My first full day was yesterday and I’m just about finished a post about my first impressions and lessons learned. Before I hit publish on that, though, I want to give a nod to the option I decided not to pursue: a PhD at the MIT Media Lab.

Choosing a Path

I ultimately decided not to apply to the PhD program at the Media Lab for now. This wasn’t easy (and doesn’t mean I won’t come back and apply later), but it came down to a few points:

I’m not really a great academic. Don’t get me wrong, the motto of “Demo or Die” generally trumps “Publish or Perish” at the Media Lab, but this doesn’t change the fact that a PhD is ultimately an academic endeavor. When it comes to technology my natural inclination is to code and blog, not to design studies and write scientific papers.

I got a huge amount out of my time at the lab. Yes, the awesome ability of the Media Lab to jump start lives is actually part of why I’m moving on. In two years I feel empowered to create anything I want, I’ve redefined my understanding of the world, quadrupled my confidence, developed an amazing network of friends and connections, and become part of a wonderful community. I’m sure that four more years at the lab would continue improvement on all of those fronts, but I doubt that it would be nearly as saturated.

Four years is much longer than 10 months. Call me an opportunist but I’m married, and who knows where Lyla and I will want to be over the next four years. Actually it turns out we do know (Lyla got into RISD and starts her graduate program in September), but that isn’t the point. Locking myself into something for four years seems dangerous at a time when there are so many problems to solve and ideas to pursue. What would have happened if Luke just chilled out with Yoda for four years?

All of that being said, if I ever commit to a PhD it will be at the Media Lab. I already miss the place! Luckily I’ll stay an official part of it for at least another year as a “zero cost visiting researcher.” This means I don’t get paid, but I get to keep access to resources and have a good explanation as to why I’m still skulking around the hallways at night.

This leaves me here, living the Tolkien dream and beginning a brand new fellowship.

• The Proverbial Wallet — a wallet that is linked into your bank accounts via bluetooth and your cell phone, and which becomes more difficult to open when you have a high credit card balance.  The idea is that this naturally allows you to get a sense of your digital finances without having to check online.
• The BiDi Screen — this is a monitor that not only displays photons, but also collects them.  In other words, each pixel is also a camera, which means the computer can take low resolution 3d images.  Using this technology computers can easily detect gestures in front of it.  (Check out this video)
• The Home Fabratory — this is basically a $100 “fabrication” set.  Fabrication is the act of creating something in physical space; so, for instance, a sculpture, or a circuit board.  This thing is one step closer towards making it so people can start building stuff in their own homes without having to spend a fortune.  The ultimate goal is the Star Trek replicator!  (the project’s web site)

There are dozens of other projects, but I’ll let you guys check them out if you want to since they are all listed and described on the group website.

On Tuesday morning I took the “T” (the Boston subway system) down to The Media Lab.  The lab itself is actually two buildings: the new one (which was first opened this past summer), and the “classic” one.  The new building is pretty much made of glass, which means all the walls are transparent and you can look into the lab space from outside.  The main rooms are very large and host about 4 research groups.  Our group happens to be located next to a glass wall on the 3rd floor that overlooks the lobby!

My first day was pretty low key, and it mostly involved meeting the other group members and cleaning up / reorganizing our lab space.  We came up with a really great design, which we call “the armada.” It’s a giant semi circle of desks that overlooks the rest of the “New” Media Lab.  It also creates a corridor to Henry’s office which means that anyone who wants to visit Henry has to walk in front of the entire armada.  Oh, and it also feels like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.  We plan on setting up a heads up display against the glass to simulate battles with Klingon warships.

An inside view of the armada (my desk is the far right)

An outside view of the armada (we're in the middle -- my desk is the far left computer)

I want to end with a message that I found on the walls of one of the offices in my lab space:

A computer without Cobol and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.

Packing was time consuming, but with the help of parents, Erek, Lyla, and I were able to hit the road on schedule… at 7:30!  Ok not on schedule, but at least we did it.

This is what the 14 foot Uhaul looked like about an hour before we completely finished. Mr. Alper was the master behind it all!

We almost rushed out before cleaning up but thank goodness my dad was there to step up and vacuum.

Visible proof that there was a vacuum involved! If only the previous tenants to our new apartment had a dad there to help clean up...

The drive itself was all sorts of fun — I tried to drive the Uhaul on the lower level of the George Washington bridge, which is exactly what you aren’t allowed to do.  Luckily they account for that sort of thing and we were able to get where we belonged before losing our roof.  Other than that and a few instances of getting lost, we got to the apartment just fine at around 1:30 in the morning.  Who needs to be well rested for their first day of work anyway?

The new apartment was very dirty, which was a bummer, and the walls still had nails and holes kindly left by the previous tenants (the landlord will be repainting them for us soon).  That was the bad news.  The good news was that they left us a refrigerator with two giant bottles of cheap champagne (fun fact: mimosas taste the same no matter how bad the champagne is).  It was a pretty classic scene by the time we finished putting what little we had in there…

Contents: 13 bottles of beer, 3 liters of champagne, 1 bottle of wine, 2 nalgine bottles (water), peanut butter, jelly, 1/2 a bottle of limoncello, 1/2 a container of orange juice, 1/2 a bottle of flat root beer. The root beer was the first to go.

The next day was orientation, which I was far more nervous about than I needed to be considering the fact that all I had to do was sit there with the 33 other first years.  At orientation I got my first assignment at MIT, and I’m proud to say that I managed to incorporate StarCraft II into it.

We had to write on the board something that we would be willing to teach — the idea being that each person would pick something to learn, causing us to naturally get to know a fellow first year student.  I was originally going to teach someone how to play Hysteria on the bass guitar, but unfortunately “teaching someone to play a song on an instrument” was used as an example of the type of thing they had in mind, which meant that EVERYONE avoided that lest they appear completely unoriginal.  Instead I offered to teach basic tactics and strategy in SC2 (I should have done the bass thing… whoops ;)).

When I got home I found that the entire van had already been unpacked by Lyla, Erek, and my dad.  They were supposed to wait so I could help!  After a lot of work, we managed to get the place to the point where Erek and I could set up our computers.

Yep, I think we're all set here (notice how both computer chairs are sliding towards the middle of the room. That's because the house is slanted). (Also note the orange wall.)

This has nothing to do with the move, but I think “Uninterested Squirrel” would be a great name for a band.

She was determined to catch a squirrel in Boston commons. We lost interest too.

The experience was worthwhile, and I learned a lot of good habits along with plenty of things I will forever know to avoid.  The most important takeaway is the value of good project management.  This doesn’t even have to do with following a particular development methodology — I am simply talking about having someone who is in charge of fostering and championing a clear vision of the product.  Someone with the time to keep the team organized and moving in the right direction.

Now that I’m out, though, I’m doing my best to hit the scalding hot summer ground running.  Between today and September I will be:

1. Working for a truly great startup called SpeakerText.  They provide interactive transcripts for online videos and I’m working on the transcript player.
2. Teaching a few friends how to create web applications (i.e. the art of PHP, MySQL, and jQuery), and working with them on a long-term pet project known to those that know me as The GPF (The Globally Personalized Forum).  It’s going to be a system for group-based-yet-still-personalized communication.
3. Watching the entire series of Battlestar Galactica for the first time.
4. Planning a wedding, spending time with my fiance before she has to leave for Spain, and finding an apartment in Cambridge before I have to move there for MIT.  You know, those little things.

Since it is 2:00 in the morning, I’ll abruptly end this ice breaker post with a comment:  If you have ever used Craig’s list to find apartments and said to yourself “damn it, I wish I could just see these things on a fracking map” then rejoice for Padmapper.com.