Re:

neil gershenfeld thoughts?

it seems his ideas have not changed much in 8-10 years, same pitch, same cliches, but he seems smarter than that , does he just like applause?

Hmm.....please keep this confidential

He is very smart and personally quite impressive.

There are a bunch of guys at MIT who do trendy research.

Nicholas Negroponte was the first. He is a genuine visionary, and also a world class salesman/bullshit artist. He was originally an architecture professor, so wasn't a technical guy at all, but wound up starting the media lab at MIT. He is a friend of mine.

The media lab was the start of the trendy research craze at MIT. Some of the media lab stuff was great science. Some was utter bullshit. It made bullshit acceptable, even desired, at MIT.

Nicholas is still around but he inspired a second generation of MIT professors who started out as real scientists but tried to become visionaries a la Nicholas. Instead they became low grade bullshit artists without his vision.

One example is globetrotting doing weird projects like putting wifi in a remote village in bhutan. Or claiming that everything they do is about helping the third world - like making a research lab for us by villagers in india.

Neil is one of 2 or 3 rival heir apparents to nicholas. Some of his stuff is great. Some is utter crap. He defends it all.

I have never figured where it nets out.

Maybe....as I said I don't really get it. He is smarter than that...yet it goes on