notablog - Mot-clé - Life in the USA2024-02-14T11:34:52+01:00urn:md5:e838f6103b73d5ce71306164b60e8cbcDotclearMIT, or the place where dreams happenurn:md5:fa377092e2e14d12126070bb38bbce862006-01-19T16:28:37+00:002009-01-13T08:13:48+00:00notafishCross country, across culturesabroadLife in the USAlong ago<p><strong>Reflexions on a lost career</strong></p>
<p>We went to MIT today, to visit the Media Lab (<a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" hreflang="en">Media Laboratory</a>) and see what we could do there for the next <a href="http://wikimania.wikimedia.org" hreflang="en">Wikimedia Conference</a>. The place is huge. As we arrived in Boston, we went to the FSF official launch of the GPL 3.0. The only thing I recall at that point is thinking <q>well, this is just like any other university in the world; imposing monuments, shabby insides and notice-boards that have been so used they just look like a giant pinhole.</q>That was when I entered through the front door. Now, the Media-Lab is situated in a white building not too far from the banks of the Charles River</p> <p>Today was a radiant day and we were to meet with <a href="http://mako.cc/" hreflang="en">Mako</a>, who works as a researcher on the <a href="http://www.openmind.org/" hreflang="en">Open Mind</a> project and Walter, who works on the same kind of projects, and more. The Media Lab has this kind of eerie look about it. It's a very modern building, ascetic, white for the most part, with huge galleries and cold staircases. BUt once you get to the heart of it, it looks much more like a playground. Mako took us on a tour and for the first time of my life I regretted not having gone further in my science studies. Allow me to digress here. Before I went to UWC, I was to take a scientific French baccalaureate, being a good student and all, and was accepted in Première S. I left for the US and that went to shambles. Anyway.</p>
<p>So here we are, walking around the building, being shown the funky experiment rooms where people work on funky projects. Well, they seemed funky to me, but I suppose all of them are really well thought out, and actually "make sense". You'll find <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/research/samples.html" hreflang="en">here</a> a little overview, although I am not sure this list actually reflects the<em>funkiness</em> of the whole thing. Among those I remember, one about a computer screen that adapts to your physical behaviour. If you slouch, it slouches. Another was about a suit designed to retrace the steps of a body search (remind me to talk about those, based on my entering-the-US-experience) in order to make sure that the search is done in the best possible conditions (no funky touching where you should not be touched) and more to the same avail.</p>
<p>As ascetic as the outside corridors are, the inside of the MIT Media Lab is a joyous mess. Couches everywhere, people sitting on them drinking coffee or Coke with a computer on their lap, stuffed animals being used as robots (that room was a bit sad actually, seeing how the stuffed animals are being dissected to suit the research purposes), 3D rendering of mountains and hills you can create yourself with balls, cubes and styrofoam, crazy rooms with pulled apart computers and CDs hanging from the ceiling. Wow. I loved it. And I wish I had been more perseverant in the science field, I would have loved to be part of this mess.</p>http://notablog.notafish.com/post/2006/01/19/57-mit-or-the-place-where-dreams-happen#comment-formhttp://notablog.notafish.com/feed/atom/comments/369