#mit media lab

[kramlabs]

“Captain, we must uphold the temporal prime directive.”

“Very well, program the photon torpedoes to project a hologram of a late 20th century united airlines airliner”

“Sir, I should warn you that the primitive petroleum-based fuel of this era would not burn at a suffici-”

“No time for a science lesson, Mr Data. Make it so.”

“Captain, I cannot explain it, but the tower started to explode even before our torpedo impacted”

H/T @tomorrowmaybetomorrowmaybe

[math-is-magic]

What's most (least?) shocking ot me is that all the students in those pictures look exactly like MIT students today, 30 years later. Overworked Nerd really is a timeless look, huh?

So today I learned there was someone, Steve Mann, who walked around in the 90s livestreaming their life wearing gear like this

The streams (of photos) looked like this

God I need a throwback found footage film from a POV like this so bad

[codeandcanvas]

Digging into Design by Numbers in between finishing up Creative Code. Feels a bit like finding something which was missing.

You can find more about Design by Numbers here, and the software still works (ran it on my Windows 11), see video below: running an example code by Tom White.

[k-star-holic]

Kim Eun-hee, Song Eun-yi, MIT Media Lab Seesaw Exclusive Contract.

[biglisbonnews]

Ekene Ijeoma Has Removed All Bad Design From His Life (Except for Streets) The artist answers Curbed’s “21 Questions.” http://www.curbed.com/2023/02/artist-ekene-ijeoma-interview-21-questions.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part

[jcmarchi]

Seven from MIT elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 2024

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/seven-from-mit-elected-to-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences-for-2024/

Seven from MIT elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 2024

Eight MIT faculty members are among the 250 leaders from academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced April 24.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications, as well as studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education.

Those elected from MIT in 2024 are:

Edward F. Crawley, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, post-tenure;

Nathaniel Hendren, professor of economics;

Mei Hong, David A. Leighty Professor of Chemistry;

Tod Machover, Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Interactive Media Design;

Anna Mikusheva, professor of economics;

Elchanan Mossel, professor of mathematics; and

Xiao-Gang Wen, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics.

“We honor these artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity, and courage required to reach new heights,” says David Oxtoby, president of the academy. “We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the academy’s work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.”

Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading thinkers from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Maria Mitchell and Daniel Webster in the 19th century, and Toni Morrison and Albert Einstein in the 20th century. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners.

[otiskeene]

E Ink Recognized As RE100 Best Newcomer From The RE100 Leadership Awards During Climate Week NYC

E Ink (8069.TWO), a global leader in ePaper technology, has been recognized as a RE100 Best Newcomer during Climate Week NYC for its commitment to renewable energy and sustainability. The company has achieved a renewable energy usage of 20% globally, with its US sites and global sales offices running on 100% renewable energy. E Ink is setting ambitious goals, aiming to reach RE100 (100% renewable energy) across all its global sites by 2030 and achieve Net Zero emissions by 2040.

E Ink's CEO, Johnson Lee, emphasized the importance of taking responsibility for environmental impact in the face of climate change. As a pioneer in green display products, E Ink is dedicated to reducing carbon emissions by introducing renewable energy in its manufacturing and operations. They are also constantly working on improving their ePaper technology and product design to lower energy consumption and material usage, making their displays more environmentally friendly for customers.

The RE100 Leadership Awards recognize companies leading the transition to renewable electricity. E Ink received the Best Newcomer Award for its significant reduction in carbon emissions since joining RE100. By December 2022, E Ink's facilities and offices in the US achieved the RE100 goal of using 100% renewable energy. Additionally, the company has implemented highly efficient energy management systems to work toward its Net Zero 2040 and RE100 2030 targets.

Read More - https://bit.ly/3ZocfK2

[immaculatasknight]

Let me show you my laboratory

[andmaybegayer]

I think you can tell a lot about the economic health of a country by how early and how hard they try to convince engineers to enter private practice. We had a Courting Venture Capital class at multiple points during our undergrad.

If you’re a business major too you’re a hypocrite

I’m an engineer but gotta take one business class to satisfy a requirement for my masters program. Right now we’re learning magic business spells

[kramlabs]

:

:

[cyberpunk-r-j]

In the long run, the devices could be integrated with other materials to create tiny circuits that could measure and modulate individual cells.

“The concept and platform technology we introduce here is like a founding stone that brings about immense possibilities for future research,” says Deblina Sarkar, the AT&T Career Development Assistant Professor in the MIT Media Lab and Center for Neurobiological Engineering, head of the Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek Lab, and the senior author of a paper on this technique.

[heavensdoorways]

Rocket Horizon !

Designer: MIT Architecture, MIT Media Lab, MIT AeroAstro, MIT Sloan

[biglisbonnews]

Communicating across time TeleAbsence, a project from the MIT Media Lab, probes and imitates the way humans process feelings of belonging, love, and loss. https://news.mit.edu/2023/communicating-across-time-teleabsence-0811

[abwwia]

Christine Sun Kim, The Star-Spangled Banner (Third Verse), 2020, charcoal on paper, overall: 58 1⁄4 × 58 1⁄4 in. (148 × 148 cm) frame: 60 3⁄4 × 60 3⁄4 in. (154.3 × 154.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase and purchase through the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and through the Julia D. Strong Endowment, 2021.31.1, © 2020, Christine Sun Kim. Courtesy of the artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Christine Sun Kim (born 1980) is an American sound artist based in Berlin. Working predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, Kim's practice considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Language (ASL), and the use of the body are all recurring elements in her work. Her work has been exhibited in major cultural institutions internationally, including in the Museum of Modern Art's first exhibition about sound in 2013 and the Whitney Biennial in 2019. She was named a TED Fellow in both 2013 and 2015, a Director's Fellow at MIT Media Lab in 2015, and a Ford Foundation Disability Futures Fellow in 2020. Via Wikipedia

[jcmarchi]

Remembering Elise O’Hara, Media Lab staff member

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/remembering-elise-ohara-media-lab-staff-member/

Remembering Elise O’Hara, Media Lab staff member

Elise O’Hara, a cherished member of the Media Lab community, died on Dec. 12, 2023, as a result of complications following the birth of a healthy child.

As an administrative assistant for multiple research groups and initiatives — most recently, the Space Exploration Initiative and Tangible Media Group — O’Hara managed a variety of complex, high-priority projects with skill, patience, and good humor.

In her time at the Media Lab, O’Hara was perhaps best known for her warmth and her kindness. Professor Hiroshi Ishii says of her, “Elise was not just a colleague to us but a dear friend whose presence brought light and warmth to the Tangible Media Group and MIT Media Lab. All my colleagues loved and respected Elise; her beautiful soul positively touched many lives. We feel fortunate to have worked alongside Elise and to have witnessed the remarkable person she was.”

Samantha Gutierrez-Arango, a research assistant in the Biomechatronics group, says, “Elise was an integral and treasured part of the Media Lab; throughout her time, she touched many lives and hearts and was instrumental in many processes during Covid-19, ensuring the students were happy and healthy when coming back. She covered various groups, so her skills in managing the Media Lab’s day-to-day business were greatly appreciated. Elise was very passionate about theater, acting, and teaching; she loved practicing her Spanish and had a great sense of humor. She always approached life with an optimistic and playful spirit despite obstacles, and was always innovating ways to help her children have a fun time.”

Outside of her work at the Lab, O’Hara was actively involved in local community theater, performing with companies including The Fringe Theater in Needham, Massachusetts, and the Milton Players in Canton. 

O’Hara earned her bachelor’s degree from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut and her master’s in theater education from Emerson College.

She is survived by her husband, Sean O’Hara; her parents, Robert and Jean Valerio; her sister, Julie Cornell; and her three children.

[scorchedthesnake]

May 15, 2012

It’s hard to describe the frenzy we experienced from April to June of 2012. It seemed like shortly after Remixed there was an unceasing parade of events at the McKittrick and it was truly the center of the universe. The show was the talk of the town, and at the time, regulars and fans enjoyed a level of access and proximity to the show that simply doesn’t exist anymore. We were very much a part of the family and no one in that family really knew how to process being at the center of a cultural phenomenon, so we were all along for the ride and there were astonishingly few boundaries. 

Mayfair was coming and the promise of a heathen bacchanal (“Come Let Me Clutch Thee”) had everyone in a tizzy. In the lead up, there was also a steady trickle of promotional events and brand partnerships. Bowmore Spirits was hosting a whisky party at the Hotel, and was offering a chance at free tickets in exchange for retweets. Team Hard RT aggressively participated, and when the drawing came, the tickets went to a dummy account the brand clearly owned. We called them out on it. Then came the DMs saying if any of us could make it to the Hotel in time, the tickets were ours. Alas, they went unclaimed.

In the meantime, I was suddenly under an NDA.

The reason for this was that I had been invited to test the MIT Media Lab extension to the show, and while I was told I would be allowed to write about it on Scorched, they had offered the story as an exclusive to the New York Times, so I had to wait for that to go out before I could say anything (the post eventually went up here, and was sparse on specifics because for all we knew, this was going to end up live in the show someday soon).

I arrived as normal at the Hotel - and proceeded to Manderley, where this little bit that I wrote in a teaser actually happened:  

Amidst the tables and chairs, Calloway stands alone, basked in a spotlight. He appears to be singing to himself softly, slowly turning his hands around, as though weaving his quiet song (in that is-he-touched-in-the-head way that Calloway has). He looks at me and beckons me toward him. I approach, and he bends down to kiss me on the cheek. When he rises, I look up at him, as he towers over me, and I can see that he’s been crying. My face turns sad. I reach up my hand and cradle his face, wiping away a tear with a sweep of my thumb. He exhales, deliberately, and stares back at me with a look of grief and loss. I know that somewhere, something dreadful has happened.

Then I was taken in to meet Felix Barrett and Peter Higgin, who fitted me with the enhanced mask. It had antennae sticking out of it and was extremely heavy and uncomfortable – a discomfort that only grew as the night went on. But they didn’t tell me much else and I was brought up to the fifth floor, where the autopsy room had been closed off from the regular show. Inside, I found Alba Albanese, who introduced me to the story of Grace Naismith’s disappearance - and to a ouija board. The board started to move: “G…. E…. T…. O…. U….T…,” and I heard a scraping at the door. I fled out into the corridor.

Regular attendees had noticed strange things were happening. There were signs posted around the show with Grace’s photo, and there were markers to show points of interest (like signs for quest interaction in an MMO). But the very first thing I noticed was that the padded cell was closed off - and occupied. This has long been my favorite unused room in the hotel so I was thrilled. Inside was Ben Thys. The stewards sighted my tech mask and admitted me to the room.

From the 2nd teaser:

We are standing together in the center of the room. He looks deep into my eyes, smiles, and then… he smells me. He draws his face close to mine and moves, slowly and cautiously, in a circle around my face, sniffing at it, clearly seeking some trademark scent. Then he stops sniffing. He smiles, and pulls me close again. This time he drops his head back and opens his mouth wide, as though to allow me a chance to inspect his teeth. I look and find nothing out of the ordinary. When he finally raises his head again and closes his mouth, his grin has changed into a look of grief. “You.” There is a long, painful silence. “You never came."  It is as though the very life drains out of his face. And with that, he drifts back to where I found him when I entered, slumped in the corner, and buries his face in his hands.

Bewildered, I set out to figure out what was going on. The 4th Floor had various clues - Grace had loved a man named George. I found another previously inaccessible space at the end of the hall to the Rep Bar - the Law Office. Inside was a typewriter (another portal device) that wrote out a message: “SUITCASE” - and there was indeed a suitcase in the room. I took the suitcase and went exploring – I think I may have been under the impression the Porter would help me. I recall making it as far as the lobby when a Steward approached and reclaimed the suitcase, noting to me that I wasn’t supposed to be carrying the props. Oops. Somewhere - and honestly 12 years later I don’t recall where - I found a note detailing Grace’s contract with Hecate, and how she was supposed to make George fall in love with Grace.

From the 3rd teaser: 

When I finally return to him I am sweating and shaking.  I have been running and searching for nearly an hour, with hardly anything to show for it. But I know that he must have the answer, if only somehow I can get it out of him. By now it’s become a ritual, how he greets me. He holds my shoulders and pushes me against each of the walls, laughing, smiling like a young child. Then he smells me and his proximity makes me anxious. He can be gentle one moment and ferocious the next. I hope that maybe this is how he shows me his trust. And then we sit down and I show him what I’ve brought. He looks at the paper then up at me. I point at him intently. “Yes,” he says, “that’s me. I’m George.” My heart skips a beat. Now I feel like I’m getting somewhere. “…I do not know why I’m in here.”

Poor Ben. He told me later he was ad libbing all of it, they hadn’t really anticipated that I’d keep going back to him with pretty much any prop I found trying to get him to explain any of it. I obviously went to Hecate (Careena), who presented me with a vial of salt, but I wasn’t getting it yet. I wandered the 5th floor, hearing voices through my mask in the bathroom hall. I found the closet in the forest maze, and groped for a light switch - in the process, pulling the microphone off the wall. Oops again.

I was feeling fairly exasperated as I’d figured out who was who, but it wasn’t clear if I was supposed to try to find Grace or what. Also, the mask was absolute murder so I went back to Manderley to see Pete and see if he could adjust it. I told him what I’d seen, showed him the vial of salt, and he said, “I don’t know what that’s about, that’s Careena doing her own thing I guess.” It was chaos and I kind of loved every second of it. Matt Downs, my dear friend who I had only really met shortly before all of this, watched all of the mask drama unfolding with keen interest, knowing full well something insane was happening.

I had sort of run out of ideas and the third loop was well underway, so Pete said they’d try to get me up to 4 to see the big showpiece that had been set up to conclude the experience. To do this, it needed to be made plain to Careena to depart from her regular Hecate track. So Calloway was asked to escort me from Manderley up to the Rep Bar. It was a crowded night at the show, and William patiently but urgently pushed me through the crowd, taking me to the front so Careena would see me and understand. Then he took me to Agnes’ apartment and I waited.

Eventually - the show was very near its end at this point - Hecate emerged from the bedroom. I don’t remember any of the text, but this led to the reveal of the salt hands, the evidence of Grace’s fate. This 1:1 is depicted in the photo the New York Times ran with their coverage.

After all of this, we all gathered in the ballroom for a debrief. Only one other test participant had remained. They had brought me, a frequent visitor; this other fellow, who had been once before; and a walk-in who had no idea what the show even was - and that person had bolted almost immediately. Over beers, we had a great conversation for the next hour or so with the graduate students who had been working on the project. I told them how envious I was – they were doing more interesting work with narrative than I ever had in my own literature Ph.D. program. I got to see the ballroom with all the lights up - gross, honestly, and far more colorful a space than I had ever realized. Afterwards, as we walked back up to a nearly empty Manderley, Felix Barrett asked if I could answer something for him. Sure, I said. “Why is your Tumblr avatar a picture of Gabe Forestieri?” Definitely not what I thought he might ask. “Well, have you seen him? He’s gorgeous.”

The teaser posts were the best I could do in the run-up to Mayfair. Questions poured in and utter silence would have added fuel to the fire. The trolls came out and attacked me for teasing a recap (which, truthfully, was a ridiculous thing to do). So it led to the creation of what I think is one of the most absurd examples of fan art in the long run of the show, the Recap Teaser Trailer:

For some backstory on this: we did it in just about 3 hours of effort. I wrote some of the gags at my office on 7th Ave before heading to my apartment to do the video editing. Kevin Cafferty asked his friend Liam to film his daughter eager for a recap. My sister in law sent a clip, Frances Koncan sent her clip. Jordan Morley asked to help and offered the clip in the original goat mask. Matt went to the McKittrick and asked random audience in line to play along. The result is... a real time capsule from a very different era of the fandom.