Also, when I took a look at the vision of the lab of the future I noticed that everyone is in an open office.
I’m convinced that the lab of the future will actually return to closed offices. Or maybe even better to spaces that can be configured to the psychological make up of the individuals in them (Bell Labs, at least the 1950s version, had reconfigurable rooms).
I’m convinced that scientific productivity is hampered (and the mental health crisis in science is due to) by at least three factors:
1. Too much career uncertainty/anxiety. You put your finger on this in the design of the Lovelace Institutes.
2. Computers: probably not a negative, but more like a net neutral or only slight positive in terms of productivity. You point to this here.
3. I think a big unacknowledged one is/are open plan labs. Especially ones where you do experiments and sit all day. They suck for thinking. Especially for introverts. My ability to get stuff done was in the toilet for 5 years when in a lab like this, and was doing the worst work of my career. It immediately rebounded, and I started doing some of the best, when I got a closed office.
My lab is designed so that we have separate small office (library quiet) and lab space (smelly, noisy, fun)1. I definitely think this has contributed to the quality of our work.
> In is using the physical space as a computational system.
Nice.
Thanks for sharing this, I've been looking forward to updates for a while. Bret Victor's stuff is very cool and it's quite strange to me how few people seem to be aware of these ideas.
Also, when I took a look at the vision of the lab of the future I noticed that everyone is in an open office.
I’m convinced that the lab of the future will actually return to closed offices. Or maybe even better to spaces that can be configured to the psychological make up of the individuals in them (Bell Labs, at least the 1950s version, had reconfigurable rooms).
I’m convinced that scientific productivity is hampered (and the mental health crisis in science is due to) by at least three factors:
1. Too much career uncertainty/anxiety. You put your finger on this in the design of the Lovelace Institutes.
2. Computers: probably not a negative, but more like a net neutral or only slight positive in terms of productivity. You point to this here.
3. I think a big unacknowledged one is/are open plan labs. Especially ones where you do experiments and sit all day. They suck for thinking. Especially for introverts. My ability to get stuff done was in the toilet for 5 years when in a lab like this, and was doing the worst work of my career. It immediately rebounded, and I started doing some of the best, when I got a closed office.
My lab is designed so that we have separate small office (library quiet) and lab space (smelly, noisy, fun)1. I definitely think this has contributed to the quality of our work.
> In is using the physical space as a computational system.
Nice.
Thanks for sharing this, I've been looking forward to updates for a while. Bret Victor's stuff is very cool and it's quite strange to me how few people seem to be aware of these ideas.
Fascinating stuff!
Hi James, really glad to read this. Please keep pushing these ideas out there!