Slashdot Mirror
MIT Media Lab Tightens Its Belt
Forbes Magazine has this story about the MIT Media Laboratory's current "burn rate" problem. It seems that the Media Lab is feeling the same big draft at its posterior that dot-com companies felt last year after years of go-go growth and seemingly unlimited funding. The Media Lab is particularly sensitive to this downturn due to its heavy reliance on corporate sponsorship, as well as its fondness for unconventional, even eccentric, research. Items that will no longer receive funding according to a January 5th internal E-mail from the Lab's Executive Director Walter Bender: cellular telephones, first-class air travel, food at internal Lab meetings, and furniture. Other more serious cutbacks for the Lab include layoffs for 29 staff members and reduced funding for students, including salaries for "Undergraduate Research Opportunities" (UROP) positions. The Media Lab had previously paid such positions $8.75 and up in order to remain competitive with industry offers that even not-yet-graduated students were receiving.
"The Media Lab had previously paid such positions $8.75 and up in order to remain competitive with industry offers that even not-yet-graduated students were receiving."
$8.75 per? Hour? Day? Year?
Perhaps this submission should have been polished a bit before being unleashed on the unsuspecting (and fact-hungry) public.
First class cross country airfare - $2000.
Limo to and from the airport - $400.
Building designed by I.M. Pei - $4,000,000.
Inventing the "smart" potholder - priceless
Does that mean no more bathroom server?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Assuming that is per hour - it is still a paltry sum.
I believe even Taco Bell pays it slaves $9/hr.
I'm a 2000 man.
Where do I sign up?
$8.75 per hour huh? To some of the brightest minds in the world? I say cut the stupid first class travel, cut the nice office equipment, but save that salary. These "kids" are cutting edge innovators.
Imagine if something like this had happened to the folks at Bell Labs? Even with all the layoffs Lucent had, business there went on pretty much as usual. Throughout history, the true innovators were rewarded for their knowledge, not penalized for something they didn't really have anything to do with. Poor spending is poor spending, but save the salaries...
I expect to hear from people on my innovators of history part, but bear in mind I said most....
thanks
Sent from your iPad.
Wow, a news story about an institute cutting back on things. This is new, exciting news. Yea.
/.?
I just don't see the angle. Is it good just because it's MIT? I'm sorta tired of these "super schools" getting so much attention. If this was DePauw University cutting back, would it get posted on
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Its legions of techies have eagerly spent money donated by corporate sponsors since the lab opened its doors in 1985. The money--an annual budget of about $40 million--went not only to sometimes wild ideas like "smart" potholders, dice, chairs and animal building blocks, but also apparently to fund some dot-com-style largesse. . . . won't be paid for out of the laboratory till: cell phones, limos, first-class flights and furniture. (It's not clear whether this applies to new chairs and couches that "think.")
Oh such brutal cuts. And less than two years after the private sector had to cut such frivolities as . . . everything. I know my company sympathizes with them.
The Gardener
--
Among the things Bender says won't be paid for out of the laboratory till: cell phones, limos, first-class flights and furniture.
and...
But why is the Lab unhealthy in the first place? Unlike other academic institutions at MIT and elsewhere, the Media Lab gets the bulk of its money from corporate donors. Among them: IBM, Intel, Gillette, ChevronTexaco and LEGO .
Damn, so now all those MIT researchers will be forced to build their own Lego chairs and tables? Sounds like the kind of perfect ergonomic environment we all need. Don't like the height of the table? Just snap off the legs and away you go.
--Chag
I worked at the media lab as a freshman MIT EECS student last spring for $8 an hour. My group was decked out with donated 18.1 inch LCDs, food at meetings and other perks. I can't imagine all the things professors and grad students got to play around with. All good things have to come to an end, the environment there through the dot-com boom was definitely too good to be true.
Having used many of the papers and ideas that came out of media lab as jumping off points for my own research, any cut back in their research will impact many others outside their doors. However, the loss of perks is just aligning them with the rest of the world.
The scariest part is the layoff of the staff. I hope that these weren't specifically research assistants (instead of admin staff). RA's (often unrecognized for their efforts) usually complete the necessary but inglorious tasks that really help get research done.
-- The Hollow Man
Non illegitimati carborundum
I'm not sympathetic to edu's that want a free ride for all sorts of worthless research. It's especially bad when they start consorting with companies for all sort of bennies that have nothing to do with *meaningful* research. This not only diverts them from more meaningful activity, but it propagates the sort of economic bloat that gets passed on to consumers and/or taxpayers, directly and indirectly.
Maybe we'll start seeing some more great things from MIT (and other schools) as the economy forces them to focus on their core goals again.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
The recent layoffs and cutbacks were spurred by the discovery that the Media Lab didn't have $6 or $7 million in the coffers, but were rather that much in the red.
Let me say that again: instead of a surplus of several million US dollars, they had a similar deficit. I can't fathom how anyone keeping the books -- even the most incompetent of accountants -- could make such a mistake. But it was made, and it's what sparked this whole trimming-of-the-fat. Worst bit is that some regular employees (not grad students, not UROPs) are having their hours cut, while the UROPs -- many of whom do nothing but sit on their asses all day long -- can work full weeks.
Let's hope some generous sponsor(s) will cough up the cash to get them back on track and not disrupt their research too much.
I mean it's been what, only about 2 years since just about every tech company has had to start cutting back. They should count themselves lucky they still get any corporate sponsorship at all.
It amazes me that companies cut jobs, but still give huge amounts of money to "media labs" and such, but I'm glad they do (although I wouldn't be glad if I was one of those that had my job cut).
There has to be some responsibility somewhere for how the money is spent, and if it means the employees/students can't take advantage of it with free meals and first-class flights, so be it.
$8.75 though, if that's per hour, is a pretty damn low rate for just about any job.
The MIT Media Lab has apparently always aimed a little high--for example, the article states that their building was designed by I.M. Pei. The world's most famous architect? For a Media Lab? It seems they could spend their money more frugally. They may be hurting from the dot-com bust and the economic slowdown, but that's to be expected--everyone is hurting. The MIT Media Lab is hurting more because they've spent money unwisely in the past.
Of course, I could be completely and utterly wrong.
I understand they had to offer the $$$ to keep people from going elsewhere. But I remember when students used to do this for free, and loved it. This is probably the most fun you will ever have, and you will look back on those years fondly. I'd love to go back and play with the toys we had in robot and VR lab.
Memories of early Nintendo Powerglove hacking... Mmmmm.
On another note, does anyone think they'll need to tighten their lego budget?
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
Mod this however you want; I'm tired of the post-from-the-hip / can't-be-bothered-to-read-the-links / explain-to-me-the-nouns / can't-use-a-search-engine droolers.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Its great that MIT is a bastion of engineering and research. Its also apparent that, like many other schools of this ilk, they neglect reality.
There is a budget. And its not infinite. A lesson that someone should have explained before we launched into the dot-com idiocy in the first place. I view the situation at the Media Lab as another opportunity to learn.
give me a break. these students who work at the media lab could make quite a bit more than $8.75 an hour in pretty much any field in existance. MIT pays a minimum wage on campus of $8 for undergrads. i suspect that this is the 'industry' that they are trying to remain competitive with.
but, then again, there is little chance that these students are there to cash in on the huge salary. i am currently an undergraduate assistant for a january class at mit (2.670) where students make a working stirling engine, and learn enough solidworks to make a working assembly of the engine. i could easily spend this time during january and work a real job solid modelling and make at least 5 times the amount.
but i like teaching. its not about the money.
The Media Lab still has a place, but it may, during the economic downturn, see itself overshadowed by more concrete research--by tangible products like drugs.
Pass the bowl, I need to do some "tangible research"...
I'm a 2000 man.
It's probably a typo (on Slashdot? Nooo....), but $8.75 an hour is pretty close to the minimum wage here in Massachusetts. Is that actually what was meant here? If so, no wonder they were having staff problems :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
First Class tix, cell phones...all justifiable because so much irreplaceable work has come out of the Media Lab. Hold on, let me think of some...uhhhh...ummmmm...I know, lots of articles about themselves in Wired!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
From the beginning, the Media Lab was a monument to technical optimism--or maybe hubris. Its very building, designed by MIT alum and world-famous architect I.M. Pei, was a symbol of elegance and waste. On the outside, its tiled surface resembles nothing so much as a bathroom.
But inside, it is almost entirely empty, with a giant courtyard stretching up through its center--just because it looked cool. Maybe if that space had been filled with offices, the Lab wouldn't be spending money constructing a new building next door. And perhaps without the expense of the new building, the Lab wouldn't need to lay off staff now. At one point, Bender says he actually suggested filling some of the atrium -- which is four stories high -- with office space instead of moving staff out of the building. MIT nixed the idea.
(quoted directly from the article)
Just like the Internet bubble - spiffy on the outside, empty and nearly useless within.
Items that will no longer receive funding ...: furniture
"Son, when I was your age, I had to walk 8 miles to school... in the snow... with no shoes... uphill... in both directions. We didn't even have classroom chairs in those days!"
Developers: We can use your help.
www.medialabeurope.org
anyone know? --
Where will we get all our new toys from?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
The talent is still there, So, keep expecting .. a coin trick.
great "hacks" from them, albeit affordable ones
-- no more dough to lift a cop car.
Expect something like
They should get a grant to study this serious
problem and maybe get a solution for that. Surely it would get them a lot of funds if they get them a solution.
Seriously:
The Media Lab should probably change their focus for more "grant awarded" concerns. They had gone with the hip and money of dotcoms and know should refocus.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Even if you have practically endless funding, I can see better uses of that funding then paying for first class airline tickets and limo service. These ARE students we're talking about, right? They certainly don't fit into the "starving college student" role very well.
Not that the rest of the dot-com wave didn't suffer from the same problems. And yes, when any college student who once turned on a computer could land a lucrative job in this industry, with all the lavish perks that go with it, I can see where MIT might have to compete on those grounds to attract that same talented individuals. But there would always be others. There would always be people to whom the research was more important then the perks. Yeah, you'd have to search a little harder, but I'm sure there were a few real starving college students at MIT that would have been happy for a $9 an hour starting salary job.
And when the wave collapsed, MIT labs wouldn't be struggling, and wouldn't HAVE to cut back or cut jobs, and the people in those jobs would be VERY happy.
But hey. What can ya do?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
sorry but paying cellphone time for anyone is pretty stupid unless they are the on-call administrator. same goes for first class travel or the catered meetings. (bring a coke and a twinkie if you're hungry, the rest of us have to buy our own lunch!)
The problems I saw was excessive spending for un-important things thus taking funds away from many important projects.... gluttony at it's finest.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
* beer for homiez ... $30
... $275
... priceless
* fake police car
* knowing that will be your last penny
It finally all makes sense. Media Lab set up a "European Branch" in Dublin about a year ago, for which they got about 50 million IRP (approx) $60 million, which was allocated from the indigenous research funds supposedly reserved for research activities in Irish Universities (not the most affluent at the best of times, but still producing solid results). The initial payment was not exclusively for the Dublin site, rather a large chunk was redirected back to Media Lab in Mass., supposedly it represented a "payment" from the Irish people so that Irish students we could have the privelege of access to Media Lab's IP. To the best of my knowledge, the number of students in the Dublin institution, a year after its establishment, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Oh yeah, I almost forgot that they managed to get a clause agreed on that a significant percentage of all funds donated to "Media Lab Europe", i.e. the Dublin based institution, would be redirected back to Media Lab in Mass. We're suckers.
Meejalab
No, it's not a pay phone! It's a portable phone!
MIT is more well known because of a few famous people who taught, graduate or worked there. People shouldn't put too much stock in prestiege. All degrees are only as valuable as the effort you put into it. Likewise, an university is only as good as it's students' ability to be resourceful. I don't know that having the world at your finger tips with first class flights really fosters a scrap dog mentality. If necessity is the mother of invention, having everything at your fingers tips (as MIT is accustomed to) might inhibit creative thinking.
They're going to cut back on FOOD and FURNITURE? Yes, of course, makes sense, have everyone sit on the floor and eat lint. Saves on cleaning costs too.
But they got free first class airfares and cell phones? Wish I coulda been there.
Everything is mainstream now.
I think MIT won't have to worry too much - they have enough brains and creativity overthere that they could probably do cool stuff with $100 per year.
:)
$5M in sponsorship for the "smart potholder"? Screw that. Throw some funding at the the "silent jackhammer."
pardon me but I have had a hard day.
I have heard of these projects before and I really don't see how they help me in the least in any way. *I* don't go to MIT and I really don't think I should want to (I like to get a balanced education and not just all technical). What about AI and all that being promised to do all manner of things. I havn't really even seen a decent say simple chat bot that even used a simplistic neural network.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
How the is this a troll?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"$8.75 per? Hour? Day? Year? "
that would obviously be hour
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Many people think that it's a typo...it's not. The MIT Minimum Wage is basically ~$8/hr...Meida Lab UROPs got paid a little more base starting salary. Hardly the small fortune the article makes it out to be, considering how much most could've gotten paid locally at some dotcom (esp., during the height of the boom).
Also, as a former Media Lab UROP, I can strongly state that the UROPs in the Media Lab were the BACKBONE of work in the Media Lab. Another misconception from the article is that they UROPs had "projects" that they circulate looking for funding that the Media Lab would fund. Couldn't be more wrong. The UROPs are/were more like contract programming labor hired to support/flesh out the theories of the grad. students/professors. Cutting such is going to be the hardest cut to make...
I don't attend to MIT, but I'm fairly familiar with the campus/situations there. To my understanding, they are REQUIRED to pay at least $8.50 an hour for any students in UROP.
I'm not exactly certain whether it's 8.50 or 7.50 (but I'm about 80% sure it's $8.50 per hour.) But, I do know that they cannot pay students any less than that baseline.
While limos, first class flights, and a new nicely designed building might seem outrageous, one should keep in mind that sites that look pedestrian and work on basic research rarely get corporate funding.
Every company wants to donate money to a "successful" department and, like it or not, a lot of people controlling the money determine success by the outward signs. Likewise, good research that doesn't have some flash/publicity potential isn't worth a whole lot when it comes to getting donations. It's why some of the wierder projects are very important from a fund-raising point of view. They get you noticed.
Of course, you can go too far, start looking ostentatious and have your projects look like time wasters. It's a careful balance and not an obvious one at that.
I mean, it's at least a decent point, and deserves more than a 0 score and troll marking. Geez.
MIT's endowment compared to that of other research universities is about the same as John Holmes Vs Kermit the frog.
MIT has the cash if they want to keep the funding around , but apparently they have better places to spend their money. What papers have came out of the Media lab? I haven't noticed any particualy good ones. Not quite my field of expertise, but compared to other areas of research I would venture to say the department is lacking in the results it produces.
Parent post is referring to an incident where MIT students made a fake police car (but real looking, lights and all) and placed it on top of an administration building at MIT on April Fools day.
Apparently, those "hacks" are, or used to be, commonplace at MIT.
First, MIT sets the general wage guidelines for undergraduate work-study. Its not all that much higher than prevailing minimum wage of the area, which used to have a tight labor market until the tech crash. Harvard insituted a "living wage" after years of protest for its immigrant janitors of $10.50 an hour.
Since student's families are paying around $35K a year to go to MIT, hey are paying about $20 / hour (based on MITs own calculation of a 45-hour study week) for the privilege of going to MIT. To get some back, is another privelege.
> The Media Lab had previously paid such
> positions $8.75 and up
Damn...and to think I used to make $6.50/hr when an undergrad slave...paid for beer, though, and I got to play on SGI machines.
In other words, $8.75 per hour is probably right in line with the region around MIT where recruiters were trying to pull people into... starting pay that is. Let's not forget all the other benefits like 401K, good dental, vision, and health insurance, etc. A lot more than just an hourly/weekly wage goes into a job package - even in these economic times.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Many MIT students would PAY to work in the media lab. Their families are already paying $35K to attend MIT. Computer science is the most popular MIT major, choosen by 40% of the unergrads. Computer science labs are the most sought after positions for pleasure or student-aid jobs. And the playful media lab is the most popular of the computer labs.
The Media Lab was in a mega-expansion mode. First it is building a second building on the MIT campus. Second it is planning up to three branches abroad. These branches are quasi-independent of MIT. They are more like dot.com incubators. They get their funding entirely from industry and foreign governments. They do not have professor slots or degree granting rights. However, MIT profs and tudents may spend some time in the branches.
Like nomadic, who replied above, I also suffered through a public university. In my case, the computer science program was barely able to afford the basics. This is in Minnesota, USA which is one of the most highly taxed regions of the country and yet, we could barely afford the basics. I paid my own tuition, I paid for my own meals, I paid my own room and board, and I worked the $4.25/hour jobs to do it. I emerged from school with much less debt than my coastal peers and, for the most part, with much more willingness to bust my ass to succeed.
To me, that is valuable. Having a role in remeasuring Mt. Everst, Legos products, and other commercial innovations is interesting to be sure. However, if we don't afford our students a bit of hardship, then how are they to have enough character to make real contributions to the world and not just invent the next profit margin gimmick? MIT may have done some important things in the past (and are probably doing so right now in some ways), but it didn't do those because they had every convenience and plush toy available to them. Why should that be the case now? If I provide all those extras, who am I going to attract? Will I attract those with an interest in being among the elite? Or will I attract those with an interest in being merely comfortable? If I simply provide an education with a reputation for producing lean and mean technologists, who will I attract? I will attract those who are motivated to become better.
As for professors, I do not begrudge any professor their salary. They put up with way too much for the likes of me to badmouth them. But there's a limit there too.
Excessive comfort does not promote real innovation.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
A few weeks ago a friend of mine in the Media Lab mentioned to me that the shit was really hitting the proverbial fan because of the missing millions, and that layoffs and cutbacks were a result of this. So, as I understood it, the belt tightening was a direct result of this serious accounting mistake (oops) and not some nebulous result of the dot com slowdown.
Limousines, first-class travel, catered lunches?
;) ) 'cause that's about all that ever came out of that pile of waste!
Expensive brand-new building designed by moderately well-known architect, complete wih built in a space crisis?
I'm sorry, but I say TOUGH SHITE MIT!
Talk about wastefulness - I though it was bad when I heard about our Uni purchasing 2 plasma screen tvs to display current events in our Library, but this tops all the academic waste I've ever heard about(and believe me it's my # 1 pet peeve, so I've heard it all).
Hope you enjoyed your expensive 4ss articles in Wired(such a good magazine too...
What I can't believe is that they are just NOW cutting back - I mean what where they thinking would happen when just about every corporate backer went belly up, or cut their funding?
Money still grows on trees in Cambridge right?
but now that UROPs won't get paid, what's the point?
Oh yeah, the excellent school/ excellent atmosphere bit. Right.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
When I worked there back in the late 90s, my group's furniture was old and needed replacing: the lounge's chairs were kind of ratty, the keyboard trays kept falling off of the desks, and there weren't enough desk chairs for the number of desks.
We never did get any new furniture. If we'd wanted high-end workstations to sit on, we could have had those, but furniture was just impossible.
Probably now groups will take up a collection and buy themselves new furniture, since the lab isn't going to say they'dd buy it but not actually do so.
I've never seen a good piece of research come from the media lab. Silly talking parrots, wearable computers... Tell me where the value is.
I personally think tax dollars (and sponsorship dollars) should be spent on more important things like fighting HIV or solving the unemployment problem in the USA, or hell, why not pay for good computer science research.
If they're so poor, how do they have enough money to build this extension.
Not only are they paying undergraduates less money to work there, they're also depriving them of sleep with constant construction right across the street from a dorm.
I.M. Pei designed the Media Lab building... who gives a fuck about the Stata Center in this article? NO ONE
p.s. hi Sean!
As an MIT student, that's all I can say. Yeah. You got shmucked by the Media Lab. Happens every day. The Media Lab as an embarrasment to everyone else on campus. But they sure may good con artist. Thanks for the extra cash. I'm sure Mr. Bender or Mr. Negroponte will get a nice salary bonus from it. Most undergrads working there eventually get conned too. A couple of the smaller sponsers did as well (but they do kiss the asses of the major sponsors).
its quantum computing research is very promising.
http://www.ar-tiste.com/qcomp_onion/
jan2002/IBMBuildsSpecial.htm
It is written by an unfortunate person with an
intellectual level so inferior to researchers
at the MIT lab, that he would like to state that
"Media Lab's heyday may be over".
He also makes the claim that the lab may "see
itself overshadowed by more concrete research
--by tangible products like drugs." What the hell
is Media Lab's relation to drug research? How
does this imbecile think that he may compare
things like AI, VR or robotics research to medicine?
And why does he think that a lab at the university
should aim tangible products at all? Who are you
to decide what is "concrete" and what is not "concrete"
research.
I don't value the subjective content of that
article at all. To me, he is just a "financial"
moron who would be better off dumped into a
nuclear wasteyard.
On the other hand, I think when the resources
are scarce a research lab should try to focus
the money on research rather than other activities.
Thanks,
--exa--
I guess the "meaningful" bit is a bit hard to define and it's probably too subjective to be measurable. However, I can think of some ways that research can be NOT meaningful:
-Research which is sponsered by a 3rd party which is conducted largely for the purpose of enriching that 3rd party.
-Research for which the results do not contribute into lasting knowledge bases (e.g. assisting with measuring the height of Mt. Everest).
-Research which will not advance the state of the art, but will instead, merely produce a new invention that takes advantage of well known principles.
Perhaps the question for any project shouldn't be "is it meaningful?", the question should maybe be "has it not been proven to be not meaningful?"
IMO - Universities ought to be concerned with the more theoretical matters and companies ought to be more concerned with the practical applications of those results. One will always feed the other, but they must each remain separate in order for both of them to accomplish their relevant organizational goals.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
M. Herper, the Forbes author, neglects to mention that he is, himself an MIT graduate (2 years ago) and apparently somewhat jaded. The article was full of inappropriately perjorative commentary. I graduated from the Media Lab within the past year. The Media Lab isn't perfect, but some corrections to Herper's hatchet job are in order:
Students have never flown first or business class as standard policy for trips. That mention referred to faculty. It is an MIT-wide policy that faculty taking flights longer than some limit (like 8 hours) may fly in first or business class, I forget which. I believe the lab's new policy is more conservative than MIT's, and previously was simply in line with the Institute-wide policy. They do travel a lot, and flying internationally in any class generally sucks. I can't begrudge them a little comfort. They aren't getting rich on their salaries.
The "top of the pay scale" that is mentioned with regard to UROPs tracks the MIT pay scale for UROPS - institute-wide. As far as I know the Lab paid no more than any other labs at MIT could pay their undergrads. And in Boston/Cambridge, $8.75/hr ain't much money no matter how you look at it. My undergrads were great, a bargain at most any price... you can't do complicated projects without a team.
Historically, Media Lab students have excellent track records of publication acceptance by journals and conferences. If you can't go to the conference to present a paper, then you can't submit the paper in the first place. It is very bad form not to attend. Students at other institutions, who don't get assistance and don't have personal wealth, don't go to conferences. And graduate students in many other programs outside MIT don't even deal with this problem because they never publish anything - at those programs, "publishing" is a privilege reserved for the faculty and senior Ph.D. students. I believe the lab's policy of helping people get to conferences was/is perfectly responsible. The faculty's emphasis on writing and publishing, even for new graduate students, is commendable. It's too bad that many students go through graduate programs without writing even one conference- or even workshop-quality paper. I hope that Media Lab students will be able to continue to submit papers and participate in the greater academic communities brought together at conferences. This is perhaps an area where analysis and planning could cut expenses, without harming academics. A personal track record of publications matters. Any organization that can help its researchers publish more, creates an advantage both for itself and for its people. Better questions to ask of all academic communities in general are "why are conferences so expensive for everyone?" and "are conferences the best venue for academic sharing?" (Answer: I'm told the ACM forbids its conferences from happening in any but the most expensive hotels - Hiltons and Marriotts)
"Limo" is a very loaded word. Generally if students travel by other than taxi or subway (sometimes hauling several road cases of gear plus clothes and laptop(s))... they don't take stretch Lincolns with televisions and bars, though that would be hilarious. This is talking about a car service with a driver... a high-end private taxi. This is not something that people used often. I did it a couple of times, both paid for separately by sponsors who asked me to come see them. It's actually cheaper and faster than a taxi if you do it right,. Personally, I usually took the subway to the airport ($0.85 and now $1.00) if I had time and wasn't hauling too much stuff. But if you're hauling gear, the three changes (red line, green line, blue line) and then the bus to the terminal are really too much to deal with. If the Lab's had a problem with travel, it's due to a failure to optimize and preplan, not largesse, at least as far as student travel is (generally) concerned. I can't address specific cases or faculty/research staff. I just know that I didn't see people going on junkets.
Food: I used to own companies. One thing I learned was that I could get people to work right through lunch AND dinner if necessary, if I fed them. The guy I worked for before that took care of my lunch from time to time, and I worked right through. From that perspective, I find it hard to argue that the lunches were a bad deal. When I last had a staff (pre-Lab), it was common for a half-hour or hour-long lunch to consume 50% more than the "official" time, given the pre-planning time ("where should we eat?") and the post-lunch restart delay of people washing up, and getting into gear to work again. All I'm suggesting is that if the funds are available, feeding your staff may actually be more economical than not feeding them. I'd argue the same for any dot-com that fed its people or paid for sodas during rush times, and all times are rush times at the lab. I was buying free soda for my staff back in 1991... it was much cheaper than selling it to them, and it made them happy. The cost was next to nothing - cans of soda in quantity are dirt cheap.
It's easy to pounce and have a strong reaction, but in the end what I saw at the lab was a lot of really smart people working very hard. Don't believe everything you read in Forbes, and don't believe everything published about the lab. The projects that are highlighted and played up by the press are sometimes the ones that make the prettiest pictures. Serious research, hard math, physics, thinking, sociological studies, all the serious and fun bits of science, technology and humanity don't necessarily photograph well, so you don't hear as much about them, even though the place is full of people doing great things.
Oh, and not every project is great. Some of them suck. Some of mine really sucked. But the good ones... are so damned good. The place was built for people to take chances, not to play it safe and hit one guaranteed home run after another... so a little slack there wouldn't hurt.
cheers
-"John Smith"
If the academics/research faculty is soooo interested in knowledge, then why do they easily feed at the luxury expense trough.
Could it be 'academics are greedy as evil big corporation leaders?'
Just what has $40 million/year for a decade brought into the world besides "Being Digital"? Anyone have a clue? Please don't tell me quantum computing, that's been around for about 10 years and is up to 4 bits.
8.75 is plenty of money (per hour)!
I'm currently a UROP at another MIT Lab, and I think the main thing to rememeber is that a lot of people would be willing to do cutting edge research and work with the latest equipment for almost nothing. The only reason these jobs aren't filled up immediately is that most students are too busy with their classes!
First Law
Any organisation containing a group of people that thinks it is "worth" Business Class where another group is only "worth" Economy Class, because they are lower status, had better justify it with hard numbers - and not be permitted to collect Air Miles.
Second Law
Any organisation not observing the First Law, but containing a group of people that thinks they are personally worth the extra expense of Business Class vs Economy class had better justify it with hard numbers - and not be permitted to collect Air Miles.
Third Law
Any person who used to be in an organisation where the first two laws were not applied and from which they resigned on principle will post the above to Slashdot but will still feel very bitter about it.
"If your refrigerator notices that you are out of milk, it can 'ask' your car to remind you to pick some up on your way home. Appliances today have all too little computing. A toaster should not be able to burn toast. It should be able to talk to other appliances. It would really be quite simple to brand your toast in the morning with the closing price of your favorite stock. But first, the toaster needs to be connected to the news."
...
"The notion of an instruction manual is obsolete. The fact that computer hardware and software manufacturers ship them with product is nothing short of perverse."
The above are from Nicholas Negroponte in his book, "Being Digital" (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), pp. 213, 215.
My two cents:
Apparently no one at the Media Lab has ever been forced to use Windows. The Media Lab has been operating in the stratosphere for nearly 17 years now, completely oblivious to the socio-economic-political infrastructure, and to the everyday lives of billions of people. They should just sell all their assets and donate them to the poor.
Different labs at MIT find their inspiration from different sources. I should know, I've worked for 3 different research groups at MIT, one of which was the intelligent graphics group at the Media Lab. Places like the AI lab are mostly driven by the professors who have built their careers there. But the Media Lab is of a different sort. It is totally driven by the students. With few exceptions (Neil Gershenfeld's Physics and Media group being one) most research groups in the Media Lab are propelled by students. Undergrads cook up all the crasy projects, they hack together all the pieces, they write all the code. The reason is that most of the staffers who work there are not engineers, they are artist types who like to reflect on the social ramifications of how great their projects are, but never really get much done. They hire genius undergrad engineers to come and bulid everything, and produce much of the fantastic gadgets that the Media Lab is famous for.
And in the case of Bell Labs, my theory would state that research would have been more appropriately conducted at a university.
:+)
But, we can thank our lucky stars that wasn't what happened.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!