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Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

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Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#91

Post by [deleted] »

appleflaxen wrote: post #79
EthanHeilman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see nothing wrong with professors communicating the value of what they are building as effectively as possible. If you believe a problem is an important problem to solve then you should work hard to convince other people it is important. >As for the Media Lab, they're really selling the image of technological progress. Disclaimer: I've worked with researchers at the DCI group in the media lab on hash function crypt…

> The media lab is made up of a large number of research teams doing very different stuff. It is unfair to just say "the media lab does X or operates like X". Look at the research from the DCI group at the media on zero knowledge proofs systems [0], hash-based accumulators [1], or work on Ring Signatures [2]. I have no dog in the fight, but I feel like if any entity is branding itself as a discrete entity, then you t…

[deleted]

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#92

Post by Glyptodon »

azinman2 wrote: post #65
Glyptodon wrote: post #16

As a high school student I got a chance to visit MIT's CSAIL with some other high school students and it killed all interest I had in attending MIT because what I previously thought would be a total hacker and mad scientist sort of place turned out to be a bunch of marketing gimmicks (with a couple carefully managed demos of things that were "cool" more so than useful, new, or innovative).

First, you know that CSAIL is not the media lab, right? Secondly, there’s nothing gimmicky about CSAIL. Perhaps nerds sitting around writing code or proving lemmas on a whiteboard isn’t so “cool” to look at as a high schooler, but that doesn’t mean it’s isn’t an exciting place when you’re old enough, knowledgeable enough, and creative enough to enjoy it.

First, yes I know CSAIL and the media lab are different.

Second, it's quite conceivable actual (interesting) research things were and are happening in CSAIL.

To clarify, since this apparently was not obvious:

What I am saying is that basically whatever research and interesting things were being done was pretty much hidden behind a dog and pony show (and some robots and bragging about whatever architect designed the building), and that the marketing front was too slick and central for its own good. It didn't come across as a place for "hackers" (in the MIT sense, though they mentioned "hacking" plenty of times to tout the school) or even just as a place for someone who might want to learn about AI. Instead it came across as a place with a lot of resource for the marketing budget.

(So the impression that things at MIT might be the result of unusually successful marketing more than anything else doesn't surprise me.)

Seeing more whiteboards and coding would have helped, honestly.

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#93

Post by sgt101 »

bobosha wrote: post #76

CSAIL alum here, at the risk of being accused of inter-lab rivalry, I have got to say the Media lab has a reputation of being the "Marketing dept of MIT". A Wired article a while back referred to them as "all icing and no cake". The "sixth sense project" for example, was one I thought was more worthy of an undergraduate project, than MIT Doctoral research. I wish Media lab refocuses in enormous resources & talent on…

I'm genuinely shocked to hear you characterize Sixth Sense in that way - to me it was a striking new idea. And the research - do you feel it was poor because it was HCI? What was the lack that you saw?

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#94

Post by diydsp »

catalogia wrote: post #64
diydsp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they acquired Echo Nest for 50 million euros? It's the music discovery engine, not the streaming.[0] [0] http://the.echonest.com/pressreleases/spotify-acquires-echo-...

> It's the music discovery engine, Didn't the Music Genome Project / Pandora do this half a decade before Spotify?

that's a great question - those approaches where based on acoustic similarity. Later approaches, including Echo Nest, included social features.

An example I used to use with Brian was that Bad Religion and NOFX sound similar. However, fans of one of those bands weren't often fans of the other. In this model, people have a need for an amount of that sound and a social connection, NOT a need for more and more and more of that sound.

Another diff is that Pandora used human music experts where EN used machine listening. They have some overlap, and some differences, but obv the machine listening is offline.

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#95

Post by netcan »

catalogia wrote: post #81
netcan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are funded by a grant process (or similar), you are shaped by it. The most common complaints form the inside are political games or PR games... like here. Either whoever has the best connections wins or whoever has the best (most?) image wins. Remember Banksy's shredder prank? He shredded a multi-million-$ drawing at the auction . Presumably this was some sort of angry gesture towards the art-buying world. I t…

The guy who bought the painting prior to it being shredded decided to keep it, which was probably smart since that media stunt made that painting famous and doubtlessly more desirable than it was before being shredded. Maybe Banksy hates the guy for buying his art, or maybe Banksy did the buyer a favor. Also, the story of the shredder being prepared years in advance reeks of bullshit. And if that part of the story is…

Presumably, Banksy knew well that the stunt would increase the value of the drawing. So on some level, non-naivety is likely no matter what.

That said, it's still a commentary on the "art world." The unidealistic ways & reasons art is bought and how the value of art works... contrast to the idealistic artist destroying his work rather than having it denigrated. It's also inevitably hypocritical because the artist is either benefiting from the whole hype and hokum or wishes to be.

My guess is that the last part is why this is such a common navel-gazing motif in art. The heart at odds with itself. Idealists always struggle with all the hypocrisy, especially their own. Poor things.

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#96

Post by Glyptodon »

sgt101 wrote: post #89
Glyptodon wrote: post #16

As a high school student I got a chance to visit MIT's CSAIL with some other high school students and it killed all interest I had in attending MIT because what I previously thought would be a total hacker and mad scientist sort of place turned out to be a bunch of marketing gimmicks (with a couple carefully managed demos of things that were "cool" more so than useful, new, or innovative).

I went to two poster sessions at CSAIL last year and was blown away with the hacker ethic on display. Mens et manus on display by every grad student. I wish I'd gone there - but I would have drowned, so perhaps it's more accurate to say "I wish I was the kind of person who would benefit from going to MIT"

I doubt I was MIT material, either. It's fairly possible we just got some kind of PR tour they design to not distract or interrupt the researchers, but it just didn't come across well.

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#97

Post by wrycoder »

catalogia wrote: post #81
netcan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are funded by a grant process (or similar), you are shaped by it. The most common complaints form the inside are political games or PR games... like here. Either whoever has the best connections wins or whoever has the best (most?) image wins. Remember Banksy's shredder prank? He shredded a multi-million-$ drawing at the auction . Presumably this was some sort of angry gesture towards the art-buying world. I t…

The guy who bought the painting prior to it being shredded decided to keep it, which was probably smart since that media stunt made that painting famous and doubtlessly more desirable than it was before being shredded. Maybe Banksy hates the guy for buying his art, or maybe Banksy did the buyer a favor. Also, the story of the shredder being prepared years in advance reeks of bullshit. And if that part of the story is…

I doubt that what came out the bottom was the original. I’ll bet that the exhibit can be rewound and replayed.

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#98

Post by rjsw »

dkonofalski wrote: post #63
api wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cousin of this is what one researcher in the field of evolutionary machine learning called "dullwashing" to me in a conversation about academic funding. If he wants to do some really interesting somewhat outside-the-box work, he often has to find some way to make it look incredibly dull and inside-the-box and incremental in order to convince some funding bureaucrat to fund it. Most money is dumb and flows in a herd…

I'm not sure why this is getting voted down except for maybe your tone because this is my experience in so many different things. I've worked for several marketing firms in the past and the quickest way into investors' hearts is to pitch them your idea reframed as a combination of things that are already successes. For example, we worked with a video game developer and their pitch was "It's like GTA mixed with Call o…

We even have a name for it [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-concept

Re: Ted versus The Media Lab [video]

#99

Post by edw »

exdsq wrote: post #62
jvilk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd bet that anyone with a PhD could have made more money with a masters degree and a switch to industry. This is common knowledge for those pursuing CS PhDs. You don't do it for the money. If you only care about money, a master's degree is what you want.

A lot of jobs I have seen recently say a PhD is highly desirable while a Masters is essential. Obviously I don't suggest people start doing a PhD for the money, however I'm surprised to think that you can't out-earn your alternative self with a Masters seeing as the difference in study time is 2 years but you'd be entering industry as an 'expert'. Especially if you target your PhD at something like computational fina…

Job requirements are often inflated to scare away people without the ambition, egomania, and/or self confidence that the writer of the description desires. The business/management job description equivalent of this is "MBA from top-ten business school essential."
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