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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

#131
Several years back, I took a trip to a casino up in Connecticut. I'm not big into gambling, but my brother-in-law's mother was a high roller. She got an extra room for free, so we figured why not take advantage of it.

We didn't spend much time with her while we were there, but on the last night she wanted to join us with some of her friends for dinner. Since I was going to be having dinner with a group of old retired ladies, I figured we could just make some polite small talk with them and be on our way after the meal.

After we ordered drinks, one of them turns to me and says "now what do you do for work?" I said "oh I work with computers", a simple generic phrase I use when talking with older people. She says "oh that's interesting, what specifically?" When I told her I was a software engineer, her face lights up and she points around the room and says "oh that's wonderful - we all did that as well, we worked at a company called Bell Labs. Have you heard of it?"

I just about fell out of my chair. For the rest of the night I was asking them all sorts of questions about their work. They were around back when you'd program using punch cards and all that stuff. It was a very cool experience - one of my favorite memories.

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

#132
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that investment in the city of New Brunswick seems like a great idea for the reasons you stated. At the same time, it just feels so grand and historic to walk the same halls as the likes of Shannon, and it's a bit sad that I may not be able to see it again. (I've only visited a handful of times to work on some joint projects though). Hopefully the new lab space/equipment will be very modern and efficient thou…

NB resident here. It’s still miserable, but removing stop lights on route 18 between landing lane and the turnpike made things excellent for folks getting to somerset/piscataway!

NB/EB resident, has construction ever stopped in this area since 2000? I'm glad that 18 is finally (mostly) done as you say

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

#133

Several years back, I took a trip to a casino up in Connecticut. I'm not big into gambling, but my brother-in-law's mother was a high roller. She got an extra room for free, so we figured why not take advantage of it. We didn't spend much time with her while we were there, but on the last night she wanted to join us with some of her friends for dinner. Since I was going to be having dinner with a group of old retired…

Man, what an experience! I got goosebumps just reading that. So much history you could have learned. It's a shame you only got one evening with them. I mean you were with the pioneers of our field. It's like if you just happened to go out to dinner with a bunch of old men and they casually reveal, yes we played baseball too back in NY in 1932, hi, my name is George...

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

#134

Several years back, I took a trip to a casino up in Connecticut. I'm not big into gambling, but my brother-in-law's mother was a high roller. She got an extra room for free, so we figured why not take advantage of it. We didn't spend much time with her while we were there, but on the last night she wanted to join us with some of her friends for dinner. Since I was going to be having dinner with a group of old retired…

Tangentially related, I got stuck in an airport bar for a few hours (due to snow) next to an older woman who worked at Wang and later, Cray.

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

#135
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

between westchester and nyc one has a lot of varying environments to live in if working at IBM Research. I used to commute up to it from Manhattan without any problem (nice reverse commute in general). Hawthorne (now closed) was a bit easier than Yorktown, but both were fairly easy (if memory serves me correct, yorktown was only an additional 15 minutes or so).

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

#136

Is there a Bell Labs of today? If so who or where?

It's called "the internet". People from around the world can collaborate easily on incredibly projects such as Linux or OpenRISC. Or on closed-source projects as used by FAANG companies.

Hamming and Shannon, provided with lifetime employment and sharing an office, working for an organization that does things like invent the transistor. @FurryRubyProgrammer and @IHuffFarts conversing on a Discord channel. It's exactly the same thing.

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

#137

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…

Heh. I was wondering how they’d manage to keep people when moving to the Canadian province of New Brunswick… this makes a lot more sense.

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

#138

Several years back, I took a trip to a casino up in Connecticut. I'm not big into gambling, but my brother-in-law's mother was a high roller. She got an extra room for free, so we figured why not take advantage of it. We didn't spend much time with her while we were there, but on the last night she wanted to join us with some of her friends for dinner. Since I was going to be having dinner with a group of old retired…

Great story, thanks for sharing!

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

#139
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that investment in the city of New Brunswick seems like a great idea for the reasons you stated. At the same time, it just feels so grand and historic to walk the same halls as the likes of Shannon, and it's a bit sad that I may not be able to see it again. (I've only visited a handful of times to work on some joint projects though). Hopefully the new lab space/equipment will be very modern and efficient thou…

NB resident here. It’s still miserable, but removing stop lights on route 18 between landing lane and the turnpike made things excellent for folks getting to somerset/piscataway!

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

#140

> “Let me tell you, I never felt I was going to work, never,” said Romero, who retired as a corporate accountant in 2009 from the famed Bell Labs headquarters in Murray Hill. Every. Single. Amazing endeavor that’s ever happened has people who describe contributing to that endeavor this way. Every one. It brings to mind the kind of world that could exist without profit motives, where people do things simply because th…

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