You are about to hear an insider’s thrilling account of crashed markets, sinister minds, hunger, and inequality. For the tale to make sense you must understand a few things about the Media Lab. Thing #1: there are about 150 students and 200 “other” people spread across 25 research groups, 3 floors, and 2 buildings. In […]
Last month, I ran a user study to test the effectiveness of Truth Goggles (a credibility layer/B.S. detector for the Internet). The tool attempts to remind users when it’s important to think more carefully. If you’re curious, you can check out the demo page. Now that the study has officially concluded, the numbers have been […]
With my thesis complete I’m about to embark on the next phase in life, and in true Millennial fashion it will last about 10 months because job security is for chumps. I’m going to be a Knight-Mozilla Fellow (feel free to call me “Mr. Fellow”) working in The Boston Globe as part of the Open […]
Remind me to never do that again. On Friday I officially handed in my thesis, titled “Truth Goggles: Automatic Incorporation of Context and Primary Source for a Critical Media Experience.” For those who don’t know already, it was about an automated bullshit detector for the Internet / an interface to help people think carefully called […]
My colleague Matt Stempeck said it best: “Dan, I know that your life has been a tornado wrapped in a hurricane wrapped up in a whole box of tsunamis this week, but you really need to start wearing pants to work.” It turns out only part of that quote is accurate, but you’ll never know […]
As we all know the most important part of any successful project is completely changing your idea at the last minute. In that spirit I am about to present a progress update on a project that has nothing to do with the revamped IRC interface I outlined last time (note that the IRC project isn’t […]
Part 1: Introduction ATTN-SPAN Intro. Part 2: Prototype and Development Plan The Good News: I created a proof of concept prototype of the ATTN-SPAN platform powered by the Metavid project. The Bad News: Metavid is having a lot of stability issues right now, so you probably won’t be able to use my prototype. I made […]
I’m working on a magical button. This button, when pressed, will tell you (an average person who just wants to know what is happening in this crazy world) what is true and what is false on the web site you are viewing. I have a fair amount of the platform finished already and you can […]
I have a love for a spectacular game called StarCraft 2. It’s a sequel to one of the best video games ever created, made in 1998, StarCraft. To give you an idea of how great StarCraft is – it is a national sport in South Korea. Television stations are dedicated to broadcasting games between professional […]
The Media Lab has a giant tower full of gold coins, which students and faculty use to relax as they swim around it and make tunnels. The tower doesn’t fill itself, though — sponsors do! The Lab is funded by companies across the world, and in return those companies get rights to any intellectual property […]