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Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

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Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#111

Post by hanniabu »

ioblomov wrote: post #68
tomcam wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a nostalgic person, but for some reason I wish irrationally that that Murray Hill building could be preserved as is. I read so much about of it in the history of computing, and just like (from the pictures) the building interior itself so much I just feel like I missed out on some thing not to have been there myself. I was lucky enough to work at Microsoft in building 2, one of 8 matching buildings from the m…

The whole complex (immortalized as Lumon HQ in Severance ) is landmarked so presumably it can’t be messed with too much. Even apart from the historical significance, it’s a masterpiece of mid-century design. Its architect, Eero Saarinen, also did the St. Louis Arch and, my personal favorite, the TWA terminal at JFK, which reopened as a hotel in 2019. If you’re ever stuck on a layover there, do check it out! https://e…

That's probably why their old officers are left in tact

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#112

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

diggan wrote: post #41
mk_stjames wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to recommend this book as the title of this article mirrors its title's key descriptor. It's one of my favorite books; throughout my time reading it I would periodically put it down and just sit with awe in imagining the science and the work happening there throughout the years depicted. I need to sit down and read it again; but I'm afraid to, as in a way it just gives me this odd sense of mixed unfounded…

> and jealousy and a bit of dread for not being a part of something similar anymore. In some corridor, somewhere in the world, the next Bell Labs is currently under way and others will read books about it in the future. You just have to figure out where it is :)

I think the PC storm is definitely gone. Nowadays everything needs a doctor or something. It's a one shot thing in maybe a few centuries.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#114

Post by carterschonwald »

ghaff wrote: post #10
carterschonwald wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering the same myself. Albeit in the us or nyc. :) I’ve had middling success creating opportunities but that’s very far from being in an environment where there so much interesting going on around you

I'm sure a lot of people will reflexively run in the opposite direction but IBM still has a large research organization.

Also their lab isn’t anywhere I’d want to live.

Interestingly enough, a lot of senior ibm labs folks have joined jpmorgan or similar organizations over time

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#115

Post by Projectiboga »

hnu234 wrote: post #98
jakderrida wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1966?? So, like, pretty much all the world-changing, paradigm-shifting revelations were in West Village? So, while working with Verizon, they falsely claimed it to be Basking Ridge, NJ (which they bought and boasted as the Brains of Bell to invoke a symbolic victory of sorts) until I found out they were either lying or swindled and it was another place in Jersey. Yet again, I find out from you that it was just anothe…

> 1966?? So, like, pretty much all the world-changing, paradigm-shifting revelations were in West Village? No. Unix, C, C++, etc were in nj.

There was a Bell Lab in the now Westbeth artists housing, named for one of its corners, West and Bethune st, which opened in 1970 or so. https://untappedcities.com/2017/02/27/inside-westbeth-artist...

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#118

Post by timeimp »

eatonphil wrote: post #7

The new home is still NJ: New Brunswick. > When Nokia’s research arm, Nokia Bell Labs, said in early December the company will move out of the Murray Hill campus over the next five years to relocate to a new tech hub being built in New Brunswick, the announcement spurred an outpouring of memories online from current and former employees. > Bell Labs’ new headquarters will be located at the HELIX innovation center in…

I got:

Access Denied - GoDaddy Website Firewall

Block reason: Access from your Country was disabled by the administrator.

from Australia.

I wonder why they'd block an entire country...

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#119

Post by fulladder »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #47
whimsicalism wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any prestige research lab - MS, Google, OAI, etc.

I'm not sure how many, if any, are doing blue sky research (vs product-directed "research") any more the way that Bell Labs, IBM Watson and Xerox Parc used to do. Look at what's going on with ML/AI - DeepMind now merged with Google Brain seemingly with a product focus, FAIR now moved into a product group alongside Meta's GenAI group, Microsoft essentially outsourcing AI to OpenAI, OpenAI may as well call itself GPTCo…

The reason Bell Telephone built that organization is that they had a government-sanctioned monopoly on local phone service, and to justify the continuation of this, they wanted to find ways to show they were contributing to society.

Could someone like Google or Microsoft build a Bell Labs today? Yes, almost certainly, but there's no financial incentive to do so. And the shareholders would not be pleased if you told them you were going to spend their money on something with no connection to the business.

A bigger question for the present is: why are the universities failing so badly? Their incentives have not changed, but we don't get the kind of innovative research we got out of Bell Labs. I don't know what the answer to that is.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#120

Post by bmer »

hnu234 wrote: post #98
jakderrida wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1966?? So, like, pretty much all the world-changing, paradigm-shifting revelations were in West Village? So, while working with Verizon, they falsely claimed it to be Basking Ridge, NJ (which they bought and boasted as the Brains of Bell to invoke a symbolic victory of sorts) until I found out they were either lying or swindled and it was another place in Jersey. Yet again, I find out from you that it was just anothe…

> 1966?? So, like, pretty much all the world-changing, paradigm-shifting revelations were in West Village? No. Unix, C, C++, etc were in nj.

Yeah, but those aren't world-changing, paradigm-shifting revelations. Arguably, they're just ruts the world got caught in. Hopefully we'll be out soon.
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