      Fair enough. Lettvin's hack backed up and scaled in a different direction...
- keiferski 15y ago
  I don't think Lettvin really cared about the books themselves - he just wanted to meet the type of people who reads them.
Joakal 15y ago
Argh, this reminds me of my frustration with the university library. Students were 'hoarding' books that I wanted in other sections of the library so that they could effectively bypass 1 hour or 3 day lending limits (short/long term borrowing). While a nice hack to get what you want, it's depriving others from using the resources in the meantime. There was even up to three very helpful librarians try to even find one book over three days. I'm even paranoid that it was stupidity that someone decided to mix Economics among Medicine books. At least it's known who has the book in this case.
- Periodic 15y ago
  I worked at the library at a university library for a while. I hadn't heard about the issues you mentioned, but the issue of this article was very common. It stemmed from our lending policy. Undergrads could get a book for two weeks, but had a two-week grace period on renewals (sorta weird). Grad students and professors could check out books for the entire academic year, they were supposed to physically bring in their books for renewal once a year, but many times they could convince staff to just renew all books on their accounts. Some professors had over 100 books checked out and many didn't know how many they had checked out. The common response to inquiries was to tell the student to go talk to the professor. We were allowed to give out professors names.
  - Joakal 15y ago
    At my university, there was 3 day lending policy. With renewals within the day of return. Due to a limited selection, it was possible for others to put a 'hold' on it. This means library staff would keep it behind counter for up to a week before releasing it to the next hold request or put it back on shelf. Since some undergrad books were in heavy demand (especially due to assignments/exams) when it's common to see holds. Some students have learnt to put the book somewhere else in the library so they could have exclusive privilege of reading it. Conversely, I haven't heard of the professors or anyone hoarding lent books. All holds I have placed eventually turned up available in <3 days. Your two weeks policy is very generous and something I would have liked over 3 days which seems quick.
ScottBurson 15y ago
Ah, so Jerry Lettvin died. I took a couple of courses from him as an undergrad. He was quite a character. Here's a Jerry quote for you: "The brain is not a computer. The brain is a gland." I don't even know if he believed that, but he loved to stir controversy -- and announcing this at the MIT AI Lab c. 1982 certainly accomplished that! I would say "RIP", but he probably already has his lab set up and is hard at work, wherever he is :-)
- nik61 15y ago
  I think he deserves to come back as an ant, so that would figure. Bad Karma should carry him a few steps down the food chain at least. The world is divided between those who see this kind of behaviour as lovable eccentricity and others who regard it as sabotage and a special kind of nastiness. I am of the latter, and see this "character" as a bad person because of his book-trick.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - pjscott 15y ago
    Did you know him? I don't, and I would be hesitant to condemn his character based on a couple of brief anecdotes.
- djacobs 15y ago
  I'm not a 'hater' (per below), but I would suggest to you that 'probably' is most definitely the wrong modifier here.
  - ScottBurson 15y ago
    Can you really not deal with encountering someone with different beliefs than your own? As someone with minority beliefs -- a small minority -- I deal with it every day. It's just a matter of respect.
- thangalin 15y ago
jamesgagan 15y ago
if you are doing this shit at 11 you don't need a "life lesson", you are already ahead of the pack no matter the outcome.
signa11 15y ago
seems like physical version of delicious to me :)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ScottBurson 15y ago
I've just come across a QuickTime video of Jerry's famous debate with Timothy Leary about LSD. I found it quite fascinating to hear both Leary's argument and Jerry's rebuttal. As I understand, Jerry accepted the debate invitation on very short notice and so had little time to prepare his remarks, and that shows; he rambles a little. But he makes his point. Here's the link: http://neuron.duke.edu/Lettvin/Lettvin_Leary_Deb.mov http://neuron.duke.edu/Lettvin/Lettvin_Leary_Deb.mov If you find Leary's mysticism tedious and you just want to see Jerry's rebuttal, skip to about the 60% point. (Don't miss Leary's brief reply at the end, though.) Oh, and in an interesting bit of synchronicity, Jerry mentions the Charles Whitman case, which figures prominently in another article on HN at the moment ("The Brain On Trial").
- ScottBurson 15y ago
  Some more Jerry stories: http://jerrylettvin.blogspot.com/search/label/Memories http://jerrylettvin.blogspot.com/search/label/Memories
- gnosis 15y ago
  Lettvin really missed out by refusing to try LSD. I bet he would have sung a different tune if he had.

246 points by iamwil 15y ago

In theory, why can't some student who wants to work in that professor's lab just request the books that the professor checked out (or are likely to check out)? Seems like hacking the hack.

saulrh 15y ago
You probably can't figure out which books he has on his shelf, especially if he realizes this approach and consciously conceals them and suppresses the information.
djcapelis 15y ago
Seems like it would've been easier to just swing by his office and tell him you wanted to work in his lab. That'd probably get you farther than the book thing anyway.

zaidf 15y ago

I checked out some esoteric books and every now and then would look through the previous due dates and wonder how much in common I may have with some of these locals I'll never know about. It's easy to meet likeminded folks on the web and yet with locals who've checked out physical books, there is that identity disconnect--in some cases for good reasons(I don't want everyone to know about every book I've been checking out).

jackowayed 15y ago
Have you considered leaving something in books you check out? "Hi! I live nearby and also am interested in X! You should email me at ..." Not sure how well your library checks things that you return (I know someone at Stanford who got an email from the library because she forgot to remove a couple sticky notes from a book), but it might be worth a try.
- Anti-Ratfish 15y ago
  My wife found a piece of bacon in a library book recently, so I'm inclined to think that in general they don't check books often. Just stick a note in there.
  - impendia 15y ago
    A friend of mine put a $20 bill in his university library's copy of his thesis. AFAIK it's still there.
    - mdonahoe 15y ago
      I am writing my masters thesis now. I know only my 3 readers and my dad will ever read it. A strange tradition
    - klbarry 15y ago
      I suppose the majority of thesis' are completed for the creator's benefit, not the world's.
- parenthesis 15y ago
  I've found a few interesting things inside library and second-hand books. Probably the most interesting was inside a library copy of the 2003 edition of the Clocksin and Mellish book Programming in Prolog. Inside the book was a print-out (dot-matrix, by the look of it) of an email sent in 1988 from one of the authors of the book to the other, regarding how to revise it for a future edition. Edit: Also on the piece of paper, handwritten, is the name `Geoff Goodhill'.
gruseom 15y ago
What were some of the esoteric books? (It may be an unfair question. I doubt I remember enough to answer it myself.)

jamesgagan 15y ago

well - to play devil's advocate, it's clever but if a student hoarded books, he'd have the book thrown at him/her and academic standards should apply to all equally.

true_religion 15y ago
Well students are expected to come to the university, study in obscurity, then leave after paying monies. The context is different for professors, especially tenured ones. Why do you think this is an "academic standard"? And even if it is one, why should they apply equally (e.g. its an academic standard that students cannot use one paper for multiple classes, however professors can use one paper for multiple conferences/journals/etc.)
- Brashman 15y ago
  Actually, usually one paper can't be submitted to multiple places.
  - kragen 15y ago
    It varies a lot by discipline. Law reviews universally accept papers that have been submitted elsewhere; CS conferences universally don't (unless they were rejected already, of course). Lots of places, in many disciplines, will publish material in technical reports or dissertations that's already been published elsewhere.
- impendia 15y ago
  To answer your last question, because the purposes are different. Professors assign homework (including papers) to force students to learn something new. But professors speak at conferences because other professors want to hear about their work.

ajkessler 15y ago

I bet many people's first reaction to this story is something along the lines of "Look what we're losing if print dies!" or "This is why print will never die!" But, think about Kindle's bookmarks. You can see highlights and notes from everyone who has ever read the book. That's insane! That's Lettvin's hack, scaled to the max. The problem is obviously filtering all that data, but look how much larger the pool gets: now the professor doesn't just have the pool from MIT to choose from, he might have the whole world to choose from. What an awesome time we live in.

andrewflnr 15y ago
It's Lettvin's hack scaled to the point of meaninglessness. The whole point was to get them physically in his office and talking to him, and I'm pretty sure he was only interested in students to begin with. If he wanted to talk to everyone who had ever read the book, he may as well just put an ad somewhere.
- ajkessler 15y ago
  Maybe I wasn't very clear: the post made it sound like the point of the "hack" was to identify and recruit talent (i.e. if you were interested in the book you were probably talented). Dealing with physical books, on campus, obviously limits the pool of potential talent. Something like Kindle's notes (or its next, more refined, version) could not only identify who might be talented (i.e. who had read the book), but the notes/bookmarks/highlights could also provide insight into just how talented someone was, whether that person was on MIT's campus or was some kid living in a village in India.
  - andrewflnr 15y ago
    Fair enough. Lettvin's hack backed up and scaled in a different direction...
keiferski 15y ago
I don't think Lettvin really cared about the books themselves - he just wanted to meet the type of people who reads them.

Joakal 15y ago

Argh, this reminds me of my frustration with the university library. Students were 'hoarding' books that I wanted in other sections of the library so that they could effectively bypass 1 hour or 3 day lending limits (short/long term borrowing). While a nice hack to get what you want, it's depriving others from using the resources in the meantime. There was even up to three very helpful librarians try to even find one book over three days. I'm even paranoid that it was stupidity that someone decided to mix Economics among Medicine books. At least it's known who has the book in this case.

Periodic 15y ago
I worked at the library at a university library for a while. I hadn't heard about the issues you mentioned, but the issue of this article was very common. It stemmed from our lending policy. Undergrads could get a book for two weeks, but had a two-week grace period on renewals (sorta weird). Grad students and professors could check out books for the entire academic year, they were supposed to physically bring in their books for renewal once a year, but many times they could convince staff to just renew all books on their accounts. Some professors had over 100 books checked out and many didn't know how many they had checked out. The common response to inquiries was to tell the student to go talk to the professor. We were allowed to give out professors names.
- Joakal 15y ago
  At my university, there was 3 day lending policy. With renewals within the day of return. Due to a limited selection, it was possible for others to put a 'hold' on it. This means library staff would keep it behind counter for up to a week before releasing it to the next hold request or put it back on shelf. Since some undergrad books were in heavy demand (especially due to assignments/exams) when it's common to see holds. Some students have learnt to put the book somewhere else in the library so they could have exclusive privilege of reading it. Conversely, I haven't heard of the professors or anyone hoarding lent books. All holds I have placed eventually turned up available in <3 days. Your two weeks policy is very generous and something I would have liked over 3 days which seems quick.

ScottBurson 15y ago

Ah, so Jerry Lettvin died. I took a couple of courses from him as an undergrad. He was quite a character. Here's a Jerry quote for you: "The brain is not a computer. The brain is a gland." I don't even know if he believed that, but he loved to stir controversy -- and announcing this at the MIT AI Lab c. 1982 certainly accomplished that! I would say "RIP", but he probably already has his lab set up and is hard at work, wherever he is :-)

nik61 15y ago
I think he deserves to come back as an ant, so that would figure. Bad Karma should carry him a few steps down the food chain at least. The world is divided between those who see this kind of behaviour as lovable eccentricity and others who regard it as sabotage and a special kind of nastiness. I am of the latter, and see this "character" as a bad person because of his book-trick.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pjscott 15y ago
  Did you know him? I don't, and I would be hesitant to condemn his character based on a couple of brief anecdotes.
djacobs 15y ago
I'm not a 'hater' (per below), but I would suggest to you that 'probably' is most definitely the wrong modifier here.
- ScottBurson 15y ago
  Can you really not deal with encountering someone with different beliefs than your own? As someone with minority beliefs -- a small minority -- I deal with it every day. It's just a matter of respect.
thangalin 15y ago

jamesgagan 15y ago

if you are doing this shit at 11 you don't need a "life lesson", you are already ahead of the pack no matter the outcome.

signa11 15y ago

seems like physical version of delicious to me :)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ScottBurson 15y ago

I've just come across a QuickTime video of Jerry's famous debate with Timothy Leary about LSD. I found it quite fascinating to hear both Leary's argument and Jerry's rebuttal. As I understand, Jerry accepted the debate invitation on very short notice and so had little time to prepare his remarks, and that shows; he rambles a little. But he makes his point. Here's the link: http://neuron.duke.edu/Lettvin/Lettvin_Leary_Deb.mov http://neuron.duke.edu/Lettvin/Lettvin_Leary_Deb.mov If you find Leary's mysticism tedious and you just want to see Jerry's rebuttal, skip to about the 60% point. (Don't miss Leary's brief reply at the end, though.) Oh, and in an interesting bit of synchronicity, Jerry mentions the Charles Whitman case, which figures prominently in another article on HN at the moment ("The Brain On Trial").

ScottBurson 15y ago
Some more Jerry stories: http://jerrylettvin.blogspot.com/search/label/Memories http://jerrylettvin.blogspot.com/search/label/Memories
gnosis 15y ago
Lettvin really missed out by refusing to try LSD. I bet he would have sung a different tune if he had.