121–130 of 162 posts
My response: Maybe, but so what? This was rambling and smelled of bitterness. I especially didn’t like his suggestion that he “could have been” Jef Raskin because their viewpoints were “essentially the same” or whatever. Really?
"If I hadn't snubbed Jobs and Woz, I might've been the Jef Raskin of Apple" That quote made me look up who Ted Nelson was. His most notable project that I see is Xanadu which Wired described as "the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing". Started in 1960, it didn't ship a working version until 2014. I don't disagree that the Media Lab often overhypes things. But you need to be able to sell you…
It saddens me that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves.
He wrote a couple of very influential books on what computing would be as early as the sixties. Very notable people have gone on record saying he was one of the most important inspirations for their work: Alan Kay, Tim Berners Lee, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and many others.
It's difficult to pin point his precise contributions, because he's all over the place, but his contributions are many.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 b…
CSAIL and the Media Lab are very different places, with different funding sources and ways of interacting with the broader community. There’s also some friction between the two. So to rope it all together is your incorrect outsider impression. My guess is most high schoolers probably do want to see fancy buildings and robots. There’s no beakers with smoke or explosions (hopefully) happening in a computer science depa…
I was a high school kid with dial up internet that I had to ask permission to use and computer time that was rationed (not trying to portray this as a hardship - it wasn't). While I was the one kid in my class who enjoyed programming a graphing calculator, it's not like I was super "internet native," and liking programming already didn't mean that I knew it was computer science, or that it would have occurred to me to presume I shouldn't take the way things were presented at face value. I was a somewhat sheltered kid.
The point that MIT had a pretty significant marketing angle doesn't seem like it should be that wild. Even (what I think is) your website is pretty marketing-centric:
> "My work has been used by millions in 185+ countries, been shown in over 7 musueums world-wide, and has been covered by PBS, NPR, BBC, The Alantic, and more."
...and I'm not trying to say that MIT hasn't done groundbreaking research.
Also from (what I think is) your website:
> "I've been on a computer daily since I received my first Mac at age 5 in 1986."
Keep in mind that that's not common, or at least wasn't, even into the 2000s.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
CSAIL and the Media Lab are very different places, with different funding sources and ways of interacting with the broader community. There’s also some friction between the two. So to rope it all together is your incorrect outsider impression. My guess is most high schoolers probably do want to see fancy buildings and robots. There’s no beakers with smoke or explosions (hopefully) happening in a computer science depa…
...I really hesitated to reply to your latest post but: I was a high school kid with dial up internet that I had to ask permission to use and computer time that was rationed (not trying to portray this as a hardship - it wasn't). While I was the one kid in my class who enjoyed programming a graphing calculator, it's not like I was super "internet native," and liking programming already didn't mean that I knew it was…
Of course my personal website about my professional work is marketing. What's wrong with that? It's all true. It's important to market yourself, whether you're a biologist seeking grants, a philosopher seeking impact, or a university department seeking stature. That's how the world works. You need to tell people why they should care about you, otherwise you're just a forgotten soul in a world with billions of souls.
That I've used a computer since the early 80s wasn't common I think is a good thing, despite being made fun of for it all throughout my childhood. I think it has framed many of my perspectives in life, including an ultimate desire to get a PhD from the Media Lab and attend MIT. How is any of this relevant here?
I don’t think i’ve ever taken Media Lab “seriously” — or if i did, my age still started with a 1. To take media lab seriously is to miss the point. They aren’t supposed to be serious! If i may coin a term, they’re not even doing blue sky, they’re doing crack-of-dawn. 99% of what they think about will turn out to be a funny shadow on the wall from the laundry hamper that looked cool for a minute until the room brighte…
So what is its point?
The Media Lab brought together a diversity of nontraditional tech interests and capabilities in one place to explore how cutting edge ideas in how we interact with information might disrupt everyday life in artful ways, creating cool demos to titillate the masses and foment fear in the hearts of competitors.
And it largely worked, for the first 15 years or so, anyway. But eventually, Being Digital (or WiReD) wasn't all that disruptive or cool any more, and the bloom was off the rose.
I was a grad student at the Media Lab in its early days. I was attracted not by Negroponte but by the people he managed to attract: at the time, that included Marvin Minsky, Alan Kay, and Stewart Brand, as well as some less famous but truly brilliant people from the arts (Ricky Leacock, Muriel Cooper) and sciences (Steve Benton, inventor of white-light holography). It was an exciting place, but there was a hollowness…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true. There are recommendation algorithms and there are recommendation algorithms. Spotify's VP of Engineering in the US contacted me in July 2011 due to my work with EchoNest and wanted to know what my experience was. His story was that Spotify was interested in longtail music discovery and recommendation algorithms. I still have my correspondence with him and I'm happy to share if you need more proof.
I believe that they wanted to hire you. There were a ton of music recommendations available at the time. Every music service had them: Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Last.fm, Mog, iTunes, Grooveshark... Echo Nest's weren't even that good. I don't think they had song level recommendations iirc.
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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.
Says the guy who's been hyping Xanadu for tens of years but never made a workable product and now spend the last 20 years of his life bitching on the work of others.
"If I hadn't snubbed Jobs and Woz, I might've been the Jef Raskin of Apple" That quote made me look up who Ted Nelson was. His most notable project that I see is Xanadu which Wired described as "the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing". Started in 1960, it didn't ship a working version until 2014. I don't disagree that the Media Lab often overhypes things. But you need to be able to sell you…
Ted Nelson is one of the most important figures in computing history. Everything on the web prefixed with the word "hyper" is his invention. It saddens me that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. He wrote a couple of very influential books on what computing would be as early as the sixties. Very notable people have gone on record saying he was one of the most important inspirations for their work: Alan Kay, T…
He coined the terms, but didn't invent the concepts. Memex was much more important in that regard.