4 ms·

Members of the Wearable Computing Project at MIT. Mid 90s

5 points by Jun8 4y ago

Jun8 4y ago
Sorry, I saw this on r/OldSchoolCool and couldn’t resist. Despite their hilarious looks these guys were rocking the “future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet” ethos. Guy on the far right is Thad Starner, he’s in Georgia Tech now (https://www.cc.gatech.edu/home/thad/ https://www.cc.gatech.edu/home/thad/). He’s holding a Twiddler, a one-handed keyboard (I’ve wanted these for so long in the past, just checked, you can buy the latest version but they don't look as cool). Guy on the far left is Steve Mann (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor)). Here’s a 2013 article from IEEE Spectrum where he describes the permanent device he wore over his right eye: https://spectrum.ieee.org/steve-mann-my-augmediated-life https://spectrum.ieee.org/steve-mann-my-augmediated-life I wish I was there!
rektide 4y ago
This was the axis around which my universe hinged in 1997. I only recognize on sight (but with stunning immediacy) Thad Starner and Steve Mann (far right ,far left). But the P1 Private Eyes (Thad + green shirt), Thad's maybe-Twiddler... this defined computing to me. A ubiquitous computing revolution... I'm just so sad we have such middling gate-keeped bullshit in our pockets. The phones are abundant wonders in our pockets, such a vast fulfilment of so may of the promises here, but such brutally mediated computing experiences. Such limited local interconnectivity as compared to some of the visionary wider-connected ideas these local rigs only begin to hint at. I can recognize that I have not pushed anywhere near hard enough, that we have not taken this capability for ourselves well enough, but also these platforms have been so locked down, such bullshit corporateware shitfests. We're still only tentatively exploring what a freedesktop phone might possibly be, trying PinePhones, with ancient terrible chips, because it's all we have, while the phone world has largely remained an out-of-reach unsupportable anti-Personal Computing nightmare of proprietary application-ization. There's such a vocal negative view that broadly this is what we implicitly want, that the world is served by this. Or more generally a disbelief in re-personalizing tech, in having options, in anyone who dares to care or try. Cynicism is the prevailing ideology, and that cynicism all leads to consumerism, to defeatism, to giving up, but my god, we have tried so little. So few have dared to try to excel, to push, to become. We have a world that has walked away from empowerment, from deciding, from personal computing, that yields, that accepts computers as too hard, too insurmountable, that refuses the quest to self-empowerment. No one has any clue, any hint of what wide open vantages that humanity might become, if we dare to try. This was my moral inspiration in the universe, this photo, and I do not see the stance echoed enough. You can. You are human. You are great. You can augment your intellect, you can build new vantage points for yourself, you can ascertain & understand the world about you, you can be someone empowered amid the sea of systems & information. You can you can you can you can. This vantage point expressed here has disappointed & it's loss is the most crippling saddest loss I have seen, especially because the philosophy of going further, building better has never had better options. Weirdly, our most confounding anti-vector is that we are overcome with options, and too little mutual-support, reinforcement across approaches. To be honest, this photo was the Pale Blue Dot photo[1], the northstar, of my-own young universe. It's what lead me, what pulled me, what spoke to me. It's just a bunch of geeks decked out in some tech, in an age before that was practical, but to me, it spoke of interconnectivity & an ambient master of your own & other systems around you, and that meant so much. The idea that we could mold & enhance technology everywhere, that we could build & customize & augment ourselves was so powerful, so distinct, so clear to me, and the MIT Media Lab (& also Georgia Tech) showed visible waymarkers on the path... I did & I do believe in this expansion, and I hope we can find these paths again. I hope we can excite each other again, with our own potentials, with human-driven inter and intra-facing. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35226814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35226814
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  I'm just so sad we have such middling gate-keeped bullshit in our pockets. The phones are abundant wonders in our pockets... I’m so glad to hear somebody else say this. It seems like every time I’ve brought up the crushing sadness I feel at these amazing computers we carry around in our pockets being locked-down and unusable for general purpose computing I get shouted down with “They’re not computers! They’re phones!” I’m resigned to the personal, portable, general purpose computing platform that I dreamt about as a kid in the 90s never existing, even though the technology to make it possible exists.

5 points by Jun8 4y ago

Jun8 4y ago

Sorry, I saw this on r/OldSchoolCool and couldn’t resist. Despite their hilarious looks these guys were rocking the “future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet” ethos. Guy on the far right is Thad Starner, he’s in Georgia Tech now (https://www.cc.gatech.edu/home/thad/ https://www.cc.gatech.edu/home/thad/). He’s holding a Twiddler, a one-handed keyboard (I’ve wanted these for so long in the past, just checked, you can buy the latest version but they don't look as cool). Guy on the far left is Steve Mann (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor)). Here’s a 2013 article from IEEE Spectrum where he describes the permanent device he wore over his right eye: https://spectrum.ieee.org/steve-mann-my-augmediated-life https://spectrum.ieee.org/steve-mann-my-augmediated-life I wish I was there!

rektide 4y ago

This was the axis around which my universe hinged in 1997. I only recognize on sight (but with stunning immediacy) Thad Starner and Steve Mann (far right ,far left). But the P1 Private Eyes (Thad + green shirt), Thad's maybe-Twiddler... this defined computing to me. A ubiquitous computing revolution... I'm just so sad we have such middling gate-keeped bullshit in our pockets. The phones are abundant wonders in our pockets, such a vast fulfilment of so may of the promises here, but such brutally mediated computing experiences. Such limited local interconnectivity as compared to some of the visionary wider-connected ideas these local rigs only begin to hint at. I can recognize that I have not pushed anywhere near hard enough, that we have not taken this capability for ourselves well enough, but also these platforms have been so locked down, such bullshit corporateware shitfests. We're still only tentatively exploring what a freedesktop phone might possibly be, trying PinePhones, with ancient terrible chips, because it's all we have, while the phone world has largely remained an out-of-reach unsupportable anti-Personal Computing nightmare of proprietary application-ization. There's such a vocal negative view that broadly this is what we implicitly want, that the world is served by this. Or more generally a disbelief in re-personalizing tech, in having options, in anyone who dares to care or try. Cynicism is the prevailing ideology, and that cynicism all leads to consumerism, to defeatism, to giving up, but my god, we have tried so little. So few have dared to try to excel, to push, to become. We have a world that has walked away from empowerment, from deciding, from personal computing, that yields, that accepts computers as too hard, too insurmountable, that refuses the quest to self-empowerment. No one has any clue, any hint of what wide open vantages that humanity might become, if we dare to try. This was my moral inspiration in the universe, this photo, and I do not see the stance echoed enough. You can. You are human. You are great. You can augment your intellect, you can build new vantage points for yourself, you can ascertain & understand the world about you, you can be someone empowered amid the sea of systems & information. You can you can you can you can. This vantage point expressed here has disappointed & it's loss is the most crippling saddest loss I have seen, especially because the philosophy of going further, building better has never had better options. Weirdly, our most confounding anti-vector is that we are overcome with options, and too little mutual-support, reinforcement across approaches. To be honest, this photo was the Pale Blue Dot photo[1], the northstar, of my-own young universe. It's what lead me, what pulled me, what spoke to me. It's just a bunch of geeks decked out in some tech, in an age before that was practical, but to me, it spoke of interconnectivity & an ambient master of your own & other systems around you, and that meant so much. The idea that we could mold & enhance technology everywhere, that we could build & customize & augment ourselves was so powerful, so distinct, so clear to me, and the MIT Media Lab (& also Georgia Tech) showed visible waymarkers on the path... I did & I do believe in this expansion, and I hope we can find these paths again. I hope we can excite each other again, with our own potentials, with human-driven inter and intra-facing. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35226814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35226814

EvanAnderson 4y ago
I'm just so sad we have such middling gate-keeped bullshit in our pockets. The phones are abundant wonders in our pockets... I’m so glad to hear somebody else say this. It seems like every time I’ve brought up the crushing sadness I feel at these amazing computers we carry around in our pockets being locked-down and unusable for general purpose computing I get shouted down with “They’re not computers! They’re phones!” I’m resigned to the personal, portable, general purpose computing platform that I dreamt about as a kid in the 90s never existing, even though the technology to make it possible exists.